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Things I've learned at Google so far

bentilly.blogspot.com

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Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#161

Post by wan23 »

amichail wrote: post #45
neilk wrote: post #27

Hi there. I was a Noogler in 2005 or so, but it sounds like things haven't changed much, at least on that side. Regarding the stuff you're not supposed to talk about, there are three stages: 1. Amazement at how it all works; wanting to go run and tell all your friends. 2. Fear that talking about Google's advantages would undermine the company (or your position in it) 3. Recognition that nobody would believe you anywa…

Do you think entrepreneurs would be happy there? After all, many compelling ideas would not fair well with Google's data-driven evaluation (at least in the short term).

Once nice thing about Google is the famed 20% time. If you have an idea, you're allowed to work on it roughly one day a week (or almost one week per month). You might hear some people say that it's a myth, or that it's too hard to actually use it. But if you can't manage to exercise a perk that everyone knows about, and that is sanctioned at the highest level, then it probably means you wouldn't have too much luck with your idea outside of Google either, IMO.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#162

Post by statictype »

btilly wrote: post #46
gyardley wrote: post #41

While I enjoyed the article, and I appreciate you posting it, one quibble: it's off-putting whenever anyone mentions a number they got on a test as evidence for intelligence. If you write intelligently, I'll happily consider you intelligent.

I normally don't do that. However for perspective I really wanted to give an idea of how intelligent I consider myself to be, and giving that relatively objective number sounded like the least assholish way I had to convey that to people who don't know me. You'll note that immediately upon giving the number I pointed out that there are issues with that method of measurement and gave an honest self-assessment whose up…

While I don't doubt your smart, I distrust the use of GRE scores for that. I got a 2280 on mine, which isn't too bad, but I had a lot of friends who were significantly smarter than me but didn't do quite as well on the test. At that point, I realized, it was dangerous to correlate GRE (or SAT for that matter) scores with IQ.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#163

Post by lpolovets »

nostrademons wrote: post #118
logicalmind wrote: post #96

One thing I'd like to know about is how google deals with declines in productivity. Undoubtedly, their hiring process gets them highly qualified individuals, at least initially. But over time, there has to be people who become lazy and take advantage of their good graces. And it would be expected that as people age they start a family and their work priorities may take a back seat. Is there some kind of process, ala…

It's the same as pretty much any big company - underperformers are notified that they're underperforming, put on a performance improvement plan to help improve their performance, and if they still don't improve, they're fired. There're no quotas for removing people (good riddance, the "fire the bottom 10%" school of management always struck me as the best way to create a poisonous, stressful company culture). But it'…

> It's the same as pretty much any big company - underperformers are notified that they're underperforming, put on a performance improvement plan to help improve their performance, and if they still don't improve, they're fired.

On the teams I was on, this was true in theory but not in practice. There were a few weak performers. If they were mediocre, they slipped by unnoticed; if they were really bad, they would get a ton of performance improvement meetings, second chances, etc, and firing was put off for as long as possible. Not sure if this was due to legal fears or what, but it was my anecdotal experience over 3 years.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#164

Post by alexgartrell »

btilly wrote: post #75
alexgartrell wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read this article, numerous other articles, heard from Google Employees in large and small settings, and knowing a few Google Interns, I can say one thing with absolute confidence. Google Engineers know that they're the best engineers, ever. I've always found it offputting, but maybe I'm just jealous or something. edit: Worth adding that this is a common thing among many engineers. Also, I know and like a numb…

Actually you'd be wrong about that. The truth is that people don't improve unless they can find shortcomings in themselves that can be improved upon. Which means that good people usually have no problem identifying people who are better at some things than they are. In my experience most have no trouble listing people who are simply better than they are. So sure, I believe I'm pretty good. But am I as good as any of…

I think it's safe to say that you guys think, at a company-wide level, that you're smarter, on average, than any other Software Company (I hesitate to suggest that Google is merely a Software company, but failed to come up with a better way of putting it) around. That's kind of what I was driving at with what I said before, and I apologize if it came off at all snarky or anything.

However, I think it's only fair to add that, in my interactions with "Googlers" in other situations (i.e. not recruitment) have been really fantastic. Namely, I'd say that the Chromium guys have been amazing, and they're making it a joy to try to get involved (related to a school project out of the scope of this conversation).

