"Out of my league!"

OK, we've all heard that Microsoft hiring managers like to ask ponderous questions during interviews like: Why are manhole covers round? Is Dos dead? How many engineers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

But who really wants to work for Microsoft anyway? (OK, thousands do. I get it.)

Now Google, on the other hand. Don't we all wish we had gotten in there pre-IPO?

Well Google, I have confirmed, has a set of challenging questions of their own to help them find the best and brightest engineers. They love brainiacs and their halls are crawling with PhD's...screwing in light bulbs for all I know.

So the first question is on a billboard on Highway 101. The correct answer will lead you to a web site. Here's the puzzle:

{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com

Get that answer correct, go to the appropriate web site, and you will find--another question, naturally.

Continue on from there solving their programming challenges and eventually, I'm told, you'll get to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: they'll ask you for your resume and you'll be light years ahead of all the other mere mortals hoping to get hired by Google.

From Google's own web site:

Last week we unveiled a billboard that's a bit unusual in that it promotes Google only to one very narrow constituency: engineers who are geeky enough to be annoyed at the very existence of a math problem they haven't solved, and smart enough to rectify the situation.

In other words, the billboard (which offers problem-solvers the URL to, sorry, a page containing an even harder problem), is a recruiting campaign. We've always worked hard to hire the smartest engineers we can find, and we thought this would be a cool way to find a few more. Perhaps including you. If you're a math or computer whiz who doesn't happen to live within shouting distance of Palo Alto -- good luck, and we're looking forward to hearing from you.

So give it a try. (It's beyond my rusty skills.) Let's have someone identify another question or two on the path to gainful employment at Google.