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Lessons from 14 years at Google

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Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#291

Post by geodel »

dijit wrote: post #274
naijaboiler wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we are human being interacting with other human beings. what you call "kissing ass" is just learning to influence and work with other humans. It is by far the most useful skill to have in workplace. But don't worry. continue your disdain of it, includeing calling it negative names, and watch your career stagnate.

Sometimes. Sometimes it's just bullshit . Learn the lingo, the language, the proper way of posturing and the correct way to shirk responsibility and that's what matters in certain orgs. I sound really bitter, but I'm not, I'm actually quite good at the game and I've proven that, I just don't really like the game because it doesn't translate into being able to take pride in what I've done. It's all about serving egos.…

> I'm actually quite good at the game and I've proven that,

Good. I failed and very likely about to face consequences.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#292

Post by palata »

martinpw wrote: post #244
avidiax wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every previous job I've had has a similar pattern. The engineer is not supposed to engage directly with the customer. I think there are multiple reasons for this, but they are mostly overlapping with preserving internal power structures. PM's don't want anecdotal user evidence that their vision of the product is incomplete. Engineering managers don't want user feedback to undermine perception of quality and derail "i…

Engineers have a perception that most other roles are lesser and if only they were allowed to be in charge things would go better. I certainly used to be this way. When I was an engineer I used to regularly engage directly with customers, and it was great to be able to talk with them one to one, address their specific issues and feel I was making a difference, particularly on a large product with many customers where…

> Engineers have a perception that most other roles are lesser

Do they? I always felt I was at the bottom of the chain. "Moving up" means leaving engineering and going into management.

> and if only they were allowed to be in charge things would go better.

Could this be an oversimplification? Engineers understand how the product is built because they are the ones building it. And sometimes they are exposed to what other people (e.g. product people) have decided, and they know a better way.

As an engineer, I am always fine if a product person listens to my saying that "doing it this way would be superior from my point of view", somehow manage to prove to me that they understood my points, but tell me that they will still go a different direction because there are other constraints.

Now I have had many product people in my career who I found condescending: they would just dismiss my opinion by saying "you don't know because you don't have all the information I have, and I don't have time to convince you, so I will just go for what you see as an inferior way and leave you frustrated". Which I believe is wrong.

Overall, I don't make a hierarchy of roles: if I feel like someone is in my team, I play with them. If I feel like they are an adversary, I play against them. I don't feel like I am superior to bad managers or bad product people; I just feel like they are adversaries.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#293

Post by bencornia »

j3s wrote: post #96

feels LLM assisted, at the very least. > The skill isn’t being right. It’s entering discussions to align on the problem > clarity isn’t a style preference - it’s operational risk reduction > The punchline isn’t “never innovate.” It’s “innovate only where you’re uniquely paid to innovate > This isn’t strictly about self-promotion. It’s about making the value chain legible to everyone > The problem isn’t that engineers…

I got the same feeling. The writing is too punchy.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#295

Post by varjag »

wdr1 wrote: post #267
hansmayer wrote: post #93

Not looking to dismiss the authors long tenure at a major tech company like Google, but the first point kind of stuck like a sore thumb. If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. Every single one of their services is a pain to use, with unnecessary steps, clicks - basically everythi…

> I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much It depends on how you define "suck." When Google first launched it's homepage, its emptiness (just a logo & search box) was a stark contrast to the portal pages popular, which were loaded with content. Some thought the Google homepage "sucked" whereas other liked it. (I was in the latter.) Likewise, the interface for Gmail. Or the interface for Google Maps. Or the interf…

I remember when Google appeared and literally can't recall anyone who thought it sucked. There statistically have to be some people who hated it. But everyone I knew was either on dial-up or low bitrate leased line and it was impossible to dislike that design.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#296

Post by lkjdsklf »

hansmayer wrote: post #212
lkjdsklf wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the UX issues you’re describing are less related to culture changes in companies and more just in the industry in general UX are designed by and for people who don’t really use computers. They use mobile devices and tablets It’s an industry wide phenomenon

You are onto something there, if you mean, the design roles being taken over by the people who are not techies - like the POs. But if you just refer to UX being designed for mobile devices - that is not an excuse for an even worse UX on the mobile. If anything I would have expected more effort put in there, given how many more issues the limited screen estate can cause...

It’s designed for virtual keyboards rather than real ones

That makes a bigger difference than screen space

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#297

Post by beloch »

mike_hearn wrote: post #139
hansmayer wrote: post #93

Not looking to dismiss the authors long tenure at a major tech company like Google, but the first point kind of stuck like a sore thumb. If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. Every single one of their services is a pain to use, with unnecessary steps, clicks - basically everythi…

> If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. There was no beancounter takeover and it never was so obsessed. I worked there from 2006-2014 in engineering roles and found this statement was particularly jarring: "User obsession means spending time in support tickets, talking to users,…

"10. In a large company, countless variables are outside your control - organizational changes, management decisions, market shifts, product pivots. Dwelling on these creates anxiety without agency.

The engineers who stay sane and effective zero in on their sphere of influence. You can’t control whether a reorg happens. You can control the quality of your work, how you respond, and what you learn. When faced with uncertainty, break problems into pieces and identify the specific actions available to you.

This isn’t passive acceptance but it is strategic focus. Energy spent on what you can’t change is energy stolen from what you can."

------------------------

Point 10 makes it sound like the culture at Google is to stay within your own bailiwick and not step on other people's toes. If management sets a course that is hostile to users and their interests, the "sane and effective" engineers stay in their own lane. In terms of a company providing services to users, is that really being effective?

User interests frequently cross multiple bailiwicks and bash heads with management direction. If the Google mindset is that engineers who listen to users are "weird" or not "sane"/"effective", that certainly explains a lot.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#298

Post by [deleted] »

hansmayer wrote: post #93

Not looking to dismiss the authors long tenure at a major tech company like Google, but the first point kind of stuck like a sore thumb. If the Google culture was at all obsessed about helping users, I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much and in particularly in the recent years seem to be getting even worse. Every single one of their services is a pain to use, with unnecessary steps, clicks - basically everythi…

[deleted]

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#299

Post by andrewprock »

majormajor wrote: post #285
Rapzid wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads like it was written by a PM. You lacked higher level context and prioritization skills early in your career so the take away is it's best to divest agency to others? There is a whole modern line of thinking that leaders should be providing the context and skills to give high performing teams MORE agency over their work streams.

There's not enough hours in the day for everyone to do everything. > There is a whole modern line of thinking that leaders should be providing the context and skills to give high performing teams MORE agency over their work streams. Yes, this is great for agency over implementation, because leaders do not have context to decide and dictate the What/How of implementing every single change or solution to a problem. And…

There are many leaders that use information as a tool that serves their own needs.

They may have the context, but they are either too focused on their own job to share it, or actively manage dissemination so they can manipulate the organization.

In my experience, this is the typical operating mode, though I do not think it is sinister or malicious - just natural.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#300

Post by morshu9001 »

moffkalast wrote: post #205
morshu9001 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google still suffers the most from not understanding those two. Probably more than other companies.

Have they ever had an outage in recent years though? Pinging 8.8.8.8 is the gold standard of making sure there's internet in my book.

GCP has had some multi-region outages
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