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Google Opens Sydney Office, Internship Program 110

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the coming-soon-to-a-theater-near-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet is reporting that Google has kicked off an internship program that will see Australian university students work in projects in the company's Sydney office. Google's local head of engineering, Lars Rasmussen, said 5-10 spots would be made available, with both technical and non-technical positions on offer. ZDNet Australia also has pictures of the official opening of Google's Sydney office."
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Google Opens Sydney Office, Internship Program More

Google Opens Sydney Office, Internship Program

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  • Motto (Score:4, Funny)

    by hpcanswers ( 960441 ) on Tuesday May 16, 2006 @05:46AM (#15340915)
    I guess Google will have to promote "don't be evil" in a country founded by convicts.

    • Re:Motto (Score:1, Funny)

      by InDi0 ( 691823 )
      But its doing that already in the US.
    • I guess Google will have to promote "don't be evil" in a country founded by convicts.

      Where justice is in the hands of Philip Ruddock [wikipedia.org] no less.

    • Re:Motto (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It wasn't founded by convicts you ignorant fuckwit - it was a penal colony for a time - same as the US was.

      • Re:Motto (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Actually, not only was it not founded by convicts, but it wasn't even a penal colony. It was originally a number of free colonies. They did accept convicts, but they weren't founded for that purpose.

        Mod granparent -1, Fucking Idiot.

        • Um, yes it was. The British were desperate to relieve the pressure on their overcrowded jails. With the loss of the American colonies they needed somewhere else to dump the rubbish.

          • With the loss of the American colonies they needed somewhere else to dump the rubbish.

            From my POV this seems like a strange thing to do now. A bit like us sending criminals to the moon [wikipedia.org].

          • The British colonies in Australia were not merely founded as a dumping ground for criminals. There was a high strategic importance for a British colony in the Pacific - to thwart French ambitions must also be considered.

            For example the French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville arrived in what became French Polynesia in 1768 and claimed the islands for France. This roughly coincides with James Cook's first voyage of discovery (1768 - 1771) that resulted in the circumnavigation of New Zealand and the mapp
          • It is interesting to note that the first priority for the British authorities was to rid themselves of the puritans. Getting rid of thieves was a much lower priority. All countries develop ridiculous foundation myths. The story of the giants Gog and Maggog is not taught in modern British schools but it certainly was popular in druid times. The Australians overstate the role of the convicts because it plays well, just as Americans vastly overstate the role of taxation in the revolutionary war. The Whigs un
        • If you want to be really PC, it was 'founded' 40000 years ago by people who are now known as Aboriginals, or Indigenous Australians. The British established it as a penal colony in the late 1700's (yes, it was established for that purpose and convicts formed a major part of the original colony, so you're speaking out of your arse :P), and basically ignored the rights of the previous inhabitants.

          There was a theory that Australia was actually settled some 200000 years ago by another group of settlers, and tha
          • Indeed, the story you outline about settlers 200,000 years ago bears curious similarities to the myth of the Moriori [wikipedia.org]. The Moriori were(/are?) a real race that inhabited the Chatham Islands, but the myth went that they originally inhabited New Zealand too, and were wiped out by the racially superior New Zealand Maori.

            See, it's an awful lot easier to feel good about almost wiping out a supposedly inferior race when you've got a nice convenient story to say that they did the same earlier.
            • See, it's an awful lot easier to feel good about almost wiping out a supposedly inferior race when you've got a nice convenient story to say that they did the same earlier.

              I did some reading after I posted, and I have a sneaking suspicion that that is indeed the motive behind the story I remember.

              Based on the research I read, it seems that the "modern human" came out of Africa about 200000 years ago, so it does seem a bit far fetched to think that they made it to Australia at the same time anyway.
          • The Colony of New South Wales was founded as a penal settlement in 1788.

            The Commonwealth of Australia was not, it was founded in 1901 as a Federation of six free colonies.

            There is an important distinction.
            • Ah. So now all of us Australian's can say to the previous inhabitants, "I know you were treated badly, but we can't be held responsible for anything that happened prior to 1901 because that was the "Colony of New South Wales". No? I didn't think so either. (Not that it matters. Things didn't change in that respect a lot after 1901 anyway)

              The name "Commonwealth of Australia" might have been founded in 1901, but it was the same people who were there in 1900, so I don't think the distinction is as important as
              • Actually, now that you mention it, I'd say a fair bit changed. Just look at the levels of Chinese emigration to Australia before 1901 vs after. Before there was plenty, particularlyl during the gold rush(es). After, well, shortly after federation the White Australia Policy came in.

