“I was not sure what a work in Google may bring. I remember thinking: if I fail, I will at least have an impressive CV. However, 6 years after, I am still happy to work for the company”, says Aleksej Viktorcik. Aleksej, who graduated from Applied Mathematics in 2010, is working at Google office in Zurich, Switzerland.
At the moment, a software engineer at Google Viktorcik together with a team is working on an e-commerce project. This is the third team for the KTU graduate – previously he was involved in infrastructure projects and privacy engineering construction. The size of an IT team in Google may be 3-4 to 10 people.
“Working hours at Google are relatively flexible – everyone can arrive whenever it is convenient for them. There are people working 8 to 5, but, for example, I like to arrive later – around 10-11am – which means that I am leaving around 7-8pm”, says Aleksej.
Jungle in the Office
The Zurich office of Google, which is located in an old building of Hürlimann beer brewery is exceptional in many ways. One can find a James Bond room, an improvised Saloon with a piano, numerous gyms, a climbing wall and even a leisure area Jungle, with more 
than 100 species of plants in the office.
There are several canteens offering wide menu for lunch and dinner, including vegetarian meals. For Google employees all meals are free of charge.
KTU graduate says that the company is offering wide opportunities for its graduates: “Google encourages to change the project and the team every few years. If the team of project of interest is working in another office, or even in another country, the company assists in all the processes connected to moving, making the papers and so on”, says Viktorcik.
Applied Online
“After sending my application through careers.google.com I did not have high expectations of getting a job. The invitation for the job interview was already a great achievement for me. I could not dream that I would pass all the stages of the process and become a member of Google team”, says KTU graduate.
Every person applying to Google IT department has to pas 5-6 job interviews, which take around 45-60 minutes each and include various programming tasks and problem solving.
“The company also takes into account personal qualities of the candidates. For example, here you can find people who do not have much work experience, but are researchers, possessing PhD”, says Aleksej.
According to him, every employee in Google has many opportunities to change their work specifics or position, and climb up the corporate ladder: “For example, the software engineer can become a team leader”.
People from more than 100 different countries currently work in the Zurich Google office, among them – several more Lithuanians. KTU graduate Aleksej Viktorciuk is convinced that the multicultural environment provides great possibility to look at all problems and situations from many different angles.
