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Why I left Google (HN search results)

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Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#151

Post by compiler-guy »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #75

There was a tool at Google called 'percent' that you could run that would tell you what percent of the employees had joined Google after you (some measure of gravitas was associated with people who had been there 'a long time'). It was not surprising that Google hired a lot of people, there were like 50 people in my 'noogler' class. But the number of people reported as working at Google did not go up at a similar rat…

One doesn't need to speculate about who is leaving.

It is very easy to tell exactly who leaves google. It has a list available to any employee which is auto-updated and often includes any farewell message the leaving person sent.

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#152

Post by AstralStorm »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #143
nitrogen wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would make for an interesting fashion accessory. Best available alternative: wear tshirt from company A with jacket from company B and backpack from company C

Ooh I like this idea, and I think I can pull it off with all dead companies, making for a dead company terducken :-)

Don't forget to put in a sign "I didn't kill these companies." ;)

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#153

Post by rifung »

b4lancesh33t wrote: post #94
y3sh wrote: post #6

Tldr politics, glass ceilings, re-orgs, purposeless/abandoned projects. As a former Googler, I can see why people post these: internally Google is hyper-evangelized as the best place to work ever (why would you work anywhere else). When leaving, its a necessary step to form a good argument for yourself as to why you've decided to go against the culture. The personal spin makes it an interesting read.

Yeah I've been at Google a decade and I strongly don't agree with the notion that it's hyper evangelized as the best place to work. In official communications, yes, but I think most people here are aware of the drawbacks and problems. Maybe even a little too aware. Internal lists are rife with the discussions of even the slightest deviation from perfect execution on the part of management, product teams, the culture,…

> Yeah I've been at Google a decade and I strongly don't agree with the notion that it's hyper evangelized as the best place to work

This is my experience too. I've only been here for a year but what surprised me was how negative non-official internal communications about the company seem to be..

Note I don't necessarily disagree with their points but the lack of civility.

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#154

Post by komali2 »

drewg123 wrote: post #126
nerfhammer wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but once you've spent some time on a team there and are trusted and respected, all that stuff becomes pretty negotiable.

That's what I'd hoped for at Google, and my manager would have been fine with me being remote. However, my VP did not allow remote work. We even lost out on having a fairly famous guy work for our team, because he was unable to transfer a deal he had with his current team where he could work 3 days at home (in Pleasanton, so the commute to Mountain View was terrible).

I'll never understand the anti-remote-work stubbornness, especially in obvious cases like that. The VP really expects talent to commute from Pleasanton, daily, when they could just work for any other of the Bay Area tech firms remotely, at an equal salary and similar benefits?

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#155

Post by komali2 »

zerr wrote: post #95
drewg123 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it was easy. In 2015, we really wanted to move back to our east coast flyover-city home from the Bay Area. Google would not let me work remotely, but Netflix would. So it was a no-brainer. It turned out to be a great move. In my experience, just about everything is better about Netflix as compared to Google: impact, pay, freedom, culture. The only thing that's worse is that I really miss the on-campus food at…

> but Netflix would Hmm, where can I find out more about remote roles there? Is it worldwide or US-only?

Unsure for netflix, but when I was on the job hunt, Stack Overflow Jobboard (or whatever it's called now) was a great place to find remote / contract work.

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#156

Post by komali2 »

b4lancesh33t wrote: post #94
y3sh wrote: post #6

Tldr politics, glass ceilings, re-orgs, purposeless/abandoned projects. As a former Googler, I can see why people post these: internally Google is hyper-evangelized as the best place to work ever (why would you work anywhere else). When leaving, its a necessary step to form a good argument for yourself as to why you've decided to go against the culture. The personal spin makes it an interesting read.

Yeah I've been at Google a decade and I strongly don't agree with the notion that it's hyper evangelized as the best place to work. In official communications, yes, but I think most people here are aware of the drawbacks and problems. Maybe even a little too aware. Internal lists are rife with the discussions of even the slightest deviation from perfect execution on the part of management, product teams, the culture,…

If there's that much internal criticism of mistakes, how are the mistakes made? I.e. multiple chat apps, terrible hardware design decisions (wtf Pixel buds?), etc?

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#157

Post by prepend »

bspn wrote: post #130
electrograv wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remote work was a medical requirement for me and even in those circumstances Google refused to consider it. Certainly that must be illegal under the ADA, or something similar?

IANAL but I don't think it's necessarily illegal by default under the ADA. The first thing the employee has to do is establish that their condition falls under a protected class and then they can request an accommodation. If the employer can demonstrate that there's no way to reasonably accommodate the employee then I believe they're off the hook - that is a much higher burden for a large company to satisfy than say…

Depending on the position working remotely is reasonable or unreasonable as determined by the company.

I think it’s pretty typical to say coming into the office is a requirement so full time remote would not be a reasonable accommodation under the ADA.

I think the reason why many companies don’t allow as a rule is that by selectively allowing remote work, they are vulnerable to ADA suits.

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#158

Post by tompetry »

“First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.”

― Cecil Day-Lewis

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#159

Post by metiscus »

pron wrote: post #141
y3sh wrote: post #6

Tldr politics, glass ceilings, re-orgs, purposeless/abandoned projects. As a former Googler, I can see why people post these: internally Google is hyper-evangelized as the best place to work ever (why would you work anywhere else). When leaving, its a necessary step to form a good argument for yourself as to why you've decided to go against the culture. The personal spin makes it an interesting read.

This is one of the scariest things about Google, and indicative of its public face, too. People in the US often compare the government to Big Brother in 1984 , but the government can't be Big Brother if people think that, as one of the most important qualities of Big Brother was that people actually loved him. The entire system rested on the idea that people believe in it out of love, not out of fear. Google seems to…

While I risk being pedantic, I question the notion that the people in 1984 "love" big brother with the usual denotation. I believe that "love" in context implies more of a unity of being / complete submission to rather than any sort of romance. A key point in the book is the control over truth effected through the control of knowledge and history. A government in a totalitarian state like North Korea effectively is, for its own people, the government from 1984. Complete power over information will inevitably lead to the kind of "love" expressed by Winston in room 101. If the power of the US government to monitor and censor information grows, it is unlikely but not completely impossible for a similar situation to eventually arise.

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#160

Post by rburhum »

mrb wrote: post #119
rburhum wrote: post #111

It almost makes me want to write an article that says "why I have zero interest in working at Google"

With all due respect, it sounds like your article would be full of pre-conceived ideas since you have never worked at Google. At least those who quit have lived it and know for themselves. (And someone else's experience might be quite different if he had been in that person's shoes.)

Well, this is where you are wrong. I have worked in the core team at several multi-billion dollar companies (e.g. Microsoft, NVIDIA, etc) and have received job offers to lead teams from other similar companies (including the one you mention and one of their fiercest competitor).

With all due the respect, your assumption that it would be full of pre-concieved ideas is simply wrong. I just have anti-bodies that fully reject the Kool-Aid and the cult-level fanboyism that is so common around these companies.

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