Your story sounds familiar.<p>It does seem as if something changed in the past five to ten years when it comes to the overall application and recruiting process. But then I have the impression the entire field of software development changed for the worst.<p>As for advice, that is naturally difficult as this will highly depend on your background, your expectations (where do you see yourself in five years .... ;) ), motivation, and of course personal character.<p>About Google, certainly this depends on aforementioned characteristics, but generally speaking I&#x27;d be rather wary (to avoid saying &quot;not recommend it&quot;), particularly when one is not in his 20s anymore (a blunt generalisation of course).<p>If you&#x27;d like to continue this discussion, are you reachable outside of HN?