Lessons from 14 years at Google

Post by andrewprock » Sun, Jan 04, 2026, 9:08 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #261

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…

There are very good less-cynical reasons. I've also seen companies with the opposite problem, where the engineers constantly shoot down real, important feedback brought by customer support in order to preserve the superiority of engineering over support. If you have ten engineers and even just 100 customers, you have a very high number of conversational edges. Good luck keeping things consistent and doing any sort of…

Post by youngtaff » Sun, Jan 04, 2026, 9:10 PM UTC

croemer wrote: post #30

I clicked through to the bio and am super confused. Third person, extremely long, lots of pictures with CEOs and smelling of LLM writing. Here's a sample: > His story isn’t just about writing code, but about inspiring a community to strive for a better web. And perhaps the most exciting chapter is still being written, as he helps shape how AI and the web will intersect in the coming decade. Few individuals have done…

Post by surajrmal » Sun, Jan 04, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

blibble wrote: post #54

seems the real lesson would be to not spend 14 years at google

Post by zhouzhao » Sun, Jan 04, 2026, 9:17 PM UTC

Sephr wrote: post #287

This feels somewhat hypocritical coming from Addy. Addy Osmani plagiarized my code and 'apologized' years later by publishing an article on his website[1] that he has never linked to from his social media accounts. I cannot accept his apology until he actually syndicates it with his followers. Seems relevant to note this behavior in light of points "6. Your code doesn’t advocate for you. People do.", "7. The best cod…

Post by bschmidt25012 » Sun, Jan 04, 2026, 9:22 PM UTC

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…