Well, I “ll be honest with you. Both of these were offers for an interview, not for a job. When four years ago I got a call from Google “s HR person from France I got excited. They found me online. No wonder, it would be weird if they wouldn “t run into a guy with such a big mouth as mine.

She was calling from France and I was vacationing in France at the time hellip; Google hellip;France hellip;It “s so romantic hellip;I got excited, really.

Pictured myself working at Google. Sergey Brin is passing by and I tell him, “I can speak Russian rdquo;. And he goes, “Really?.. rdquo;

Free day care on premises, twenty percent of my time I “d be allowed to work on my personal projects. Actually, my younger is in high school and at during the last fifteen years I “ve been spending 20% of my business hours working on personal stuff anyway. I was very productive back than.

Then I visualized myself in the interview room in front of the out of college MIT graduate asking me to name 10 algorithms of sorting an array except the bubble sort. I don “t remember anything other than java.util.Arrays.sort() ndash; I “d failed on this one. And then he would have asked, “How many piano tuning professionals are in San Francisco rdquo;. This one would be easy ndash; I “d shown him that I can think logically. But I doubt that I “d get an offer ndash; not knowing sorting procedures would be a deal breaker. Actually, I could google the answer if I “d be working at Google! I guess, Google is not interested in people who can google the answers. They need people who already know the answers. Anyway, I politely rejected the offer to meet.

Just wondering, if Java is still allowed on Google premises after the recent Oracle “s court appearances?

Last week a recruiter from Google New York contacted me on Linked In. This time I didn “t get excited. Now I “m a proud partner in a small software company, and it would be extremely hard for anyone to make me an offer I couldn “t reject. And then again, going through questions like “Write a regular expression which matches a email address rdquo; is boring and humiliating. I politely rejected again.

Interestingly enough, I wasn “t overly excited this time around. I still respect Google, but now I “m four years older, which doesn “t help in keeping the overall excitement level high. Maybe if Sergey Brin would stop by and told me, “Yakov, I ‘ve heard so much about you…You are Java Champion and Adobe Flex Certified Instructor…Would you be willing to switch to Python and work for me? ” I ‘d simply pulled my old iPhone (sorry, Android devices aren ‘t there yet) and simply said to his colleague, “Eric, would you mind taking a picture of me and Sergey? “