The day that I had been anticipating for so long finally came. I got in contact with Google about the job–they called me yesterday. The fact that they wanted to talk rather than just tell me over email gave me some hope–albeit misplaced. I never expected to get the job (though I would have liked it), but everything dragged out so long that I began to really think it was possible. Now I will have to live with the shattered pieces of a borrowed dream. Or rather a dream that was given to me and that I accepted.
I think I will miss the 100 ft rule the most.
In the end things worked out for the best (that’s what we always say isn’t it?). I would still probably take a job if they offered me one, but I never intended to make a career out of it. The problems they work on are very interesting, but not as interesting to me as the problems that I will (hopefully) get to work on in Mathematics. I had thought to work for Google for about 5 years before going back to school full time (or going to school nights) and then becoming a professor. As Lauritz pointed, it would be hard to take the pay cut. Maybe I never would have come back–which would have been sad. Perhaps it’s Mary Ann Faucett’s blessing carrying over to the fifth generation.
One problem that I have now is what to do after I graduate in August. Rachel will still be in school until December, and I find it unlikely that I will be accepted with funding into a PhD program for December. Thus I will need to find an intermediate job. I would like to work in the computer industry a little, because the interviews with Google taught me just how much I don’t know. At the very least I will have to work on an open source project of some kind. Right now I am looking at TeXmacs. It seems like a fun project. Or maybe GAP. I need to know more before I can feel confident working on either though.
Addendum: For those of you who may not know, Google flew me out for an interview on January 17, 2005. They requested my resume last year, and had two phone interviews first.