Ask HN: How “technical” Is a Technical Solutions Engineer Position at Google?

9 points by cyrusand 11 years ago | 2 comments

I've been rejected for an SRE position after the on-site step because of one particular interview. The others did succeed according to my recruiter, who offered to contact me again in one year for applying for the same position (I guess this is how these things work); I replied: "Yes, why not?", I've no rush at the moment.

After some weeks another recruiter reached me by email saying that he received my resume from the recruiting team, and asking if I could be interested in applying for a Technical Solutions Engineer position ([1] or [2]). I'm sure he could provide me all the information I need, but I was also looking for an impartial and external point of view, so I'm asking here.

My doubt is that this role may be too distant from a generic system/software engineer position and not particularly inline with my academic degree: a MSc in computer science. I'm maybe wrong but, reading the information reported in the links, it seems to me that ultimately it boils down to a customers support job (especially [1]) and that it may give little to no advantage to one who plans to eventually switch to a different engineering position; I don't know... I'm perceiving this as a "backup offer".

In your opinion, is it worth to take this chance even if I'm interested in other engineering positions? Is my view about this somewhat biased by the rejection?

Thank you so much for your time.

[1]: https://www.google.com/about/careers/search#!t=jo&jid=107445001& [2]: https://www.google.com/about/careers/search#!t=jo&jid=106825001&

fsk 11 years ago |

Your view should be biased by the rejection. "Apply again in a year" is their standard rejection script.

Google has so many candidates applying that they can act like the attractive woman who has 100 people asking for her number every day. Google will look for the slightest excuse to reject someone.

You might as well interview and see what happens. However, I would be reluctant to waste a vacation day on an interview if I already have a job.

Another possibility is to get hired at Google, wait 1-3 years, then try to transfer to something better.

The most likely outcome is that you will go on the interview and it will go nowhere.

Google has a bad reputation among candidates who interviewed and didn't wind up working there. It's for a good reason.

mimming 11 years ago |

The Google TSEs I know have a background in software engineering / comp sci. And from my informal conversations with them, they seem to be deep enough in code to their liking.

But you're probably going to get better information from the recruiter, or better yet, the interview panel. I'd go, do the interview, be honest, and ask the interviewers about this stuff.