Austin?

Well I'm in austin texas. What is there here? I'm not entirely sure. After the fun of a day of interviews I had the chance to see what part of downtown Austin is like. More specifically what a couple of bars are like :). Did anything exciting happen? Well not totally. I got to know a couple of the current employees of National Instruments better and another UW student. From talking to these people NI sounds like a fun and challenging place to work. The only downside? I've been railroaded into a software engr. position. This has been the case with every dang place I've applied. I don't think any company will overlook my double major and let me do hardware design. It doesn't help I haven't done any design since last semester and would prob mess up part of the interview. Ahh well not everyone can be perfect. Seeing as how I devote little effort to actually accomplishing anything I prob should just count my blessings.

Ohh one other thing. While in my interviews I got a whole two calls from VMWare wondering if I was still available for employment. Ohh to be wanted by so many and yet have basically no offers to show for it. Ahh well I will just have to live with my mediocrity. I know people less technically able then me that have job offers from companies such as Microsoft. It makes me really think about what they are actually looking for in an employee. Maybe I failed because I didn't want tto be a wage slave. (Who knows?)


P.S. Guiness? Not so bad....

Deep in the Heart of Texas

I'm off to Austin, Texas that is, for an interview with National Instruments. This is my 5th and final out of town interview for the year. I can't do this anymore as it's hard to get stuff done for class when you miss most of them.

When I get back I'll let everyone know how "cool" Austin is.

There and Back Again - An Interviewies Tale

Well I made it back from sunny Florida on Friday. After 75-80 degree weather coming back to the bitter cold of Wisconsin was quite a shock. Luckily I will only be around for about a day. Tomorrow I take off for San Franciso where I will be visiting with Oracle. I'm actually getting sick of flying all over the place. Hopefully I can get a good seat on the plane like an emergency seat so I can have some extra leg room.

Planes In the Sky

Well I'm off again on another Interview adventure! This time I am heading to exciting Orlando Florida to speak with Lockheed Martin. What do they have in store for me? Who knows! But whatever it is requires a Top Secret clearance.

Googleplex

Well I'm out in sunny Mountain View, CA and am now relaxing in my hotel after a long day of interviews at the Googleplex. That's right I scored an on-site with the great Google. Google has got to be the coolest place to work. After touring it I really, really want to work here.

Let's see what they have. There are Segways (those cool 2 wheeled things) anyone (who is trained) can just hop and and drive to another building. The work env is awsome. Everyone has twin 20" LCD monitors in the coolest offices ever. Complete glass. 3 people share class walled office which is pretty huge. Since you work on projects in groups of 3 you basically just share an office with your entire team! It reminds me of the team work areas in a CS lab. Seems pretty cool. Finally there is all the free food. The cafeteria has a huge variety of stuff and all of it's free. Microsoft touts their free soda but it's nothing compared to Google. Google has coolers of every soda imaginable. I mean everything. Coke, pepsi, mt. dew, bawls, even and a ton of other specialty beverages such as bottled root beer. They also have plenty of bottled water (normal and "smart").

In addition to drinks Google has tons of food with every drink cooler. They have chips, fruit, candy, cerial (yes boxes of cerial), and random granola and other bars. This is part of the 100 ft rule. That is you should never be more than 100ft from food. Google holds to this religiously.

All the people I spoke to were very excited about their work. There are some sweet things going on out here. I also had a chance to sign up for google's Orkut network. (This is some sort of secret community thing.)