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Software Engineering at Google (2020)

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Re: Software Engineering at Google (2020)

#11

Post by ye-olde-sysrq »

"As far as this outsider can tell, the systems and processes for writing code at Google must be among the best in the world, given both the scale of the company and how often people sing their praises."

Is this really the case? In high school I sure thought Google was a magical software heaven us mortals could but dream of working for, but now (and increasingly as of late) I'm strongly under the impression that 20 years ago they discovered unobtanium in the form of a very under-served search and ads market, they plopped down camp on top of it and turned it into a giant money firehose, and now to this day are simply operating that ridiculously high-margin business while trying desperately to find another vein of unobtanium because when you already have one, that's the only thing that even registers on your radar.

"Revenue from Google Network ads hit $7.5 billion (10.7%), and YouTube ad revenues registered at $6.7 billion (9.6%). In other words, at $54.5 billion, the total ad revenue from Google constituted 78.2% of the company's total revenue in the quarter." https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/how-does-google-make-money

78% between google and youtube. And given youtube isn't nearly as high-margin as the search product (can you even imagine the cost related to essentially storing the video history of the world?), I'm hesitant to say youtube is their 2nd vein.

So yeah. Turns out when you have essentially a monopoly in a high-margin business, you can do basically anything and build an entire private software ecosystem without going bankrupt.

I interpret "how google does it" to simply mean "look at all this cool stuff you can do when your product is this high-margin".

Re: Software Engineering at Google (2020)

#12

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

mushufasa wrote: post #4

Cool. Could someone, maybe an ex-googler, comment on which parts of these work well and which don't? A lot of other companies get into trouble trying to cargo-cult what Google does when they are operating in very different environments wherein those practices aren't optimal. E.g. different levels of scale. Additionally, critics of Google may point out that their engineering culture may not be great on its own terms -…

> Additionally, critics of Google may point out that their engineering culture may not be great on its own terms -- every time Google launches a new feature, people post links to the Google product graveyard.

It is personally scary when they develop new products. What if it is a brilliant idea, one I cannot live without? If Google develops it, then I am looking at this stillborn thing, mewling for life when I know its horrible fate.

The trouble here is that Google employees (and perhaps even its upper management) want to believe that they are a company which is an inventor of things. But they are not this at all. They are an advertisement company. Advertisement companies should not and do not want to invent things... inventions are worse than burdens, inventions are these weird alien objects that appear valuable but are quite expensive and do not help to sell ads at all.

So they hawk the inventions like they were freaks in some carnival sideshow to move traffic past their billboards. Until the traffic dwindles (or until they get tired of it). And then they take it out back behind the woodshed and put an end to it.

Re: Software Engineering at Google (2020)

#14

Post by nosefrog »

ye-olde-sysrq wrote: post #11

"As far as this outsider can tell, the systems and processes for writing code at Google must be among the best in the world, given both the scale of the company and how often people sing their praises." Is this really the case? In high school I sure thought Google was a magical software heaven us mortals could but dream of working for, but now (and increasingly as of late) I'm strongly under the impression that 20 ye…

I used to work there. The tooling is pretty good.

Re: Software Engineering at Google (2020)

#15

Post by mabbo »

ye-olde-sysrq wrote: post #11

"As far as this outsider can tell, the systems and processes for writing code at Google must be among the best in the world, given both the scale of the company and how often people sing their praises." Is this really the case? In high school I sure thought Google was a magical software heaven us mortals could but dream of working for, but now (and increasingly as of late) I'm strongly under the impression that 20 ye…

> I'm strongly under the impression that 20 years ago they discovered unobtanium in the form of a very under-served search and ads market, they plopped down camp on top of it and turned it into a giant money firehose

In 2010 when I interned there, one of my mentors said something to me that stuck with me: "Google found a hose that money pours out of, and it's name is 'online advertising'. All we do is optimize that hose, and search for another one."

