It was a little more than three months ago that I was contacted by a “talent scout” from a little-known internet company called “Google”.

She had run across my profile at LinkedIn.com, which led her to my resume. She evidently enjoyed it, so she sent me an email asking if I was interested in joining their team. I wasn’t looking for a new job (I’m pretty happy where I’m at right now), but I’ve heard great things about the work environment over there at Google, so I agreed to interview with them.

I won’t talk too much about the interview process here (I signed an oath of secrecy regarding the whole affair), but I will say this much:

After three phone screens, two full phone interviews, two different inside recruiters, a travel coordinator, a flight to San Francisco, seven in-person interviews, and lunch at the Googleplex, I’m completely exhausted.

I’ve had lengthy conversations about OO design patterns, database design, computational linguistics, naive Bayesian classification, agglomerative clustering, time-series data analytics, hash effectiveness evaluation, search algorithms, partial sorting, concept-mapping in n-dimensional vector space, and state-graph redundancy elimination.

I talked about the projects I’ve worked on over the years: performing technical analysis of stock market data, developing a domain-specific scripting language and the compiler to go along with it, implementing a special purpose 16-bit floating-point data type for Java, writing a partial-parser for perl-compatible regular expression syntax, and implementing a Texas Holdem AI engine capable of learning its opponents’ playing styles.

I talked about my project management experience working with the federal intelligence community, and about the types of language-classification problems that my team encountered. I talked about the training courses that I developed and presented to my clients in Washington, DC. I talked about starting my own web development business after graduating from college, and about my lifelong entrepreneurial ambitions.

And, of course, I asked in-depth technical questions about the Google software infrastructure. Really really clever questions. To…ummmm…cleverly demonstrate my…cleverness.

Somewhere in that process, I got really excited about the new job.

Anyhow…

I didn’t get it.

I got a voicemail message from one of the recruiters yesterday afternoon, letting me know that it was a “really hard decision”.

Oh well.

Although I started working on a CS degree, I never quite finished it. I originally studied theatre, and got a bachelors degree emphasizing playwriting and dramatic literature. Aside from three or four semesters of CS coursework (abruptly interrupted when my twins were born 3 months premature and I spent six months living at the hospital), all of my software-development skills are self-taught.

So there are a few gaps in my knowledge. For example, it’s been a few years since I did much C++ coding. But I like to think I’m a pretty quick learner, and I can easily fill in any knowledge gaps when the need arises. The breadth and depth of my experience demonstrates my ability to quickly pick up complex new concepts and develop innovative software.

Also, my dad is a rocket scientist (seriously), so I’ve got good genes.

To Google:

I wish you the best of luck. You have a lovely campus, and a preponderance of giant colorful rubber balls. I enjoyed talking with your people; they are clever and lively. Also, you seem to employ more women than the average software company, and I was looking forward to occasionally smiling at some of those women in the cafeteria over a plate of macrobiotic lunchtime foods. I’m sad that I won’t be moving to the Bay Area. Please tell Josh Bloch and Guido von Python that I said hello.

To everyone else:

This has been the most exhausting experience of my career. Seriously, you have no idea. Preparing for these interviews has been like studying for the GRE. Times ten. I feel like I need to sleep for a solid month just to be my old self again.

On that note, I think I’m done trying to impress software companies with my madd skillz. For the last six years, I’ve spent much of my spare time researching interesting algorithms, developing fun prototype code, and reading papers by the industry’s top researchers. I’ve learned as much as I could about computational linguistics, statistical analysis, and machine learning. I did it because I enjoy it. But also to impress prospective employers and climb the software engineering career ladder.

Screw that.

I’m taking my fate back into my own hands.

I started my first business when I was eight years old. I went door-to-door, selling lighted address panels. I lived in Clearwater, Florida (in the Tampa Bay area) and I had a great sales pitch: “You hang this panel above your garage, and if anything ever happens to you, the ambulance can find your house faster because they’ll see your glowing address from the street.” With so many retirees in the area, it was a pretty good pitch. I think I made about a hundred dollars.

Anyhow, the point is that I’ve been an entrepreneur for more than twenty years. It’s time I combine my enjoyment of software development with my entrepreneurial ambitions and put all of my efforts into building a marketable software portfolio.

The next company I work for will be my own.

Original story