Cracking the Tech Career

Insider Advice on Landing a Job at Google, Microsoft, Apple, or any Top Tech Company

Gayle Laakmann McDowell

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781118968956
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Careers

Become the applicant Google can't turn down

Cracking the Tech Career is the job seeker's guide to landing a coveted position at one of the top tech firms. A follow-up to The Google Resume, this book provides new information on what these companies want, and how to show them you have what it takes to succeed in the role. Early planners will learn what to study, and established professionals will discover how to make their skillset and experience set them apart from the crowd. Author Gayle Laakmann McDowell worked in engineering at Google, and interviewed over 120 candidates as a member of the hiring committee – in this book, she shares her perspectives on what works and what doesn't, what makes you desirable, and what gets your resume saved or deleted.

Apple, Microsoft, and Google are the coveted companies in the current job market. They field hundreds of resumes every day, and have their pick of the cream of the crop when it comes to selecting new hires. If you think the right alma mater is all it takes, you need to update your thinking. Top companies, especially in the tech sector, are looking for more. This book is the complete guide to becoming the candidate they just cannot turn away.

• Discover the career paths that run through the top tech firms
• Learn how to craft the prefect resume and prepare for the interview
• Find ways to make yourself stand out from the hordes of other applicants
• Understand what the top companies are looking for, and how to demonstrate that you're it

These companies need certain skillsets, but they also want a great culture fit. Grades aren't everything, experience matters, and a certain type of applicant tends to succeed. Cracking the Tech Career reveals what the hiring committee wants, and shows you how to get it.

1
Life at the World's Greatest Tech Companies

Everything you've heard is true. Almost.

Tech companies are known for brightly colored walls, ball pits in the office, free food (organic and gluten-free, of course), and shuttles transporting you to and from work. They're engaged in a constant game of one-upmanship, the latest and greatest company taking what its predecessor does and morphing it into something even better.

With an obvious focus on technology, their engineering divisions are presumed to be filled with nerds who eat, sleep, and breathe code. Some started coding early in life and some not until much later—but nearly all are passionate about technology. It's not just a job to them; it's something they love.

Outside of engineering—and in fact most employees at tech companies are not coders—intelligence is still prized. The focus on academics is hotly debated; some companies value elite institutions, while others recognize that many of the most brilliant people never finished college. After all, the founders of many of these companies dropped out of college.

Landing a spot at these companies can be challenging for some people, but it's absolutely doable.

Job seekers who attended strong universities are fairly technical (even if they don't want to be programmers), have strong and demonstrable skills in their chosen profession, communicate well, have solid work experience, have a strong network, and can pull this all into a nice resume—they'll probably find it not terribly difficult to land a job at a prestigious firm. They might still get rejected by their top choice, but there will be other options.

That's the ideal candidate, but most successful candidates aren't ideal. You're likely missing several of those attributes. Don't count yourself out—there's still a path in to these hot companies.

Life at Infinite Loop and Microsoft Way

Even their addresses are suggestive of company stereotypes. Microsoft, at One Microsoft Way, screams big and mammoth. Google's 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway address is understated, like its user interfaces. Apple, of course, takes the bold “think different” step with One Infinite Loop—a play on words that could come back to bite a less beloved company.

Youthful

Despite the little eccentricities of each company, these companies are much more alike than they are different. Software companies are youthful—at heart, if not in actuality. They scorn the stuffy suit-and-tie atmosphere of their predecessors and elect to wear just jeans and a T-shirt. In fact, this casual attitude is so potent that it's pervaded even the social scenes of tech hubs; only a handful of restaurants in Seattle and San Francisco would request anything beyond jeans.

Perks

Desperate to attract and retain the best and the brightest, tech firms shower their employees with perks. Microsoft offers free drinks, a heavily discounted membership to a deluxe gym, and a multitude of extracurricular sports teams. Google matched and then one-upped Microsoft on almost all of these. Free sodas? Try free breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Free gym membership? Use the on-site gym and pool. Facebook cloned many of Google's perks and added a few of their own, such as an on-site bank.

Cynics argue that there's another side to this. They argue that the perks are just there to ensure that you'll stay at the office longer, and to infantilize employees to the point where they no longer feel self-sufficient and able to quit.

That might be a nasty spin on things, but there's some truth to it. When you get your dining and daily errands done on campus, you spend less time off campus and more time working.

Work/Life Balance

Despite rumors to the contrary, the biggest tech companies generally offer a pretty reasonable work/life balance. It's not a 9-to-5 job—in fact, the office is relatively quiet at 9 a.m.—but few people work more than 45 to 50 hours per week on a regular basis. Many people work around 40 and are considered strong employees.

