This is one of the things that really turned me off about interviewing at Google. When I asked a question like that, they basically said, "Oh you won't be working with me." To which I asked, "What team will I be working on?" Their reply was, "Nobody knows. Once you're hired, you can figure out what team you want to work on and what you want to do."
So, uh, what are you interviewing for, then? How do I know the team I want to work on will accept me? Or if they even have openings? Can I speak with anyone I'd be working with? I just gave up asking questions at that point because I knew I would never be able to work in an environment like that.
Google tries to "remove bias" by not having you interview with anyone you might work with or even people in your area. During my onsites for a VR role none of my interviewers were VR people. It's "in case you want to switch teams". Right, because I'll suddenly decide my passion isn't the interactive stuff that I have the terminal degree in my field in, I'm going to want to do backend Go stuff all of a sudden /s
Spoke with a recruiter a month or two ago about a Developer Relations role and when I asked about the total length of process (because previous Google interviews were 6 months), I was told that they actually don't even have any of the Developer Relations roles that I was interviewing for available. If you do get through the interviews, you just sit in stasis until they get a 'quota' of more jobs to fill. There's no such thing as "figure out what team you're going to work on". Talk about making you feel like a cog.
FB recruiter on the other hand recently said they interview and hire you, then you'd have a rotational program for a while and you pick which team. Seems more reasonable. But who knows what the truth of it is.
(Full disclosure: FB Engineer, not in HR) - last I checked the standard thing for engineers was to be hired for a very generic role (eg “software engineer”); being interviewed by people with the same role. No aiming for (or trying to avoid) any specific team (of the ~20 people who I’ve interviewed who ended up getting hired, I think 3 of them ended up choosing to join my team?)
Once hired, there’s 6 weeks of training on all the internal tools / architecture / how things fit together. During the final two weeks of training (and a week after if you’re still trying to decide), you’d pick a few teams who look like they match your interests and skills, spend a few days with each, then decide which to join.
> Right, because I'll suddenly decide my passion isn't the interactive stuff that I have the terminal degree in my field in, I'm going to want to do backend Go stuff all of a sudden /s
I mean, that can (and does) happen… I’ve had teammates decide they’d had enough of fighting buggy closed-source BIOS firmware so they go spend a year working on live video streaming, then get into AI to learn something completely new. I’ve no idea what percentage of people make large switches like that, but it’s common enough that the process is well known and supported.
That was my experience as well. "You can figure out what team you want to work on and what you want to do" implies the candidate has much more freedom in the process than is actually extended.
Likewise. I would have rejected any Google job offer after the interview experience. I need some certainty that I'm going to be working on projects which actually benefit me in terms of interests, experience and career development. I would not have been willing to make such a huge gamble, and when none of the people have a clue what or where you might be working, that was a huge red flag for me.
You never get this with smaller companies. You're being hired for a specific reason, and the interview process is as much them selling themselves to you as it is you to them. In all these cases, I've been confident to accept or reject because the interview process gave me sufficient insight into the company and the projects they wanted me to work on that I could make a decision with confidence.
So, uh, what are you interviewing for, then? How do I know the team I want to work on will accept me? Or if they even have openings? Can I speak with anyone I'd be working with? I just gave up asking questions at that point because I knew I would never be able to work in an environment like that.