They were really going after all the legends.
replyGoogle hired Guido van Rossum around the same time. I worked down the hall from Rob Pike, they had already hired Peter Weinberger (the w from `awk`), and I shared a 4-person office with Gren Stein, who was then director of the Apache Software Foundation.
I don't want to name him as he's decently well known, but I'm pretty sure my mentor monitored Vint's interview to make sure no one accidentally rejected him for a coding error or something.
replyI suspect the only thing at risk of being smeared by a more complete retelling of that story is Google’s interview process.
replyThey made him write code as part of an interview?
replyI don't know if he actually did.
replyJust know that my mentor was hand-holding the hiring process which basically prided itself on false negatives and still probably does.
Never underestimate the power of hubris.
replyVint had an interview?!! Who had the gall to suggest he needs to come in and be evaluated?
replyI don't know if he had to do technical interviews (I'd imagine not) but what he described was Eric Schmidt approaching him and asking him to leave MCI to work at Google. They asked him what his title should be and he (I think he) jokingly suggested Internet Pope. They eventually settled on Chief Internet Evangelist.
replyI don't remember the exact details after 20 yrs but I think EVERYONE got a coding loop no exceptions at the time by default.
replyAnd they were still in the era where's they'd just keep interviewing you until they "got enough signal" so people would be back 3 and 4 times.