How do you get to work at Google or any other major companies?

The easiest way in is via an internship at any top tier tech company. Once you have that, it will be much easier to get a full time job at any tech company (including Google).

I was a software engineering intern at Google many years ago but have been rejected by them for a full time job. Not a problem - the interview process is kind of a crapshoot with lots of false negatives. Since then I've worked full time as a software engineer for 2.5 years at Square and 3.5 years at Facebook. Currently, I am at Airbnb.

An internship is definitely the best way in - it is much easier to get than a full time job (Google is willing to take on greater risk onboarding an intern). Once you get an internship at a top tier tech company, you'll find the floodgates open for full time jobs elsewhere.

What kind of job are you looking to do? You didn't mention this in your question but based off your profile I see you're active under coding mobile-applications and math so I will assume you want to be a programmer/software engineer. I'll fill in "suggested next steps" using this assumption.

Well, for Google specifically, google.com/students has a lot of relevant info. The easiest path at any of the top places is probably an internship converting into full-time. Also consider Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and some of the smaller shops like Snapchat, Pinterest, etc.

For software jobs specifically, these places also hire a LOT of undergraduates straight out of school, with no prior full time experience (though you'll likely need internship experience somewhere).

For certain other roles (say statistics, mechanical engineering), you often need a PhD or a lot of work experience, just because the number of people hired is small. But for the majority of software jobs it's not necessary. If you were focused on those roles, a software company would be a longer shot, but there'd be more employment opportunities in other companies that hires more of those roles.

Pay for software at Amazon, Google, etc - a lot (I don't know about non software positions). For example starting total comp (salary + yearly stock + bonus) straight out of undergraduate right now at Facebook is probably above $150k. At Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc, $300k+ / yr is eminently doable after a good chunk of experience and a couple promotions, without being God's gift / genius. If you are God's gift to programming.... well a tiny tiny number of people at these companies make an (even more) insane amount. But that's not for us mere mortals.

Basically it's more than basically any industry that hires a lot besides wall street / finance (wall st can pay more than bay area tech, but not always). There's going to be some consulting jobs that pay more, but it'll be a much smaller number of people, not on the same scale (and thus a much harder chance to achieve).

Having worked for some big enterprise-level companies, it's like this: you gotta pay your dues. You're gonna take lesser jobs and earn your stripes before waltzing into Google.

You gotta get good at whatever it is that you're aiming for. If you're a dev, you need to write clean code. If you're a stats person, you need to know what's trending in terms of how content/visitors move.

But, it's about building up to that point, not just assuming a cool resume will do the trick.

Sometimes you can land a quality internship at a large company such as Q2 right out of a code bootcamp. Never be afraid to apply to such opportunities.

Often times Internships pay poorly, or not at all. This sounds terrible at first until you consider so many people willingly go into debt to get a college degree, yet refuse to work for low pay - this is negative money vs some positive money with real job experience and a potential hire.

Code bootcamps, internships, and meetups are great ways to begin networking. A casual chat with the right passionate person could get your foot in the door at surprising places. Meetups especially can be great if you volunteer to give a talk, or meet with the speakers or organizers afterwards to discuss and leave a good impression and your contact information. You're far more likely to get an opportunity at a large company by knowing someone than you would otherwise.

Lastly, consider working on side projects you're passionate about. The quirkier the better as they'll stand out from the crowd - I'd rather see an app based around a Monty Python skit than yet another GUI calculator app.