Hours are flexible, too. Come in early or come in late—it doesn't matter, so long as you get your work done and are there for meetings.

To a large extent, the flexibility and the work/life balance is a reaction to the difficulties these companies have in finding talented engineers. There's a shortage of great engineers in the United States. If a tech company overworked them, the company would have even more trouble hiring engineers.

The exception, as in most jobs, is during crunch times. Software releases will be stressful on any team.

Moving Up: Individual Contributors

Although other industries push high-performing employees into management roles, technology companies tend to be more open to the individual contributor role. Many companies have promotion tracks that offer a great salary and more individual responsibility without becoming a manager. After all, great engineers do not necessarily make the best managers.

An employee, particularly in engineering, can continue to get promotions and increased technical responsibilities, without becoming a people manager. Eventually, this employee can grow into an architect or a distinguished engineer, earning one of the most respected positions within the company. It's perhaps not as glamorous as being a VP, but for some people, this is just right.

The Differences

Cultural differences between companies can often be traced back to the company's roots.

• Amazon, many would argue, is more of a retail company than a software company. It faced extremely hard times during the dot-com crash and continues to battle profit margins that are levels of magnitude lower than those of a core software company. Amazon is consequently extremely frugal, and refrains from providing the lavish perks that other software companies might. Additionally, some employees have suggested that the company does not value technical innovation for its own sake, and instead looks for an immediate and causal link to profits. But, do not let that deter you too much; indeed, Amazon is leading in multiple industries (retail, cloud computing, etc.) largely because of its technical innovation. The company moves at a rapid pace and pending deadlines often mean late nights.
• Apple is just as secretive inside as it is outside. When your innovation lies so heavily in your look and feel, and your market share depends on beautifully orchestrated hype, it's no wonder. The company can't afford to let its secrets slip. Employees are die-hard fans, just as one would expect, but rarely know what coworkers from other teams are working on.
• Microsoft has dabbled with search and the web, but a large chunk of its earnings come from Windows and Office. Live patches to these products are expensive, so the company tends to operate on longer, multiyear release schedules. This means moving slower, taking fewer risks, and making sure to get everything right the first time. The bright side is that the company tends to have a good work/life balance, as ship dates are relatively infrequent. Many former employees say that though they loved the company, its mammoth size could stifle innovation and risk taking. However, individual team cultures are all over the map, and some may be more innovative than others.
• Google is the nerdiest of the nerdy. Founded by two former Stanford PhDs, the company still prizes engineers above nonengineers. The company moves quickly, shipping products weekly, and can value technical innovation even to a fault. As a web-based company, it can afford to take some risks on products; after all, shipping a new application to the web is so much easier than boxing up and mailing software. Google values its flat hierarchy, but there's a downside as well. Your manager may have too many people under her to fuss about the progress of your career, and moving up can be a challenge.
• Facebook has learned from Google's example and modeled much of its culture after it—with a few differences. Whereas Google tends to be more science-y and academic, Facebook prioritizes getting things done. Its original mantra—“move fast and break things”—speaks volumes about the attitude of the company. It doesn't want to let an opportunity go by because it moved too slowly or was scared of taking risks. It looks for this sort of attitude in its employees. As the company has grown, it has seen the value in getting more things right the first time, but it still retains hacker culture.

While these generalizations are fairly consistent, some companies have a great deal of variance across teams. For example, Microsoft and Amazon tend to be fairly team based and therefore less consistent in their cultures. Always investigate both your company's culture and your team's culture.

Big versus Little: Is a Start-Up Right for You?

Go to almost any business school and you'll find that there are about three times as many people who claim to be interested in start-ups than people who actually end up pursuing this career path. Why? Because start-ups are sexy.

Newspapers splash stories about start-ups that made it big, or crashed and burned, and we always think we can do that or we can do better. Start-ups are a high-stakes game, and you're gambling with your time as well as your money.

For the right person with the right opportunity, however, a start-up environment can be fantastic.

The Good

Many say that for true start-up people, this high-risk career is just in their nature. They get that entrepreneurial itch, either in college or at some big company, and know they need to be somewhere much, much smaller. And their new career path offers a ton of value to them in return:

• Diversity of skills. Whereas big companies have designated marketing and finance people, start-ups never have enough people to fill every role. And the smaller the company, the more hats you have to wear. Unless you are truly narrowly focused on just one field (in which case you should avoid start-ups), this can be a great thing. You'll get to develop a mor...