Interned twice at Google and returning after Uni - AMA

I have spent two summers at Google in London, A STEP Intern in 2018 and an SRE Intern in 2019, and will start permanently next July. Feel free to ask me any questions about Google, applying, internships, conversion etc..

Hello, thanks for posting.

I've actually just applied for the Google Summer internship in London. What's the magical formula for getting through the door? I have strong academic credentials from top tier universities (BA, MA), plus have worked in various roles, though *not* in the tech industry hence my reason for applying for the internship as I want to gain some exposure to the industry.

Which divisions do you think are best to work for? What's the typical profile of someone working in the London offices eg are they International, UK-based, graduates from top universities etc? Also, is their main office in Victoria or in King's Cross?

what degree u doing and where?

Do you know how the graduate salaries for non-technical business strategy roles compare with the technical computer science-type roles?
Econ undergrad at one of the London unis and thinking of applying but I have no idea about salaries and it's hard to find reliable info on google

Hi,

your strong credentials and experience (non-tech experience may not be that valuable but i had none when i applied). will get you past screening, after that, your technical interviews will decide whether or not you receive an offer. These require strong algorithm and data structure knowledge, I would recommend this book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X or websites such as Hackerrank to practice. You should be able to use data structures such as arrays, list, maps, trees sets, hashtables etc. and know typical algorithms like tree traversals, searching, sorting etc..

In all honesty, the teams in London aren't the most exciting (the most exciting teams are in Zurich, their biggest engineering office in EMEA). Most notable teams in London are Android, Chrome, Health/fit and a looooot of SREs. Android is quite a big team and are working on some exciting stuff, i don't know much about the others, SRE is huge and I will be working somewhere in SRE when I return in July. You won't get a choice of team per se, once you've passed your interviews, you will be in a pool of applicants visible to googlers with a possible intern project that they will arrange to speak with you to propose the project to you, and this could be from anyone in the office.

Permanent staff are a mix of people, from all around the world. A lot of interns are not from the UK, I see a lot from other European countries like Romania, Poland and Serbia. There are a handful of UK university students and they have been from Oxbridge, imperial, Warwick, St Andrews, King's to name a few.

The main (Engineering) office is 6 Pancras Square in King's Cross, the office in Victoria is mostly HR and Recruitment staff.

EDIT: I will also add to intern at Google you must be currently at University, and will return to University after you finish the internship.

Thanks for this, it's all helpful. I'm actually not applying for a technical/software engineering role. I'm interested in data-related roles eg analyst positions. I assume those would be based in King's Cross as well?

I wonder why you think the London office aren't exciting. I guess things must be more interesting at Dublin, as that's their head office?

Did you receive internship offers from a lot big firms? Why did you pick Google?

Did you need to do any interviews to convert, given you've done two internships?

Did you get the option to re-join your internship team when you start permanently? Could you choose any office you wanted? If so, were you tempted by Zurich?

Thanks for the answers, and of course congratulations!

One more thing - is your offer conditional on your degree result? I'm curious how much Google cares about academics (the impression I get it "not much", but it might be different for graduate offers).

do you think you could give me a brief assessment of my application for technology-based analyst internships? as oppose to strict stem internships like what you've done

i'll bore you with the details if you think you'd be able to help

many thanks

Not sure how much help I'd be in that regard but can take a look.

nothing in my contract refers to my degree at all!

Ha ha, amazing. It really is like a different world compared to "normal" graduate jobs. (Maybe it's a standard American thing, like having your last year at high school after your university offers where you can just chill?) I guess you can really your final year now! Just remember to stay googley even when there's nobody around to assess you on it

Hello, I have submitted my application for STEP 2019 on Oct 17th. But I haven't received any response now. Have I been rejected? Or there is any problem...