        • Re:Motto (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Some of the colonies were free colonies, some were free that later accepted criminals, and some were always penal colonies.

          The nation of "Australia" didn't exist until federation in 1901. So the country Australia was not founded by convicts, but the colonies of New South Wales and Tasmania were.

    • Re:Motto (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'd perfer to live in a country founded by convicts rather then live in one thats run by a money grubbing oil monkey that kills innocent lives for his own greedy and capitalistic agenda.

    • aye mate let's head to china to see how it's really done now eh?

    • Re:Motto (Score:3, Insightful)

      by shitdrummer ( 523404 )
      Actually it was the the Royal Navy as reperesentatives of the Queen of England who founded Australia*. (After the Dutch and Macassans (and others) had been trading with the locals for decades, if not centuries.)

      It took the convicts to make it the greatest country on Earth. Yeah... you heard me... the Greatest Country on Earth! :)

      How about that! England sends all their undesirables off to far away Van Diemen's land (as Australia was known then) as punnishment for minor crimes (e.g. stealing a loaf of bread
      • England sends all their undesirables off to far away Van Diemen's land (as Australia was known then)

        Tasmania was known as Van Diemen's Land. Various colonies, such as New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, combined to form the Commonwealth of Australia. Van Diemens Land was renamed to Tasmania to honor the first euopean to locate Tasmania.
        • While we're being pedantic, "Van Diemen's Land" did not join in the federation; it was already known as Tasmania by then. This actually occurred to avoid the connotations the harsh penal colony had after transportation finished.
      • Greatest country in the world?

        1. Skin cancer
        2. Deadly spiders and snakes in your house
        3. Long travel times to get across the country
        4. Inconvenient timezone
        5. No decent sports leagues
        6. John Howard
        • By the way if Australia's so great and Britain's so crap why are there so many of them over here? It seems that an Australian has two job prospects:

          1. Hunting crocodiles
          2. Pulling pints in England
          • And if that's true why do so many British live in Australia? And a lot of them actually stay and settle long term whereas almost all us Aussies in Britain go home after a few years.

        • 1. Skin cancer
          I'm a geek.

          2. Deadly spiders and snakes in your house
          Other countries have bears.

          3. Long travel times to get across the country
          Beats unbelievable travel times to get across the CBD ...

          4. Inconvenient timezone
          Inconvenient for you perhaps. I quite like it. Only have to deal with yanks in the early morning.

          5. No decent sports leagues
          Huh?

          6. John Howard
          Tony Blair. No - you definitely win this one. Now if you were from the US ... at least we can say Johnny acts that way because

          • Other countries have bears.

            Bears don't hide in your bed.

            Beats unbelievable travel times to get across the CBD ...

            CBD?

            Inconvenient for you perhaps. I quite like it.

            Crap for watching the football on TV.
        • 1. Skin cancer

          Huh? People start dying all over europe if you get a "heatwave" and it's over 35 degrees for a weeek. Pussies.

          2. Deadly spiders and snakes in your house

          Don't forget the world's most venomous fish, snake, shellfish, octopus, jellyfish, and dropbears. And that's how we likes it. Pussies.

          3. Long travel times to get across the country

          It's ok so long as you're not driving anything british or american. Pussies.

          4. Inconvenient timezone

          No, YOU GUYS are in the inconvenient timezone.

          5. No decent sports
          • Huh? People start dying all over europe if you get a "heatwave" and it's over 35 degrees for a weeek.

            I don't need to wear a hat, tshirt and suncream to go outside in the summer, Australians live under a hole in the ozone layer. Brilliant eh?

            And that's how we likes it.

            Yeah, it's great having to electrocute your arm every day to stop it rotting off.

            No, YOU GUYS are in the inconvenient timezone.

            You have to get up at all sorts of obscure times to watch any decent sports on TV, we're not interested in watching w
        • "1. Skin cancer"

          Its called sunshine :) Most Americans and Europeans spend vast amounts of money to go somewhere with good weather for a couple of weeks in summer. We get it all year round and all we have to do is remember to put on a hat or slap on some sunscreen occasionally.

