Google Interview

I got up at 730 and was on my bike by 930.  I rode up Pacheco and then climbed to 22^nd and took a short stop in Stern Grove.  I walked across 19^th and rode Junipero Serra to BART, where I caught the Milbrea train.  There I discovered that I had missed the last train and would have to wait an hour.  I was really angry but realized that I had no choice.  I could only afford one hic-up before I didn’t make it on time.  The train came a few tweets later and secured my bike for the trip to CA Avenue.

Once there I rode CA, Cowper and Loma Verde to the slough and then there is a freeway underpass that connects to the Intuit campus.  I thought I was lost but it was easy to find the Google Campus.  There I asked for the main building and then found the bike stands.  Throughout there were affluent young professionals everywhere—a world cast—variously Asian and Caucasian and there were certainly a lot of H1B Visas.

I found the main building and checked in with Dominique at the front desk.  I sat in the lobby and got on the wifi.  I turned off my devices as Alejandro entered the room.  He was dressed in a down jacket vest and had plugs in his ears.  He was wearing glasses, a beard and had an easy but business like demeanor.  He wasn’t a typical businessman—a hipster rather than a big blue type.

I got some water from the kitchen with him and we went into a conference room.  He basically asked about my job experience.  I started with the San Bruno incident and stopped at my experience with Recology.  He seemed keen on my experiences up to then.  I told him why I loved Geography.  I told him the story about the AAA maps that pops brought me as a kid and how that taught me what scale meant.  I talked about going to the high mountains as a kid with my uncle.

I went over MAOP and we got into my experiences as a coordinator and essentially said a GIS analyst is a coordinator and an administrative assistant.  I sort of was just glossing over a lot of stuff and until I sat down to write up these notes I hadn’t really thought about whether the interview had gone very well.  For the last 20 minutes I think we just did a rehash of the conversation.  When I wrote this I felt like there was a lot of stuff conveyed but didn’t really remember.  I also wrote that I talk too much and that there were a lot about academics that I could have done without.

Alejandro said that at one time geography was unrepresented in the area that google was involved but not anymore.  He also said the job was going to be really rote.  We ran out of time and finished the interview in the hallway.  I wanted to get to know him but never cared to try.  I returned to the bike and rode back through Intuit.

I saw a Google bike there and left mine to ride it.  I had some contractor on his own Google bike photo me.  Then I called G Security to have the bikes picked up.  I went to the bay marsh.  There I discovered I still had wifi so I looked at the front entrance to the building I was near and discovered it was a Google-like daycare or residence.  The building was fully a mile from the campus.