Comment by exacube
11 years ago
Firstly, you're not entitled to any job you want just because you wrote Homebrew. If you accepted an interview with Google, then you accepted the fact that Google will judge you based on your problem solving skills, just like every other person was asked.
Secondly, I don't think this is a hard interview question; it's certainly fair. Did you expect to be asked knowledge-based questions that Google knows you're already good at? Questions specifically geared towards you? Or questions where Google can watch you solve a problem and be comfortable with the fact that you are able to solve coding problems? Did you think Google would hire you to write Homebrew? Or solve problems on teams Google has?
I think this person is just being unreasonable.
If 90% of Google's engineers use his software, it's reasonable to expect to be hired for continuing to work on that software.
That may be somewhat true, depending on how crucial and dependent Google is on Homebrew. But 90% of Googlers don't rely on Brew for work.
It is just a figure he made up to make a point about how popular his software is. Using his software outside the context of our jobs is no means to justify a hire. He should go through the same interview process as 90% (much higher than that actually) of Googlers.
My impression was that he was talking about usage for business, not personal purposes. As for the popularity, even if the 90% figure is made up, I was only trying to explain/justify his point of view.