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Ask HN: Is Google still a cool place to work?

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Re: Ask HN: Is Google still a cool place to work?

#31

Post by dennisgorelik »

michaelochurch wrote: post #18

Google's problem is that most of the work is shitty legacy maintenance. If you can get on one of their machine-learning or research projects and have a good manager, you'll have a fantastic experience (and I say this as a notorious Google detractor). Take the offer seriously but negotiate extremely hard on project allocation because it's really hard to transfer to a good project if you start in the wrong place, so yo…

As Google customer I wish there were more strong professionals at Google who like legacy maintenance.

Today I received email from Google AdSense about change in their system. The only important part of the change was not even mentioned in that email: AdSese lost my payment information (alongside with all other AdSense users I assume) so I have to re-setup payment information again.

Strong team would be able to preserve customers' payment information during system upgrade, but it wasn't the case today.

Re: Ask HN: Is Google still a cool place to work?

#32

Post by googler2 »

I've been at Google for about 7 years now and i really dislike what it is today compared to what it was back then. But that said, i still haven't quit because it's so much better than so many other places. Most people i know who quit either went to Facebook (either for the pre-ipo options or because it's apparently easier to launch things there) or to do their own thing. If you have to have a boss and work in a large organization then despite its many, many failings (for they are legion), Google is still by far the best option in software engineering. And the pay and perks are pretty good.

Also, if you are a new grad who like engineering, all of this is pointless irrelevance. If Google makes you an offer shut up and take it for at least 2 years. Even if the project you get is like stabbing yourself in the eye repeatedly, just reading the code in the core google libraries and figuring out why systems are designed the way they are and talking to random people will up your software engineer game much, much, much more than any other place. Talent here is not as uniformly spread as it used to be, but when you find it, the quality of people here will blow your mind. And if you get to work with them, you will up your game even more.

Re: Ask HN: Is Google still a cool place to work?

#33

Post by tytso »

I work at Google, and I think it's great. Keep in mind that there are many, many different projects and groups at Google, and so the explicit set of things that you might work on will vary a lot. However, people can also transfer between projects after a year or two, so there is also plenty of opportunities to find cool work that you are passionate about.

As far as the "cog in a big machine" that people have talked about, it all depends on what you are comparing it against. Speaking as someone who worked at Big Blue for 8 years, people who are complaining about Google employees being a "cog in a big machine" have no idea what they are talking about. Compared to working at 10 person startup where you have no idea if the company will be able to pay your salary six months from now, but where you can have a huge outsized impact on the product, sure. But if you compare how many users will get impacted by your work at Google, compared to at a typical startup, impact is also relative and it all depends on what you are comparing against.

So if you want the adrenaline rush of working at a startup, Google will definitely not be for you. But if you want to work at a company which will very likely be around for a very long time, and where you can have a huge impact, Google is a really good place to be. I'm certainly very happy to be there.

And the biggest reason why I love working at Google? Nearly everyone I meet at Google are amazingly smart, and great to work with, both from a social and a professional point of view. Trust me, this is not necessarily true at many other companies....

(And as far as "shitty legacy maintenance" is concerned, I work in the same department as michaelochurch used to work in, and my team --- the production kernel team --- just recently finished rebasing the Linux kernel which runs in all of the machines in Google's Data Centers to the 3.3 Linux kernel from upstream. So for a month or two, I was a very well paid patch monkey. But then again, it's very careful, exacting work that requires quite a bit more analysis and deep understanding of the code that you might think --- and any mistakes could impact users all over the world. Personally, I found it very satisfying, and at the end of it, we had paid down a lot of technical debt and it will make future engineering work on the kernel a whole lot easier. And now, after taking a week in San Diego to attend the Kernel Summit, and the Linux Plumber's Conference, I'm going to take a week of vacation in Santa Fe, and then I'll be back to making file system and storage better for Google and for Linux.)

Re: Ask HN: Is Google still a cool place to work?

#34

Post by bane »

It's probably relative at this point. I have some friends who've switched in and out of Google, and while it may not have the same sort of luster it had before, they all seem to agree that it's better than where they used to work, or where they work now.

Re: Ask HN: Is Google still a cool place to work?

