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Leaving Google

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Re: Leaving Google

#51

Post by vishnugupta »

oppositelock wrote: post #25
Waterluvian wrote: post #4

I think it’s interesting that the good things about working there had nothing to do with the employer and the bad things had everything to do with the employer. Indeed, this line is the takeaway, in my opinion: “…is because we've been at least a little brainwashed into thinking a job at Google is the pinnacle of employment.” I haven’t worked for one so this take might be quite hot, but I get the sense that big tech c…

I worked at Google from 2005 to 2013, seeing it grow from 4,000 to 50,000 employees during this time. In 2005, it was a wonderful, prestigious place to work with many great people and a startup vibe, the place was vibrant. By 2013, Larry and Sergey were put out to pasture, and the company took on a much more bureaucratic, compartmentalized feel. I was working hard, most of my work was fighting bureaucracy and optimiz…

This is eerily similar to my experience at Amazon including how I feel when I look back. Even the years are same :-). I somehow feel joining and leaving Amazon when I did (2005-2012) was the best thing to have happened.

What makes it more special was the stellar team that I got to be a part of with whom I’m still in touch with. It’s like being part of a secret club.

The only thing we used to discuss among colleagues most of the time was solving some hairy interesting engineering problem. That changed as years wore on, it became more gossip and internal politics and who got promoted how and when etc.

Re: Leaving Google

#52

Post by nbzso »

neatze wrote: post #7
cube00 wrote: post #2

> PMs made all the decisions. Engineers (at least at my level) had very little influence. This is interesting given Google used to have a reputation for being an "engineer led" organization, I guess that's slowly changing over time.

seems like this is most relevant video: https://youtu.be/P4VBqTViEx4

It is not only relevant for Google. Apple is exactly IBM from the past + some design and marketing sprinkled over.

Re: Leaving Google

#53

Post by titzer »

cletus wrote: post #19

Why did he leave? The tl'dr is the L6 glass ceiling and the remote pay cut. I can speak to both of those: First, for those that don't know, new grads get hired at L3, PhDs at L4 (which IMHO is actually a mistake but that's another issue) and there is an expectation of getting promoted to L5 (Senior Software Engineer). There's no set time frame for this. I've known people who stayed L4 for many years and were quite ha…

> I'll clue you in on a dirty little secret: it's hard to get promoted to L6 for anything.

It's hard if you're on the wrong project (read: low impact and/or low visibility). There are different routes to L6 at Google, but by far the most successful was to become TLM or just M of a medium impact project. It's hard to make the case as an IC for L6, but colleagues did it multiple times. Large enough, long-running projects also reach a critical mass of L6+ people and then getting high-level support becomes much easier.

Having been through the process, seeing the process from an IC, TL, TLM, and promotion committee member, if you think that L6 is unachievable, there is either a problem with your project or your expectations.

Re: Leaving Google

#54

Post by mdwelsh »

cletus wrote: post #19

Why did he leave? The tl'dr is the L6 glass ceiling and the remote pay cut. I can speak to both of those: First, for those that don't know, new grads get hired at L3, PhDs at L4 (which IMHO is actually a mistake but that's another issue) and there is an expectation of getting promoted to L5 (Senior Software Engineer). There's no set time frame for this. I've known people who stayed L4 for many years and were quite ha…

Long-time former Googler here, author of go/l6talk (internal presentation on getting promoted to L6). While there I coached a lot of people on the L5-to-L6 promotion process. It seems a lot of Googlers get disillusioned about getting promoted above L5. Broadly speaking Google's culture is heavily focused on levels and promotions, which is too bad, since many L5's are doing just great and getting paid extremely well.

If it weren't for the fact that Google makes level information public within the company, I doubt there would be quite so much emphasis on getting a promotion. Most people want to get L6 for the recognition and the fact that it elevates you above other engineers in terms of status and influence. When I worked at Apple, levels were private, so you had to treat everyone the same -- a person's influence was not dictated by what level they had on their company profile (there is no company profile at Apple). In my opinion this approach was much better, and significantly lessened the internal competition for promotions.

Re: Leaving Google

#55

Post by lotsofpulp »

titzer wrote: post #43

I joined in 2010 and left in 2019. The company I joined was very different than the one I left. Every single one of Google's problems can be traced back to scale. Loss of trust, distance to top leadership, tone-deafness, repeated failures, escalating surveillance dystopia, perf management overhead, leaks...all of them are fundamentally due to scale. And scale is simply because greed. Gotta make that 23% YoY revenue g…

> And scale is simply because greed.

