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Ask HN: Is it time to leave Google?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it time to leave Google?

#41
post #31
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think financially it might best to stick at Google but change jobs. However, since you mentioned Space-X, remember that your skills set is not the core of their technology so you would not be able to get into one of the critical teams immediately. But sometimes you can make multiple jumps in position with time till you get closer to what you desire. Use your friends and former coworkers to help you lead into new op…

I've wondered about getting a degree in aerospace...

I am (I suspect) a little bit older than you and have been working at a FANG company for nearly seven years. (Before that I was at a company that may as well be included in the list.)

What your comments about aerospace remind me of is something I would myself frequently do: fantasizing about a different industry about which I know very little. (Years ago, I used to imagine going back to school to study law, on the grounds that being a lawyer is a good way to really work for social change.)

Obviously I didn't go back to school, and I certainly can't tell you what the right decision for you is. I think a bit of curiosity about the road not taken is natural--but you also have to be clear-eyed about what the alternatives actually look like.

To your specific question, however, I would strongly recommend interviewing at a few other teams inside the company and a few other companies. Before I came to my current employer, I interviewed here and a few other places. Some of them struck me by how _bad_ the interviewers were; in fact, my interview experience at my current employer (where the interviewers impressed me by their intelligence) convinced me, at the time, that if I didn't get the job I would stay at my then-employer rather than move to a less impressive place.

So interviewing can be clarifying in terms of showing you what else is out there, and helping you make a trade-off between natural wanderlust and, you know, not settling for something shitty just because it's new. ;)

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to leave Google?

#42
post #14
post #11

What is your skillset like?

FlumeJava/Spanner/Stubby Services, mostly in payments

Hear, hear. I am formerly Google Payments too. Don't leave just yet, there's plenty of hope for you staying and transferring to another org.

I have been at Google about 12 years now and had a three year stint in Payments until somewhat recently. Out of all of the organizations, projects, and products I worked on (6 projects, 12 managers, 5 offices, 2 continents), Payments is the least Google-feeling of them all with the worst management and politics (frankly it was fucked). The rest of Google was a dream in comparison. Had I known Payments was in bad shape, I might not have joined it originally.

Before leaving, try somewhere else. I recently founded my own team elsewhere build software for distributed system infrastructure, and I cannot tell you how fun it is. The joy is still at Google, but Payments is a blackhole. I can't believe the rest of the leadership tolerates that hostile black sheep of an org.

Google is largely what you make of it.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to leave Google?

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couple of things I notice mainly 1. Pushing code and being unaware of the build system that does anything else. 2. Unable to comprehend that there can be teams/companies where some products are written and maintained by one person, and does not have any practical code reviewing. (This is not a good thing, but it is not difficult to imagine how that can be). 3. (and lately), people explaining things that come off to m…

Can you elaborate on #3 a bit? I'm not sure what you mean and m really curious. I've always gotten the vibe that the SRE recruiters were not giving me an honest view of the realities of that job.

Reach out over email, please? I'm not super worried about my friends being identified but got to respect their privacy.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to leave Google?

#44
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be some possibility for leadership but otherwise it's all CRUD operations and the complexity is in the business, not the tech.

Why aren't you creating something interesting? Good careers don't go to those waiting to be handed a golden egg.. understand the business, understand innovative technology, and connect them, and the world will be your oyster. If management won't let you understand enough of the business to do so, I sympathize, I've been there. But if you're allowed to understand the business and are expecting someone else to come up…

> Why aren't you creating something interesting? Good careers don't go to those waiting to be handed a golden egg.

It sounds like you're implying that to work on innonvative projects one has to have the mind of an entrepreneur. While it's not a bad mind to have I don't think utilization of ones skills in a meaningful and interesting way should depend on that?

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to leave Google?

#45

At the risk of stating the obvious- it doesn't matter how innovative a company is as a whole, it matters how innovative what you're doing is. SpaceX does some really cool stuff, say, but you're not a rocket scientist- managing their financial software wouldn't be cooler than it would be for anyone else's. Conversely, Snapchat is just a goofy app for teenagers, but whoever writes the facial tracking system they use in…

part of what is interesting in a job is what you do day-to-day, but also part of it is what the company does day-to-day. There are plenty of companies, most of them smaller, that seem much more interesting a place to work on the second quality

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to leave Google?

#46
post #17
post #5

You did't say what office you're in, but Google is a big place and there are lots of internal job openings, at least at the larger offices. I'd suggest looking around both internally and externally to see if there's something that interests you more. (There are teams doing good work that has little to do with the larger political issues.) That's awfully generic advice, but to do better you'll need to get an advisor w…

And recommendations for advisors?

Not really, but if you decide to look for internal transfers, I think there is an internal advisors program that might help. (I never used it but it seems like a logical place to start.)

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to leave Google?

#47

At the risk of stating the obvious- it doesn't matter how innovative a company is as a whole, it matters how innovative what you're doing is. SpaceX does some really cool stuff, say, but you're not a rocket scientist- managing their financial software wouldn't be cooler than it would be for anyone else's. Conversely, Snapchat is just a goofy app for teenagers, but whoever writes the facial tracking system they use in…

I respectfully disagree with this. Doing something cool in your day-to-day work can still be depressing if your personal values are not alligned with the organisation's. For example, I was once offered the opportunity to work on low-latency software that identifies users as they move between websites (fingerprinting in ad tech speak). There are tons of cool CS problem around this, but in the end I turned it down. Now…

Sure, but company ethic is a different axis from innovative-ness. It sounds like you chose to work at an ethical-but-conventional position over an unethical-but-innovative one, and good on you for it. But you can have both (or neither) at once, too. Where Google falls on the ethics dimension is a good question, but that didn’t seem to be the poster’s complaint.

Re: Ask HN: Is it time to leave Google?

#49
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FlumeJava/Spanner/Stubby Services, mostly in payments

Hear, hear. I am formerly Google Payments too. Don't leave just yet, there's plenty of hope for you staying and transferring to another org. I have been at Google about 12 years now and had a three year stint in Payments until somewhat recently. Out of all of the organizations, projects, and products I worked on (6 projects, 12 managers, 5 offices, 2 continents), Payments is the least Google-feeling of them all with…

What team are you on now?
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