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Leaving Google

jayconrod.com

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Re: Leaving Google

#441

Post by _arthur_ »

knuthsat wrote: post #285
brap wrote: post #250

I’ve been at Google for a little less than OP, and while I’m also considering leaving, my main reason is sort of the opposite: I’m bored. The whole team is bored. It feels like we’re doing nothing, and have been doing nothing for years. I work under 25 hours a week, and the vast majority of time is spent in useless meetings or reading useless docs. My actual work is maybe 5 hours a week. What are we even getting paid…

Sounds like a job in a bank. Or any other monopolistic entity.

There are other 'monopolistic entities' who don't give their employees a cushy life.

Re: Leaving Google

#442

Post by abdabab »

UncleMeat wrote: post #340
MertsA wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Q: What's the fastest way to go from L4->L5 at Google? A: Get a job at Facebook at E4, get promoted to E5, and get hired back at Google L5. https://youtu.be/8DYje57V_BY

Google is somewhat famous for downleveling so I'm really not sure that this is actually true.

They can’t downlevel someone from Facebook that easily. They have to match the compensation at least and Facebook pays pretty well at L5 level.

Re: Leaving Google

#443

Post by abdabab »

geodel wrote: post #121
emodendroket wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another article on the site expands on this: > I still feel uncertain about everything though. Google approved my remote work application last week, but I haven't gotten a new offer letter yet, and I've been told to expect a pay cut of at least 10% because the market rate for software engineers is supposedly lower in southern California. This feels like a shitty thing to do. My work is not less valuable. It's a remin…

I don't know maybe it is the thing with top level engineers hired at FAANG who deserve absolute truth, justice and equality. To me earning nowhere at level as these folks, still it embarasses me to whine about pay/promotion when so many hard working folks doing important work in society are paid pittance.

It depends on the market. If someone wants to pay you between 1.5x to 2x for the same work you’re doing right now with same work/life balance, will you take it? People generally don’t whine about pay or promotions, they interview and get better offers.

Re: Leaving Google

#444

Post by kcartlidge »

sockpuppet_12 wrote: post #241
capableweb wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Google would easily survive if they focused on maintaing existing services and making the headcount stable instead of increasing. Most businesses in the world survive with their piece of the pie and remaining having the same profits or slightly lower/higher than previous years. You don't disappear over night, and no market is really a "winner takes it all", it's just what management wants you to believe so you fi…

> Maintaining existing services Everything a capitalist market teaches us is against this, if they don't obsolete themselves before somebody else can then they will fall into obscurity and ultimately lose what they've built, just like other companies before it who didn't. FAANGS companies aren't at fault for when they're winning a game which is rigged from the start.

> if they don't obsolete themselves before somebody else can then they will fall into obscurity and ultimately lose what they've built, just like other companies before it who didn't

And if they do fall into obscurity and ultimately lose what they've built?

- The companies who take their place service the customers/clients they used to have

- The workforce either coast along or move to the (presumably growing) new big boys

- The investors should spot the decline and trade away

The only downside is the company - the brand - slowly dies off. For most of us that is fine; the only parties to all this who will actually lose out are the ultimate beneficiaries/owners, and I can live with that. And presumably they've extracted masses from the company by then anyway.

Its both cultural and economics, but the economics only affect the masters and not the minions (who find alternatives) and the cultural aspect is misguided - individual companies/brands are ephemeral and irrelevant so we the minions should not be invested in protecting them at the destructive (to society) costs of scale.

Re: Leaving Google

#445

Post by lordnacho »

tbrownaw wrote: post #383
lordnacho wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly right. I studied both engineering and management, so I have experienced both schools. Actually understanding science and manipulating the world is hard. Try to explain to a non techie how a car moves, or how a web request happens. They can never understand it on the required level to fix things. Now try to explain to an engineer how a bond works, or how industrial strategy works. He can do both his ow…

> Actually understanding science and manipulating the world is hard. Try to explain to a non techie how a car moves, or how a web request happens. They can never understand it on the required level to fix things. I'm pretty sure that being a car mechanic is one of those trades jobs that people are discouraged from pursuing if they're seen as having alternatives. Also a lot of what comes up on a search for "redneck en…

Guy/gal who can actually fix a car is a techie. And I agree, often people are discouraged from things for no reason other than supposed cultural fit.

