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Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

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Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#31

Post by arbie »

ronilan wrote: post #24
ilovecaching wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook, Google, Apple, and Netflix still have some of the best talent in the bay. They also push out a lot of amazing projects (PyTorch, React, Go, Chromium, Tensorflow), although Netflix much less so. At the end of the day they have the money, and they do provide ridiculous perks.

> They also push out a lot of amazing projects ... although Netflix much less so. Actually Netflix much more so, only their projects are not in software. Just sayin.

Where can I find such non-software projects?

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#32

Post by jacquesm »

vinhboy wrote: post #25

> Someone who can do that is ridiculous. Talk about 10x engineers. That's more like 1000x. And it's good, clean code too. Literally no number of median engineers can do that. You can give me a million median engineers and they would never be able to do that. They would just make a huge mess. This is probably one of the most truest thing I've read about our profession. Linus Torvalds, Steve Wozniak comes to mind, who…

https://bellard.org/

http://norvig.com/

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#33

Post by curuinor »

arbie wrote: post #31
ronilan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They also push out a lot of amazing projects ... although Netflix much less so. Actually Netflix much more so, only their projects are not in software. Just sayin.

Where can I find such non-software projects?

think they mean the movies and things

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#34

Post by virgilp »

rococode wrote: post #8
mehrdada wrote: post #2

> Overall, the job wasn't exciting to me. I didn't have to work that hard, and one day I had this realization while sitting in my gray cubicle (I was in a sea of gray cubicles surrounded by gray walls, listening to white noise and all alone): I'm like, “Man I am so tired. I need to go home and take a nap.” I went home, but as soon as I got there I realized, “I'm not tired anymore.” Working at Intel was a draining env…

I was at a talk last week given by a startup founder and he said something similar that went along these lines: The bigger the company, the smaller your role's coverage. You get well-compensated and aren't worked too hard, but your job might effectively be "you're responsible for these two screens of this one component of this particular application". The conflict is that the bigger the company, the higher the bar fo…

One of my colleagues complained a while ago to management that "you hire brain surgeons and put them to work to peel potatoes". Quite a poetic way to express the same idea, I'd say :D

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#35

Post by Moodles »

shemnon42 wrote: post #28
vadym909 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, who's the new 'Google' now?

Crypto/blockchain and decentralized companies in their various forms. People say it's garbage but they also said that about search engine advertising too.

People also call garbage garbage. Sometimes they're right.

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#36

Post by onion2k »

ilovecaching wrote: post #17
vadym909 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, who's the new 'Google' now?

Facebook, Google, Apple, and Netflix still have some of the best talent in the bay. They also push out a lot of amazing projects (PyTorch, React, Go, Chromium, Tensorflow), although Netflix much less so. At the end of the day they have the money, and they do provide ridiculous perks.

But you will only ever be a tiny part of those big projects. If you want big challenges or big recognition perhaps a smaller startup will make you happier...

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#37

Post by tpurves »

grey-area wrote: post #30
ilovecaching wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what's incentivized though. Getting in to a FAANG is just the first step. The next step is to actually show that you can affect more than just your two screens. That's why they work in constant review cycles. People who get frustrated are often the people who don't know how to affect more than their two screens. It's hard, because you're competing with other people who are equally or more brilliant. Althou…

But you're not competing with those brilliant people on technical merit, but in the political game of building a fiefdom in a large company. That takes very different skills, and many people find it distastful.

Some might be surprised at what are the most effective strategies in fifedom building and rising in a large org. It very often has much more about making deliberate choices to help those around you succeed, to actively recognize others and help others arond you sieze opportunities. And that kind of demonstrated leadership is what will propel your own rise in status within an organization. It’s a mistake, and will set you back to think of politics as a zero-sum game.

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#38

Post by gonehome »

vinhboy wrote: post #25

> Someone who can do that is ridiculous. Talk about 10x engineers. That's more like 1000x. And it's good, clean code too. Literally no number of median engineers can do that. You can give me a million median engineers and they would never be able to do that. They would just make a huge mess. This is probably one of the most truest thing I've read about our profession. Linus Torvalds, Steve Wozniak comes to mind, who…

John Carmack

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#39

Post by jsolson »

itronitron wrote: post #7

> Great engineers understand computers all the way from the silicon up through the different layers and protocols and systems. I find this a bit limiting, certainly they should think across multiple layers but some of those layers exist beyond the systems.

It's challenging to think about how things will scale beyond out immediate stellar volume, though. We have so little high quality data.

Or did you think "systems" ended at some smaller scale? ;)

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#40

Post by nl »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #15
mehrdada wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. I have a new catchphrase that I use: Google does everything at scale. They waste talent at scale.

And it’s such an utter shame with their resources; they could be the next Bell Labs or Xerox PARC.

They've already done so much more than either of those.

Bell Labs delivered a fair bit of tech, but Xerox PARC did great demos. Xerox PARC == Magic Leap or something like that.

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