          "2. Deadly spiders and snakes in your house"

          Not in my house!

          "3. Long travel times to get across the country"

          Same with America. As opposed to Europe we're not all squashed together and our roads are not one big, continuous traffic jam.

          "
    • Putting aside the fact that Australia was actually founded by the British government as a place to 'store' convicts and farm/mine/exploit natural resources, I'd rather live in a country founded by convicts than one founded by puritans.
  • Who's going to be the first to do a Google Mate logo?
    • Who's going to be the first to do a Google Mate logo?

      google.com.au has Australian themed logos all the time, notably on anzac day.

      • Bugger me!

        Got a surprise when I looked at your site. This is an excerpt from an email I sent today.
        "This, I feel, can be solved very easily. On the old telephone system you could (at least on Great Barrier Is.) call the operator and get her/him to patch you through to the entire Island. This could be implemented in the New Zealand telecommunications system with an option to broadcast to all people in a particular area with the emergency and the backup plan. In the case of a Tsunami alert, I would imagin

  • "Google goes down, under" (Score:3, Funny)

    by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Tuesday May 16, 2006 @06:14AM (#15340991) Journal
    would've been a juicier title, methinks! /. editors sleeping?

  • US WAS ALSO A PENAL COLONY (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_colony [wikipedia.org]

    so quit and stop re-inforcing US stereotypes.

  • Good for Aussies! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by e-r00 ( 559774 ) on Tuesday May 16, 2006 @06:26AM (#15341019)
    So now Australian students can also enjoy the benefits of internships at Google. On the other hand, if you try hard enough, you can find an internship position in e.g. Mountain View even if you're not American. So all of you people that would like to try working for Google and don't have a Googleplex around, just give it a chance. Another thing - now only one continent is Google-free. That's Africa. I wonder if any of the major software companies will eventually try to establish an R&D office over there.
    • Nah, the dry arid browns of the plains of Africa (or atleast how it's perceived by many) don't go with Google's happy shiney colourful logo.
    • I think you'll find that there are 2 continents that are google free... the other being Antarctica.

      Don't they teach Geography anymore?

      G
    • 5 to 10 spots for all of Australia?

      thanks for the offer, Google, but it's going to be difficult to get one of those spots

      I'd better start preparing my resume

  • Other offices (Score:3, Informative)

    by hey ( 83763 ) on Tuesday May 16, 2006 @06:47AM (#15341071) Journal
    http://www.google.com/corporate/address.html [google.com]

  • Australia still not on the Google Map(s) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ynotds ( 318243 ) on Tuesday May 16, 2006 @07:05AM (#15341111) Homepage Journal
    At 2% and falling of the affluent world market, we are used to having our patience tried by new kids on the technology block, but after reading the iTWire report [itwire.com.au] from Stuart Corner, who has been around the local industry as long as I have, it suddenly makes a lot less sense. Best to just quote Stuart quoting Lars Rasmussen, head of engineering for Google Australia:
    The company's R&D in Australia started in late 2004 when Google acquired Where 2 Technologies, a mapping company founded by Rasmussen, his brother and two Australian friends.

    "We formed about half of the team that put out Google Maps about a year ago and once we had done that we started lobbying to have a fully-fledged engineering centre in Sydney, Rasmussen said.

    "The Sydney engineers still form a very significant part of the team that is working on Google Maps and I think that fact is going to make Google Australia an extremely attractive place for the top programmers and computer scientists to seek employment.(")
    So Google acquires an Australian outfit with mapping expertise so they can put their technology into Google Maps, and nearly a year after Maps was launched the maps view of Australia contains nothing more than a monochrome continent dotted with unlikely bodies of water. No roads, no cities, a status which only our indigenous community are entitled to dream about.

    Yes, I do have a prototype application using the Maps API which has had to rely on satelite/aerial images to place pins and, no, this isn't a job application, at least not unless they have a need for some very part time context analysis.
    • The Sydney Morning Herald reports [smh.com.au] and my old bookmarks quickly confirmed that street maps for Australian cities are finally on the map.

      I'm guessing I might now have to upgrade my prototype application to use version 2 of the Maps API to get the street maps to show there.

