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Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

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Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#551

Post by ghaff »

gonehome wrote: post #535
ghaff wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I somewhat sympathize with those living in a small apartment who used to walk, take a shuttle bus, take the subway, etc. to work where they were fed 5 days a week or more--and now they're stuck in their small apartments with most restaurants closed and facing the prospect of maybe having to move to a bigger place. So one can choose to interpret complaints about meal expensing in that vein. That said, in general, at l…

In my mind the company provides food as a perk in part so people hang around and chat without leaving the office, it also makes it more pleasant to work there. It’s not to feed you in your own home.

Sure. That's why they do it. (Along with the fact that it's an expected perk in some circles.) Which is also why paying a meal per diem doesn't make a lot of sense. But it's also somewhat understandable why there would be a bit of grumbling about a benefit being taken away, however unavoidably.

Of course, for many employees, the elimination of commuting makes remote work a significant win financially. But others never intended to do much more than sleep in their apartments and the current situation is therefore a net negative, even just financially.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#552

Post by guytv »

navbaker wrote: post #354

This mention of "yoga at 11am" seems to be rubbing some folks the wrong way, but what if it was "lunch for an hour at 11am"? In all the jobs I've held (including now) where working hours are not dictated by external forces, such as customer service expectations, our teams make sure we get in our hours and are more or less available during a reasonable window, say 8am-5/6pm. It is pretty much understood that there wil…

And I had fellow googles spend all their day between PlayStation, gym, restaurants, cafe's, hairdresser etc... without getting any work done.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#553

Post by jariel »

gonehome wrote: post #505
sangnoir wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft became almost irrelevant under Ballmer or was at least trending that way I'm not Ballmer's biggest fan, but I think he's often sold short (to Nadella's benefit), you'd almost believe Microsoft was tanking, but it grew a lot under Ballmer (mobile failures notwithstanding). As far as I can tell, Nadella just reprioritized projects that Ballmer launched or shepherded in his boring-but-efficient way: what new…

See: https://stratechery.com/2018/the-end-of-windows/ I think that article gets most of it. There's some MSFT narrative that comes up here a lot where people say Ballmer was doing great and Nadella just continued his plans, I don't buy it. MSFT had a lot of strategic failures as well as product failures under Ballmer. Nadella shifted strategy and made them a serious competitor again.

"made them a serious competitor again?"

They were making money hand over fist, massive growth in revenues almost ever year under Ballmer. [1]

Which part of that massive money train is 'not serious competitor'?

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/267805/microsofts-global...

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#554

Post by modeless »

dwohnitmok wrote: post #531
modeless wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when their own continued employment is contingent on whether management thinks they're still necessary Talk about entitlement. You think that when a company hires you, that should be a commitment to employ you forever regardless of need? Passion can come from your own investment in the success of the business, through equity and through the opportunities that come to productive employees at growing companies, both…

> You think that when a company hires you, that should be a commitment to employ you forever regardless of need? Hardly. I can't speak for the original comment I quoted, but I personally view employment as pretty transactional. You pay me this, I give you this. I may or may not have passion, but that should be immaterial to the job at hand. The employer sets a bar. The employee clears it or does not. That bar may cha…

> I may or may not have passion, but that should be immaterial to the job at hand.

Perhaps this is our disagreement. Employees with passion often perform better and there is nothing "unfair" about employers desiring passionate employees for that reason.

I agree that passion shouldn't be a requirement per se (whatever that means) if job performance is otherwise good, but passion is very highly correlated with job performance.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#555

Post by sangnoir »

rrradical wrote: post #503
sangnoir wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft became almost irrelevant under Ballmer or was at least trending that way I'm not Ballmer's biggest fan, but I think he's often sold short (to Nadella's benefit), you'd almost believe Microsoft was tanking, but it grew a lot under Ballmer (mobile failures notwithstanding). As far as I can tell, Nadella just reprioritized projects that Ballmer launched or shepherded in his boring-but-efficient way: what new…

Stratchery did a nice piece on this: https://stratechery.com/2018/the-end-of-windows/

That stratechery piece confirms that a number of Satya's "quick wins" were projects mostly developed under Ballmer but credited to Nadella... Which is exactly my point - that Ballmer doesn't always get the credit he deserves, for the sake of magnifying the contrasts between the 2 leaders.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#556

Post by Arainach »

Aeolun wrote: post #490
dd36 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I can live in a hut in Guatemala if I feel challenged and am enjoying my work. Wealth is fun but so long as my family and I are good, it’s not a motivating factor. Solving problems is.

