I think you still need to be at the very top of your field to get past that famous interview. It’s completely out of reach for all but the most elite engineers even if they’re already doing brilliantly somewhere else.

Google would like their engineers to believe that, I'm sure, but I doubt it. A large company is just incompatible with the idea of being elite. "Regression to the mean" says that as Google adds engineers they will more closely resemble the general population of engineers.

That’s completely false. The skills to get through the “famous interview” aren’t related to software engineering practices at all. Let that sink in.

Their interview process is loaded with false negative and false positive rates, despite what they claim. If you don’t think they have false positives, just look at the poor quality of so many google products.

An interview process that an algorithms/data structure obsessed senior in college can easily pass is clearly not related to elite engineers. It’s sad that people have been tricked into thinking otherwise.

> If you don’t think they have false positives, just look at the poor quality of so many google products.

I don't disagree with the point you're making, but that's a bad argument. Good engineers are capable of building a bad product if the conditions are right.