[Google] Taking the next step

The road to full time Google employment has been far shorter than I expected. Today I was pulled into a small meeting with some of my fellow contractors. We've been invited to interview for regular, full time employment.

Not everyone in my training group has yet been invited. Only about half of us. It was bittersweet. The others haven't been let go, but they're in a holding pattern.

Two rounds of interviews. The first round will probably be late next week, with two of our team leads plus a team lead from AdWords. The second round will (hopefully, assuming all goes well with the first round) take place a week or two later, with three different AdWords managers (in other words, people who don't know us).

They made it clear that they have every confidence in us, but not to take these lightly. They also let us know that they're fully aware of potentially immanent IPO issues, and should Google go public before we've completed the process, there's still plenty of room for us. (No, they don't know anything more about it than I do -- senior management doesn't tell us anything about the IPO -- but it does weigh heavily on everybody's minds.)

I've got some preparations to make....