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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

#41

Post by baccheion »

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 also felt the same. The place was draining, distracting, chaotic, cramped, and noisy (in 2010). A complete waste of time in hindsight that's still with me today (haven't been able to work again since leaving at the end of 2010).

Everyone still says Google is so great. Enough that I still wonder what happened. I also couldn't settle in, didn't like anyone, and was continually interrupted/harassed/followed.

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

#43

Post by baccheion »

tpurves wrote: post #37
grey-area wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Advancing at Google (as a Software Engineer) involved getting lucky. In order to be promoted in 2010, you needed to be responsible for a relevant part of a valuable project (in the eyes of executives and other Engineers) that succeeds. During many cycles, it was clear if a promotion or raise would be possible before work even began. As loyalty is rewarded, it also tended to be wiser to stick with one project/manager until leveled up.

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

#44

Post by baccheion »

basejumping wrote: post #23
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…

From what I hear it's turning fairly intelligent to asshole

Google has been riddled with a--holes since at least 2010.

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

#45

Post by baccheion »

onion2k wrote: post #36
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.

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...

In all likelihood you won't even work on any of those projects.

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

#46

Post by natmaka »

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…

There is an interesting and quite surprising book about this (among other similar theses/memes/opinions/whatever) titled "The Leprechauns of Software Engineering" (by Laurent Bossavit).

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

#47

Post by sigi45 »

baccheion wrote: post #41
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 also felt the same. The place was draining, distracting, chaotic, cramped, and noisy (in 2010). A complete waste of time in hindsight that's still with me today (haven't been able to work again since leaving at the end of 2010). Everyone still says Google is so great. Enough that I still wonder what happened. I also couldn't settle in, didn't like anyone, and was continually interrupted/harassed/followed.

oO you didn't like anyone there? Sounds like a problem with yourself.

Can't imagine that you were sourrounded by assholes.

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

#48

Post by sokoloff »

username3 wrote: post #42

Anyone have videos of someone programming fast or a video of a 10x engineer working or a comparison output of a 10x vs above average?

This question misses the point I think. The differences aren’t going to be that they type 1200 wpm or something that would be interesting or obvious on video. It would more likely look like someone spending time thinking carefully, not (necessarily) at a keyboard, thinking about really needs doing, how to best do it, what the user needs and will value, and they might write 1/3 of the code of a median engineer. The actual coding won’t be dramatically different on video.

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

#49

Post by confounded »

vadym909 wrote: post #9
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…

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

‘Google’ when?

The game done changed.

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

#50

Post by baccheion »

sigi45 wrote: post #47
baccheion wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also felt the same. The place was draining, distracting, chaotic, cramped, and noisy (in 2010). A complete waste of time in hindsight that's still with me today (haven't been able to work again since leaving at the end of 2010). Everyone still says Google is so great. Enough that I still wonder what happened. I also couldn't settle in, didn't like anyone, and was continually interrupted/harassed/followed.

oO you didn't like anyone there? Sounds like a problem with yourself. Can't imagine that you were sourrounded by assholes.

It didn't matter if they had an off-putting personality or were "OK." Either way, I just wasn't feeling it. On the other hand, the same happens wherever I go. Maybe Google's reputation of attracting certain personalities led me to believe there would be others that were similar or like-minded. Instead, they were mostly unhealthy judger types (though I'm not sure if the source is reliable, a few years ago 23.6% were said to be INTJ and 12.5% ENTJ: https://www.quora.com/Do-most-software-engineers-have-an-INT...).
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