Re: Leaving Google

#446

Post by burntoutfire »

im3w1l wrote: post #342
burntoutfire wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and no market is really a "winner takes it all" Market for OSes for PCs (not Macs) is a great example. Windows has what, 98% market share there? It got there thanks to the dynamics of this particular market, which is totally a "winner takes all" one. In particular, if Microsoft were more relaxed in 80ties and 90ties, there likely would not be Microsoft or Windows at all today, and everybody'd be using Os/2 Warp or…

> OSes for PCs (not Macs) If you slice the market thin enough anything can be a monopoly. This particular distinction seems pretty arbitrary to me.

There are billions of PCs in the world, it's hardly a thin slice.

Re: Leaving Google

#447

Post by lotsofpulp »

DannyBee wrote: post #419
lotsofpulp wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a ludicrous argument. The whole income/wealth inequality is not about working people earning more, it is about capital owners earning vastly more due to various reasons. Some businesses do earn more due to ease of access to additional capital, and hence can pay employees more, but the root of the income/wealth divide is certainly not employers paying employees more. It is certain employers (capital owners) ge…

"That is a ludicrous argument. The whole income/wealth inequality is not about working people earning more, it is about capital owners earning vastly more due to various reasons." Uh, what? No, it's about where the money is concentrated and how that concentration changes (or doesn't) over time. It's true that other forms of earning have a bad effect on this, but i'n not sure why that's particularly relevant. To whit…

> paid in SF dollars

There are US dollars, there is no purpose in framing something as SF dollars.

> You haven't, at all, explained why putting more people in a seriously unequal position makes anything better, or why it's "pointless" to avoid doing that.

They are not being put in a more unequal position. An economy with money flowing in is helping lift people out of an unequal position. Maybe not all at the same time, but if anything, it is helping in the long run, not hurting.

> It's not pointless. It avoids more inequality. Does it avoid all of it? Of course not. But again, the other way demonstrably makes things worse.

The other way is money staying with the company? I do not understand how paying employees less and letting the employer and hence shareholders keep more could be better than spreading wealth to more employees in more places of the goal is to reduce income/wealth inequality. The other way is some places continuing to stay poor and some places continuing to stay rich.

> Do you have a concrete argument as to why it makes sense to keep doing that?

> Because your entire comment feels precisely like the rest of the discussions around this - "it's not my fault, i shouldn't earn less money, it's the other people who are at fault. Particularly the ones who have 10x/100x what i do".

The argument is that you do not want to disincentivize people working to earn money. That is a good thing for society. Go ahead and increase marginal income tax rate/implement wealth taxes, but there is no reason to regulate prices between market participants.

If tech ends up paying more, then more people will be attracted to tech, and supply of labor will increase, thereby reducing the inequality.

Re: Leaving Google

#448

Post by fulafel »

random314 wrote: post #394
fulafel wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that there is a learning effect doesn't mean it's good to consume more electricity. If you want to argue positive sum, you would need to show a the consumed green electricity displaces more than the equivalent amount of fossil electricity plus co2 fp of measures used to handle variability of renewables vs nearly flat demand from data centers. Which seems hard.

I mean we might as well shut down electricity to all of our homes if we want to make this argument. And we could argue with each other over snail mail. But I suspect that will actually be worse from CO2 emissions perspective.

That's strawman, some electricity use is needed because we depend on it for survival and the rest is various levels of nice to have.

But its use has environmental costs and we are in big trouble with climate change. As long as there is fossil made electricity flowing in the grid, marginal changes in demand can be viewed as contributing to its production, because electricity is fungible (modulo transmission considerations).

Re: Leaving Google

#449

Post by Fnoord »

> My wife also works in tech and can comfortably support us both. I hope in a year, I'll be rested and ready to jump back into tech with a better sense of purpose and direction.

If you have this luxury, use your precious time to work less.

Re: Leaving Google

#450

Post by endtime »

brap wrote: post #250

I’ve been at Google for a little less than OP, and while I’m also considering leaving, my main reason is sort of the opposite: I’m bored. The whole team is bored. It feels like we’re doing nothing, and have been doing nothing for years. I work under 25 hours a week, and the vast majority of time is spent in useless meetings or reading useless docs. My actual work is maybe 5 hours a week. What are we even getting paid…

Also a Googler, opinions are my own. My current experience is very different (I work on Assistant and there are plenty of problems to solve, a mix of interesting technical ones and some organizational ones), but I have been on teams where I've seen what you're talking about. I strongly suggest changing teams!
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