Welcome to Episode #2 of The Loop, the podcast where I unpack practical career advice and insights from experts and coaches. Today's guest is former Google software engineer, Phil Verghese. Phil was a Tech Lead and Manager at Google for 12 years, and most recently, he led the Google Photos Android core team and was part of the team that did the initial launch of Google Photos. Google Photos has over 1 billion monthly active users.
Prior to his work on Google Photos, he was on multiple teams including Google Now, Google Mobile Maps, Google's Aerial Imagery team and the Google Search Appliance. Other interesting roles he's held: startup co-founder, U.S. Army M1A1 Tank Company Commander, and FAA Certified Flight Instructor.
In our conversation we get into detail about the expectations of a software engineer at Google, the different levels of software engineer, the expectations of an engineering manager, what Google is looking for when they hire an engineer, common interview pitfalls and advice for anyone looking to apply for a role at Google.
Nowadays Phil coaches job seekers on nailing the interview and leadership. You can setup a time to chat with Phil here —> https://app.carrus.io/s/phil-verghese-1
Relevant articles:
Highlights and Timestamps:
[4:10] The parallel between being an army tank commander and a software engineer, the importance of the 'why'
[6:10] What is it like to be a software engineer at Google, common misconceptions, learning how to write software
[9:30] How much technical knowledge you really need to land the job/ why LeetCode isn't enough
[11:50] Breakdown of different levels between a L3, L4, L5 engineer etc.
[14:45] Why promotions are meant to be "late" at Google
[15:32] What a staff engineer does
[16:30] What a senior staff engineer does
[20:40] L8 engineers and directors
[23:00] How to prepare for senior engineering positions / leadership interviews
[26:40] System design, coding interviews, behavioral interviews and what to expect
[29:10] An example of a difficult and less common System Design question from Phil and how to start approaching it
[32:14] Why "Premature Optimization is the Root of All Evil"
[34:30] How Phil prepares people for Google interviewers and tricky questions you might ask/ traps to watch out for
[36:33] Why Leetcode is NOT enough to prepare
[37:40] How many answers can you get wrong in a technical interview at Google and still pass?
[41:00] Why it's okay to say I don't know
[42:30] Phil's #1 interview tip / framing before the interview / getting in the right mindset
[46:30] The technical portion for product manager interviews
[47:30] Questions Phil asks product managers for interview prep
[49:30] Interview questions for Engineering Managers and leadership roles
[52:50] How common it is to fail an interview / why google would prefer a false negative over a false positive / applying multiple times
[54:30] The amount of time it takes to put in/ does time prepping correlate to success
[56:30] Is it harder to get a job at Google now vs. 10 years ago?
Questions/Comments/Feedback about this Episode?
Drop me an email anytime at misha@carrus.io!