#35

Post by outside1234 »

raldi wrote: post #17

It's a large enough place to have many microcultures. Geo (Maps, Earth) is totally different from, say Android. YouTube's culture is nothing like Search and GMail's. And so on. So after you join, go meet other teams and get to know the big picture. Then, you can seek a transfer to wherever you think you'd best fit in.

This is good advice, but be advised that you won't be able to transfer for 18 months.

Re: Ask HN: Is Google still a cool place to work?

#36

Post by slantyyz »

Not an ex-Googler, but I would ask if "cool" is a metric that you should use as a decision point for choosing whether or not you are accepting any job.

Here are some things that you might want to ask yourself during the decision making process:

* Did I meet my future coworkers? Did my gut have any red flags about any of them?

* Did the prospective work I'm applying for interest me?

* Did the work environment / culture of the team I'm going working with appeal to me? Work environments and subcultures can vary wildly by department in large companies, so sometimes the company's overall reputation may not be representative of the sub-environment you're being recruited into.

* If "career path" is important to me, does the company offer that for the position I'm being recruited for?

* Will I learn anything by being there?

* Does the overall structure and the way the company works fit in with what I'm used to? This is highly personal - what fits one person may not fit another.

Re: Ask HN: Is Google still a cool place to work?

#37

Post by sequoia »

michaelochurch wrote: post #26
cletus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do not, under any circumstances, take this guy's advice or in fact listen to anything he says. Anyone who was an engineer during his brief tenure is well aware of just how much he self-destructed and how much he's living in a fantasy world. The only problem here is that to an uninformed observer some of what he says looks plausible. As for the OP's problem: a lot depends on your options, your experience, what you're…

I don't have time to respond to this ad hominem smear. Yes, there was some blowback related to my attempt to save a failing product. I learned a lesson and moved on. I'm not anti-Google. I want the OP to have a great Google experience and to do that he needs to negotiate hard on project allocation.

As a random HN user with no connection to Google who has seen what happens when you comment on stories about Google here (it's a shit storm), might I humbly suggest that you consider not commenting on stories about Google? It seems to always turn into The Michaelochurch Show when you do. Not saying your opinions aren't valid, but I think your contributions re: google are unfortunately not useful because they inevitably spawn arguments about your character.

Take one for the team and sit out the Google discussions maybe? That way when you have a contribution about some other topic, people will see you as a person and not "that crazy ex googler whose credibility is highly suspect." :)

Re: Ask HN: Is Google still a cool place to work?

#38

Post by alexgartrell »

A little under two years ago I got offers from both Facebook and Google. The Google offer was a lot bigger (including in stock, the break even point was a valuation of 50 bln), but I accepted the Facebook offer instead, because I knew I'd only get to work on the kind of infrastructure projects I wanted to work on at Facebook. Bootcamp beats the hell out of preallocation for things like this.

Re: Ask HN: Is Google still a cool place to work?

#39

Post by [deleted] »

cletus wrote: post #23
michaelochurch wrote: post #18

Google's problem is that most of the work is shitty legacy maintenance. If you can get on one of their machine-learning or research projects and have a good manager, you'll have a fantastic experience (and I say this as a notorious Google detractor). Take the offer seriously but negotiate extremely hard on project allocation because it's really hard to transfer to a good project if you start in the wrong place, so yo…

Do not, under any circumstances, take this guy's advice or in fact listen to anything he says. Anyone who was an engineer during his brief tenure is well aware of just how much he self-destructed and how much he's living in a fantasy world. The only problem here is that to an uninformed observer some of what he says looks plausible. As for the OP's problem: a lot depends on your options, your experience, what you're…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Is Google still a cool place to work?

#40

Post by raldi »

michaelochurch wrote: post #18

Google's problem is that most of the work is shitty legacy maintenance. If you can get on one of their machine-learning or research projects and have a good manager, you'll have a fantastic experience (and I say this as a notorious Google detractor). Take the offer seriously but negotiate extremely hard on project allocation because it's really hard to transfer to a good project if you start in the wrong place, so yo…

My experience at Google has been nothing like what you describe. There's a ton of interesting work being done, and from everything I've seen, a culture extremely supportive of internal transfers.
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