Is it possible that it is simply because of survival? The general theme of business I see is if you do not keep up with others, you will lose to your competitors. Especially in a winner take all business with network effects and low marginal costs like tech.

Re: Leaving Google

#56

Post by sillysaurusx »

mikesabbagh wrote: post #47

> I couldn't work anymore, and it was time for an extended break. From speaking with other people that have gone through this, it seems like the only thing that really helps. Maybe changing teams or company can get you working again. 1 year seems too long to me

Nah, 1 year is pretty much the minimum burnout recovery period. I've seen it happen several times now.

Work isn't worth doing just for work's sake. You have to feel aligned.

Re: Leaving Google

#57

Post by onphonenow »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #23
freyir wrote: post #17

“Quite a few activists and researchers were fired for asking Google to be a bit more ethical” In the examples the author cited, those activists and researchers were fired for reasons going beyond “asking Google to be a bit more ethical. And frankly it doesn’t seem ethical for activists, researchers, and the author to deliberately misconstrue facts whenever they believe they’re on the right side of an ethical (and som…

I'm not sure this is true. Normally I'd be inclined to agree with you, but the Timnit situation was handled badly. Objectively, there was nothing wrong with her paper. You may have a point about the other researchers. I'm not familiar enough with their situations. But I dug into Timnit's pretty thoroughly. Their recent behavior isn't too encouraging either: https://archive.md/7jCQY (Related Twitter thread: https://tw…

Um - she wasn’t fired because of her paper - she required they out an anonymous reviewer or she wouldn’t be able to work there.

It’s pretty likely the reviewer would have been harassed - a good thing perhaps if you have one view of thing - but a bad thing from another perspective.

Google refused and accepted that she writing be able to continue working there

Re: Leaving Google

#58

Post by sillysaurusx »

onphonenow wrote: post #57
sillysaurusx wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this is true. Normally I'd be inclined to agree with you, but the Timnit situation was handled badly. Objectively, there was nothing wrong with her paper. You may have a point about the other researchers. I'm not familiar enough with their situations. But I dug into Timnit's pretty thoroughly. Their recent behavior isn't too encouraging either: https://archive.md/7jCQY (Related Twitter thread: https://tw…

Um - she wasn’t fired because of her paper - she required they out an anonymous reviewer or she wouldn’t be able to work there. It’s pretty likely the reviewer would have been harassed - a good thing perhaps if you have one view of thing - but a bad thing from another perspective. Google refused and accepted that she writing be able to continue working there

This is the common story, yes. But it evaporates when you dig into the details, which I've posted below. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28965631

I think it's worth reflecting on why we're so quick to believe the corporate version of events. Corporations have an astronomical amount of power and influence. Aren't you at least a little curious whether it's true?

And if there was nothing wrong with her paper, that raises the question of why an anonymous reviewer was grilling her about it.

Re: Leaving Google

#59

Post by Jensson »

jeffbee wrote: post #34
cletus wrote: post #19

Why did he leave? The tl'dr is the L6 glass ceiling and the remote pay cut. I can speak to both of those: First, for those that don't know, new grads get hired at L3, PhDs at L4 (which IMHO is actually a mistake but that's another issue) and there is an expectation of getting promoted to L5 (Senior Software Engineer). There's no set time frame for this. I've known people who stayed L4 for many years and were quite ha…

10% of the company is at L6 or higher so it can't be that hard.

Most of those got promoted by going into management and lucking out that the product they worked on grew and therefore needed to hire a lot, and you easily get promoted as you start to manage more people. Getting promoted on technical merit on the other hand is really hard.

Re: Leaving Google

#60

Post by emodendroket »

Waterluvian wrote: post #4

I think it’s interesting that the good things about working there had nothing to do with the employer and the bad things had everything to do with the employer. Indeed, this line is the takeaway, in my opinion: “…is because we've been at least a little brainwashed into thinking a job at Google is the pinnacle of employment.” I haven’t worked for one so this take might be quite hot, but I get the sense that big tech c…

Yeah you might be. But they also have way more resources for you to build your talents. There's still a lot there if you have realistic expectations.
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