In short, I'd be more swayed by the recruiters (who are often engineers) if I felt like they weren't just trying to intimidate me with Google's prestige all the time. We know already :)

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#165

Post by roundsquare »

marltod wrote: post #139
nostrademons wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same as pretty much any big company - underperformers are notified that they're underperforming, put on a performance improvement plan to help improve their performance, and if they still don't improve, they're fired. There're no quotas for removing people (good riddance, the "fire the bottom 10%" school of management always struck me as the best way to create a poisonous, stressful company culture). But it'…

Google has it easy in this respect. At many other companies it can be hard to know if people are slacking off or just not that smart.

To be honest, what difference does it make? It may sound cruel, but why not just fire someone if they are not performing (given adequate time to improve, etc...).

Please treat this as a genuine question - as someone who has only started working a few years ago and never had a management position, I feel my view is correct but am open to learning if/why I'm wrong.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#166

Post by marltod »

roundsquare wrote: post #165
marltod wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has it easy in this respect. At many other companies it can be hard to know if people are slacking off or just not that smart.

To be honest, what difference does it make? It may sound cruel, but why not just fire someone if they are not performing (given adequate time to improve, etc...). Please treat this as a genuine question - as someone who has only started working a few years ago and never had a management position, I feel my view is correct but am open to learning if/why I'm wrong.

You are correct. It doesn't matter, if someone is getting nothing done you can fire them unless their performance is due to a medical issue. I was referring to the people who get very little done.

Other companies would love to hire only Google caliber employees but there isn't enough people to hire. So you end up with a company that may have a few superstars and a lot of average programmers. If a superstar slacked off they would have the same productivity as the average coders. It is hard for a manager to complain to that superstar when his productivity is just as good as many of his peers. At Google the slacker would stand out because his peers are all superstars and get A LOT done.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#167

Post by davidw »

nostrademons wrote: post #83
jff wrote: post #10

As my boss likes to say, they have the free meals because they expect you to be there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

It's noontime and I'm still at home, having woken up just a half hour ago...though I guess I really should get in before they stop serving lunch. I rarely make it to breakfast, and usually stay a couple hours past dinner.

Enjoy it while it lasts and before you have a family :-)

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#168

Post by elblanco »

mixmax wrote: post #87
elblanco wrote: post #51

It's kinda like an organization designed around the pinnacle of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslows_hierarchy_of_needs

Sex and sexual intimacy seem to be sorely lacking from their organizational chart.

True, but I always hear lots of talk about the group you are with. "My team eats together all the time." That kind of thing. From food on up the pyramid, Google consciously tries to provide something to provide something for each level.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#169

Post by elblanco »

btilly wrote: post #123
dschobel wrote: post #52

This leads to another point of interest. How astoundingly complex the company is. I believe that organizations naturally evolve until they are as complex as the people in them can handle. Well Google is tackling really big, complex problems, and is full of people who can handle a lot of complexity. What do you mean the company is complex? It's not clear to me why solving difficult problems merits organizational or op…

Try to build something that deals with the amount of data that Google has, as quickly as Google handles it, with everything distributed, replicated, load balanced, and with failover to keep the site up when bad things happen anywhere in the system. (Which happens more often than we would like.) Before you're done you'll have built a lot of pieces of software that do different things that have complex little dependenc…

Quick, slightly off-topic question. There's a belief in the industry (I think wrongly) that pretty much the only way to build big complex systems, you need a central "Enterprise Architect" to model all the business processes and use those to drive down to the technology.

As somebody external to Google, it seems to me that this approach largely does not exist at Google (or if it does, it exists only for particular isolated pieces). Is this true? Or rather? What's Google's method for containing, directing and handling this complexity if it's not a traditional EA thinking process?

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#170

Post by elblanco »

krakensden wrote: post #149
jlees wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heaven forfend one should use an attractive font on a Google product. Seeing the incredible engineering innovations going on at Google, and the incredible UI innovations going on elsewhere, makes me a little sad - never the twain shall meet, and instead they're redeemed to making shallow copies of each other and never quite hitting the spot. Over-designed and under-engineered, or vice versa. Adding design-led product…

Have you ever considered that maybe designers have created a culture that is not quite congruent with reality, and that their perception of a good interface is not, in fact, always a good interface? Engineers like the Google style, but so do lots of my acquaintances who are non-engineers, from scientists to writers to school teachers. Designers seem to be the only demographic with a problem.

Designer driven applications and websites seem to too often fall into the "pretty but unusable" bucket, I agree.
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