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Postmortem of my 9 year journey at Google

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Re: Postmortem of my 9 year journey at Google

#21

Post by tw04 »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #18
rabbits77 wrote: post #13

I recently left a job at a very different large company with a similar timeframe (a little under ten years). Pretty much everything this author states is related to my experience. There is nothing all that special about Google. Maybe there was twenty years ago, but that ship has long since sailed. It’s just another large US tech company. Like Microsoft and IBM before it.

> It’s just another large US tech company. Like Microsoft and IBM before it. This is just a hyperbolic statement that should not be taken seriously at all. Look, Google isn't some fantasy land that some people might have lauded it as once upon a time, and it isn't unique in terms of pay or talent, but it is certainly at the top echelon. I did an interview loop for high level IC at both Azure and GCP simultaneously an…

> IBM has never a company where engineers could rise to the same ranks as directors and higher with a solid IC track.

Never? Maybe if you’re talking the last 15-20 years, but IBM has been around a lot longer than that…

I personally know people who moved up the ranks there to director and above, so I can say with confidence you’re absolutely wrong.

Re: Postmortem of my 9 year journey at Google

#23

Post by lordswork »

xyst wrote: post #5

Working at the modern Google seems so overrated. Wonder what it was like in early 2000s when Larry and Sergei were not C-level douches

Sergey is still down in the trenches quite a bit. He regularly pair-programs with folks on the Gemini team and ran an AI paper review for a while.

Re: Postmortem of my 9 year journey at Google

#24

Post by danpalmer »

There are a bunch of comments saying that Google is just like any other big tech company and that the exciting engineering bit has gone. My experience is only from the last 2.5 years, but I've got a slightly different take.

Engineering from >10 years ago seems like it was a wild west. Some truly stunning pieces of technology, strung together with duct tape. Everything had its own configuration language, workflow engine, monitoring solution, etc. Deployments were infrequent, unreliable, and sometimes even done from a dev's machine. I don't want to disparage engineers who worked there during that time, the systems were amazing, but everything around the edge seemed pretty disparate, and I suspect gave rise to the "promo project" style development meme.

Nowadays we've got Boq/Pod, the P2020 suite, Rollouts, the automated job sizing technologies, even BCID. None of these are perfect by any means, but the convergence is a really good thing. I switched team, PA, and discipline 6 months ago, and it was dead easy to get up and running because I already knew the majority of the tech, and most of that tech is pretty mature and capable.

Maybe Google has become more like other tech companies (although I doubt they have this level of convergence), but I think people glorify the old days at Google and miss that a lot of bad engineering was done. Just one example, but I suspect Google has some of the best internal security of any software company on the planet, and that's a very good thing, but it most certainly didn't have that back in the day.

Re: Postmortem of my 9 year journey at Google

#26

Post by sk5t »

moosedev wrote: post #7
stonethrowaway wrote: post #6

Light on details and mostly seems to revolve around money.

> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

It’s an appropriate dismissal as the article itself is surprisingly shallow.

Re: Postmortem of my 9 year journey at Google

#27

Post by rabbits77 »

tw04 wrote: post #21
VirusNewbie wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s just another large US tech company. Like Microsoft and IBM before it. This is just a hyperbolic statement that should not be taken seriously at all. Look, Google isn't some fantasy land that some people might have lauded it as once upon a time, and it isn't unique in terms of pay or talent, but it is certainly at the top echelon. I did an interview loop for high level IC at both Azure and GCP simultaneously an…

> IBM has never a company where engineers could rise to the same ranks as directors and higher with a solid IC track. Never? Maybe if you’re talking the last 15-20 years, but IBM has been around a lot longer than that… I personally know people who moved up the ranks there to director and above, so I can say with confidence you’re absolutely wrong.

Yes! It’s sad how ignorant of IBM and US technology industry history some of these comments are. Then again, I suppose every generation does a lot of its own “this time we’re different” myth making. Not everyone has the wisdom to see the broader context.

Re: Postmortem of my 9 year journey at Google

#28

Post by whiterknight »

danpalmer wrote: post #24

There are a bunch of comments saying that Google is just like any other big tech company and that the exciting engineering bit has gone. My experience is only from the last 2.5 years, but I've got a slightly different take. Engineering from >10 years ago seems like it was a wild west. Some truly stunning pieces of technology, strung together with duct tape. Everything had its own configuration language, workflow engi…

"Bad engineering" in adhoc ways tends to mean new ideas are being explored. Sophisticated deployments, logistics, procedures, tends to mean you're optimizing or extending existing system.

That's not to disparage the latter. making things work at scale is hard engineering. But when people praise the glory days, it may be a preference for working on new ideas in small projects.

Re: Postmortem of my 9 year journey at Google

#29

Post by rr808 »

I've done the path from SWE to SRE and back to SWE. I was always happy to do production support and diagnose and fix production problems, so I naturally moved to SRE which is always looking for people.

It was a real mistake, SRE is hugely stressful and really unrewarding compared to SWE. Yes you learn some skills and get some occasional glory, but year after year of fighting fires really didn't build any long lasting career.

After switching back to SWE I've finally got promotions and pay rises again, as well as good night sleep and much less stress.

Re: Postmortem of my 9 year journey at Google

#30

Post by stonethrowaway »

redrix wrote: post #20
stonethrowaway wrote: post #6

Light on details and mostly seems to revolve around money.

Isn’t this the whole point of working; particularly at a FAANG? > It’s a shallow post-mortem I respectfully disagree. It’s an 8 minute read. Sure, it’s mostly in dot-point form, but personally I’d rather that than some massive 80,000 word blog post that I’m going to drop 1/8 of the way through. Since when does a personal blog post need to be a well constructed and lengthy document?

I would rather read an 80,000 word blog post. It would satisfy my curiosity and it’s exactly the sort of material I come to HN for. It’s Hacker News. Not Digest. It’s also why I don’t read the news often posted here from big media companies - they’re often just awful hit pieces against someone or something. Or are pushing a product.

But a well articulated, technically correct post that’s evenly paced? Heavenly. Its a David Attenborough documentary for tech nerds. It’s exactly what I am after.

I wouldn’t say anything against having an upfront summary for people who don’t have time/patience.

9 years working at a top tech company of bleeding edge work reduced down to “I made money. Oh, I made money. My stocks did well, so I made even more money” is the pinnacle of intellectual laziness. That’s not a postmortem by any stretch of imagination.

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