---
title: "My Google Rejection Letter"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2011/4/5/my-google-rejection-letter.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2011/4/5/my-google-rejection-letter.html"
published: "2011-04-05T11:29:19"
updated: "2011-04-05T11:29:19"
tags: []
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "Before joining Astrails a couple of weeks ago, I tried to apply to Google. And….I’m not good enough to work as a test engineer at google. No, they did not ask about my book . “Hi Roy Osherove, It was a pleasure speaking…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# My Google Rejection Letter

By Roy Osherove April 5, 2011

**Historical article** · Originally published April 5, 2011; technical details may be outdated.

Before [joining Astrails](http://astrails.com/) a couple of weeks ago, I tried to apply to Google.

And….I’m not good enough to work as a test engineer at google.  No, they did not [ask about my book](http://artofunittesting.com/). 

> “Hi Roy Osherove,
>
> It was a pleasure speaking with you on the phone about the Test Engineer - Haifa or Tel Aviv position.  Thank you for your time and interest in Google.  We carefully reviewed your background and experience, and though we do not have a position that is a strong match with your qualifications at this time, we will be keeping your resume active in our system.  We will continue to use our database to match your profile with new opportunities and will reach out to you if we find an opening for which you may be qualified.
>
> Thanks again for your interest in Google’s careers and unique culture; we hope you will remain enthusiastic about our company.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at..”

I actually had three different phone interviews there. all failed because of my (obviously lacking) knowledge of implementing binary searches.

So anyway - if you wanna work there, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, or accomplished, or how you work with people, or how creative you are. If you know binary searches, you’re in. 

Good luck!


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/