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The Friendship That Made Google Huge

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Re: The Friendship That Made Google Huge

#51

Post by sytelus »

Interesting tidbits:

To solve problems at scale, paradoxically, you have to know the smallest details -Alan Eustace

Today, Google’s engineers exist in a Great Chain of Being that begins at Level 1. At the bottom are the I.T. support staff. Level 2s are fresh out of college; Level 3s often have master’s degrees. Getting to Level 4 takes several years, or a Ph.D. Most progression stops at Level 5. Level 6 engineers—the top ten per cent—are so capable that they could be said to be the reason a project succeeds; Level 7s are Level 6s with a long track record. Principal Engineers, the Level 8s, are associated with a major product or piece of infrastructure. Distinguished Engineers, the Level 9s, are spoken of with reverence. To become a Google Fellow, a Level 10, is to win an honor that will follow you for life. Google Fellows are usually the world’s leading experts in their fields. Jeff and Sanjay are Google Senior Fellows—the company’s first and only Level 11s.

Re: The Friendship That Made Google Huge

#53

Post by akhilcacharya »

sytelus wrote: post #51

Interesting tidbits: To solve problems at scale, paradoxically, you have to know the smallest details -Alan Eustace Today, Google’s engineers exist in a Great Chain of Being that begins at Level 1. At the bottom are the I.T. support staff. Level 2s are fresh out of college; Level 3s often have master’s degrees. Getting to Level 4 takes several years, or a Ph.D. Most progression stops at Level 5. Level 6 engineers—the…

> Level 2s are fresh out of college; Level 3s often have master’s degrees. Getting to Level 4 takes several years, or a Ph.D.

I..don't think this is still accurate. New grad SWEs are L3's.

Re: The Friendship That Made Google Huge

#54

Post by akhilcacharya »

timdellinger wrote: post #31

Does anyone have a reference for "In 1966, researchers at the System Development Corporation discovered that the best programmers were more than ten times as effective as the worst." ? I'm seeing the year 1968 at http://thecomputerboys.com/?tag=black-art#fn-156-1 Is there a 1966 reference out there somewhere? Or perhaps the actual study was done in '66 and didn't make it into press until '68? I didn't pull the origin…

I'm not so sure it's a "Myth" when Jeff and Sanjay are out and about. Honestly, I'm beginning to think it's inherent and can't be taught.

Re: The Friendship That Made Google Huge

#55

Post by jogjayr »

skybrian wrote: post #41
tareqak wrote: post #23

After reading this article, I'm surprised that Google doesn't encourage pair programming / developing developer relationships at the level that Jeff and Sanjay have here. One might even argue that the manner in which interviewing and hiring is currently done in the tech industry in general might actively work against building the sorts of relationships where the output is greater than the sum of the inputs. Edit: add…

In a way, Google does encourage it by requiring all code to be reviewed before check in. If you're pair programming, you already have a reviewer and can check in right away. One-person projects can be more frustrating due to the delay. It doesn't seem to be enough to encourage widespread pair programming, though.

Every company I've worked at as a software engineer, even my first where we emailed patches to each other like cavepeople (and no we were not using git) has had code reviews before check in. It's not at all the same thing as pair programming though.

Re: The Friendship That Made Google Huge

#57

Post by jogjayr »

lowercased wrote: post #22

“I don’t know why more people don’t do it,” Sanjay said, of programming with a partner. ======= Maybe because most employers won't pay for that. Two people? For one level of output? You'd have to prove yourself a level 11 googler before most places would give you the luxury of working as a long-term pair.

Pivotal Labs has had across-the-board pair programming for years[1]. Although the folks there are undoubtedly talented, I'm fairly certain most aren't at Jeff and Sanjay's level.

I don't know why companies don't do it, but it's not cost alone. Here are some of my hypotheses:

1. It seems like it would be more expensive - which might deter companies from thinking about it

2. If you're not already doing it, it's hard to convince all or even a large fraction of your engineers to do it. It's a completely alien way of working to most people

3. It's not obvious to employees who haven't done it that it's clearly better. And it might not be - I honestly don't know

4. For 100% pairing, you need 2 programmers' schedules to line up exactly, 5 days/week - so goodbye flextime, work from home, remote working and all the other arrangements that people structure their lives around

5. It must be exhausting to sit with, and talk to, another person constantly your entire working day

1. https://pivotal.io/careers

Re: The Friendship That Made Google Huge

#58

Post by joatmon-snoo »

shafte wrote: post #5

I'm so glad this this article (unlike so many other representations of Jeff and Sanjay's work) does not overlook Sanjay's contributions. I don't know what it is; maybe Sanjay is a weird (read: non-English) name, maybe it's that computing culture's obsession with lone hackers leaves no room for a partnership like Jeff and Sanjay's. Anyway, kudos to the New Yorker for not falling into that trap.

So much!

As a college student, it was so weird learning about Jeff Dean's meme status, and it wasn't until after joining Google and coming across things like the original protobuf design doc that I realized how significant Sanjay's contributions are.

Re: The Friendship That Made Google Huge

#59

Post by panopticon »

warunsl wrote: post #30

Was surprised to hear the audio version of the story has a different title - "Binary stars". I think the editorial board went with a more click friendly title.

That was also the title of the print version. The New Yorker tends to re-title online "reprints" with less vague/terse/artsy titles.

Re: The Friendship That Made Google Huge

#60

Post by continuations »

> The world’s most robust computer systems... used special hardware that could tolerate single bit-flips. But Google... bought cheaper computers that lacked that feature.

> Together, Jeff and Sanjay wrote code to compensate for the offending machines.

I'm guessing the article is referring to Google buying servers with non-ECC RAM.

How do you write code to compensate for non-ECC RAM?

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