Re: Software Engineering at Google (2020)

#16

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

ye-olde-sysrq wrote: post #11

"As far as this outsider can tell, the systems and processes for writing code at Google must be among the best in the world, given both the scale of the company and how often people sing their praises." Is this really the case? In high school I sure thought Google was a magical software heaven us mortals could but dream of working for, but now (and increasingly as of late) I'm strongly under the impression that 20 ye…

Apple has undergone a similar ossification.

I think it's just something that happens to companies that get a certain size. The Process becomes more important than the Product.

When I was younger, I wanted so badly, to work at Apple.

A few years ago, they actually approached me, and I found out that the culture seems to have drastically changed.

They ended up not wanting me anyway, so maybe it's just sour grapes, on my part.

Re: Software Engineering at Google (2020)

#17

Post by jeffbee »

mushufasa wrote: post #4

Cool. Could someone, maybe an ex-googler, comment on which parts of these work well and which don't? A lot of other companies get into trouble trying to cargo-cult what Google does when they are operating in very different environments wherein those practices aren't optimal. E.g. different levels of scale. Additionally, critics of Google may point out that their engineering culture may not be great on its own terms -…

In my ex-Google experience, here are the stages of denial about something that Google does which is good but the industry doesn't yet embrace.

Stage 1: "We're not Google, we don't need [[whatever]]";

Stage 2: Foreseeable disaster for which [[whatever]] was intended to address happens;

Stage 3: Giant circus of P0/SEV0 action items while everyone assiduously ignores the [[whatever]];

Stage 4: Quiet accretion, over several years, of the [[whatever]] by people who understand it.

And the [[whatever]] ranges from things that are obviously beneficial like pre-commit code review to other clear winners like multi-tenant machines, unit testing, user data encryption, etc etc. It is an extremely strange industry that fails to study and adopt the ways of their extremely successful competitors.

Re: Software Engineering at Google (2020)

#18

Post by lapcat »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #16
ye-olde-sysrq wrote: post #11

"As far as this outsider can tell, the systems and processes for writing code at Google must be among the best in the world, given both the scale of the company and how often people sing their praises." Is this really the case? In high school I sure thought Google was a magical software heaven us mortals could but dream of working for, but now (and increasingly as of late) I'm strongly under the impression that 20 ye…

Apple has undergone a similar ossification. I think it's just something that happens to companies that get a certain size. The Process becomes more important than the Product. When I was younger, I wanted so badly, to work at Apple. A few years ago, they actually approached me, and I found out that the culture seems to have drastically changed. They ended up not wanting me anyway, so maybe it's just sour grapes, on m…

> I found out that the culture seems to have drastically changed.

Can you explain in detail?

Re: Software Engineering at Google (2020)

#19

Post by teaearlgraycold »

ye-olde-sysrq wrote: post #11

"As far as this outsider can tell, the systems and processes for writing code at Google must be among the best in the world, given both the scale of the company and how often people sing their praises." Is this really the case? In high school I sure thought Google was a magical software heaven us mortals could but dream of working for, but now (and increasingly as of late) I'm strongly under the impression that 20 ye…

I used to work there and feel about the same. Google’s internal tech is really good where it needs to be, and barely good enough where it doesn’t. Borg, Blaze, d, google3, codesearch, etc. are all very good. Almost everything else falls by the wayside.

Generally programmers at Google are better than programmers I’ve worked with outside of the company. But not by leaps and bounds. And in my opinion it doesn’t matter as your pace of development is so much slower it matters little how good of a programmer you are.

Re: Software Engineering at Google (2020)

#20

Post by afavour »

ye-olde-sysrq wrote: post #11

"As far as this outsider can tell, the systems and processes for writing code at Google must be among the best in the world, given both the scale of the company and how often people sing their praises." Is this really the case? In high school I sure thought Google was a magical software heaven us mortals could but dream of working for, but now (and increasingly as of late) I'm strongly under the impression that 20 ye…

I’d be interested in the perspective of a high schooler/fresh college grad on this too. I was in college when Google appeared on the scene and my impression was very much that it was an engineering paradise (20% time had a lot to do with that!), in the many years since most of the interactions I’ve had with Google have changed that perception a ton. But I’m not sure what it looks like to someone just starting out.
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