  • I heard the internships are hard (Score:3, Funny)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Tuesday May 16, 2006 @07:24AM (#15341154)
    These internships are quite difficult, you are only given a computer and internet connection and then are asked to Google search for all your supplies, co-workers, and even the bathroom.

  • Google Notebook also? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Tuesday May 16, 2006 @07:28AM (#15341162)
    I havent seen it announced anywhere, but Google seems to have just released an online notebook with Firefox and IE integration - http://www.google.com/notebook/ [google.com]

  • I'm currently applying for an engineering position in the Sydney Google office. I got myself into a third interview which is yet to be scheduled. Damnit that office looks nice... now I'd really feel bad if I don't get in. :(
    • Would you mind telling us a bit about your qualifications, please? I'd love a job at Google, but their requirements seem quite high. They seem to want people with Masters degrees or PhDs.

      I feel I'm capable, but I don't have a Masters or PhD...
      • If you feel you have the ability and desire then apply. The high standards or should I say criteria are set to ward off those that are just "chancers". Your CV is the number one priority here. Make sure it can sell you or show that you do have the skill set etc that will convince them to give you a call. Apply...you have nothing to lose.
      • I hold a bachelor's degree in CS and doing masters part-time. I do not meet all the requirements in their job site but I know I have equivalent experience. Hmmm...what kind of experience you may ask... I've organised, lectured and participated in numerous open source and Linux events since 1996 and got into a UNIX admin job when I was 16. I know that I know my stuff because I have met people with a lot more full-time commercial experience but suprisingly know less than I do. I may sound like I'm bragging bu
  • A secretary with a PhD.

  • Food (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Yag ( 537766 ) on Tuesday May 16, 2006 @08:28AM (#15341338)
    Why (americans companies, usually) are so excited by free drinks and good food facilities INSIDE working place? I mean, in europe we are used to go out of office for lunch, every day, possibly changing place anytime possible, or even going at home if close enaugh, so what's the good points of having free coke inside work? It's nothing healty, nor expensive if you want to but it yourself, so, i can't really understand why google and other big companies tries to gain people attention showing this bonuses (i'm referring to the photos). I can't just understand, here in italy it doesn't make any "plus" having free coke inside the office, it's just useless, at lunch, you go out, you sit down, and eat, possibly with people different from the ones you see at work. It's just better than anything inside my workplace.
    • We get to go out for lunch too. Free drinks is just a plus for the time that you're in the office.

    • I can only speak for myself, but I live 35 miles (56 km) from my workplace. So I can't go grab a bite to eat with my friends because they're all at least that far away. The friends I want to eat with are my friends here at work.

      Secondly, my place of work also requires that you drive if you want to go grab something to eat for lunch. This is a pain and adds to the cost of going out.

      Now - I work in a suburban area. I would imagine those who work in urban areas, as well as those who live closer to thei

    • You only drink cokes at lunch?

      Seriously, though, there are many good reasons for having this. One reply already touched on some, but here are some more.

      Some people have to work through lunch. Many jobs with salaries simply say you have to have such and such done by such and such time. If something happens and time is running short, you often have to stay over lunch (or after-hours) to finish it. Having free coke (and a freakin' nice kitchen...) allows (and possibly) encourages employees to stay the ex

    • Re:Food (Score:2)

      by deek ( 22697 )
      ... so what's the good points of having free coke inside work?


      If it's free, it tastes better. Scientifically proven fact.

  • Last week (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by lucabrasi999 ( 585141 )
    Exxon opened a new Gasoline Station down the street from my house. Should I submit that as a story?
  • Good lord, this first picture just screams "would you like fries with that". I would think that someone qualified to work there would be least likely of all of us to say that.

    http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/hardware/soa/Photo_ga llery_Googleplex_in_Sydney/0,2000061702,39256655,0 0.htm [zdnet.com.au]
  • "ZDNet Australia also has pictures of the official opening of Google's Sydney office" -> don't forget to easier browse the pictures with nakedbrowser: http://rawdataserver.com/dude/browser/?x=&nakedurl =http://www.zdnet.com.au/shared/images/news/google /office1.jpg [rawdataserver.com]
  • I see that Senator Helen Coonan missed a chance to be in mining gear like the rest of cabinet :/ and had to settle with cutting a ribbon instead?

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