Working in a corporation where I’m already adequately challenged by the work, is there any other goal to strive for except promotion and compensation increase? Once you are at the level where your compensation covers everything you want, it’s more of a game to increase it than necessity. It also makes me feel better since a lot of people I don’t respect earn a lot more than I do, so increasing relative compensation i…

>Once you are at the level where your compensation covers everything you want, it’s more of a game to increase it than necessity.

This is also why many people choose to plateau at a certain point. In the Google/Facebook scheme, that's often L5 - I've talked with a number of employees who debate whether they even want the responsibility that comes with an L6 promo and are quite convinced they wouldn't want L7+

Their mindset would probably be foreign to the author of this article, but I can see it and it lines up with what you said - at a certain point, if comp is high enough, I'd prefer to be well paid AND have free time. I've worked with some truly incredible L7+ engineers, but they correlate strongly with people who never turn off and seemingly never stop working, and that's simply not something that appeals to me in life.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#557

Post by ZephyrBlu »

DC1350 wrote: post #534
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does he say to prioritize users over yourself?

That's what caring about the users or the product at the expense of ladder climbing is.

I think having a mercenary-like attitude is just as bad as naively sacrificing your time for the company. Why can't there be a middle ground?

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#558

Post by TulliusCicero »

guytv wrote: post #549
guyzero wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of being not politically correct myself, I think there are significant cultural gaps between the west coast American standard and people from Israel (Bardin is Isralei). With the caveat that this is my experience only, Israelis are more blunt, direct and often openly critical vs Americans, especially Californians. They're often right and all the ones I've worked with have been very smart, but the way a me…

Israeli here. cultural gaps are very much alive and kicking During my career I've worked with people around the world, all in the Tech industry. Israeli-Californian cultural gap is huge. It is made worse by the fact that Israelis usually have a good English level, some even have an okay accent - which makes their US counterpart expect them to use the same communication etiquette they are used to. Californians will go…

This is interesting to me, because you hear the same thing when discussing Japanese vs American culture, with the Americans being the more direct ones in that comparison.

I wonder what happens when Israelis work with Japanese people.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#559

Post by TulliusCicero »

navbaker wrote: post #354

This mention of "yoga at 11am" seems to be rubbing some folks the wrong way, but what if it was "lunch for an hour at 11am"? In all the jobs I've held (including now) where working hours are not dictated by external forces, such as customer service expectations, our teams make sure we get in our hours and are more or less available during a reasonable window, say 8am-5/6pm. It is pretty much understood that there wil…

Google has a pretty chill work culture where I think a lot of people work Most don't advertise this widely, for obvious reasons, but you see it mentioned occasionally in places like HN, or tech-focused subreddits.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#560

Post by g9yuayon »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #363

9 years @ Google, and I too came from a company acquired by Google. (In my case, Google did not keep our product or tech stack around, so.) And yes, I can say many Googlers are entitled. It's a fair descriptor. And the pace of work is slower than a startup. In general. And I too have many criticisms of Google. But. Google has entirely different revenue constraints. It can afford an entirely different way of working.…

What the author said was a typical challenge in big enough company. Big companies over hire as time goes by, and the number of teams eventually outgrows the quantity of work. As a result, you have meetings all day to align, to coordinate, and to drive. The bigger an organization is, the more you hear about such phrases, and the more time you spend in meetings. BTW, I dare you to take away those meetings - so many people need those meetings to "assert influence", to get visibility, and to be promoted. In a large organization, people focus on Produktionsverhältnisse, aka relation of production, instead of production itself.

This is also why the Bay Area is a truly great place to live in. So many small companies are there for us to choose. They move fast yet have reasonable work-life balance. They offer great financial perspective too, which can be far better than big companies if one's lucky.

Of course, I'm not saying big companies are all bad. Indeed, some people are great at navigating company dynamics. They build solid relationship in a complex environment. They make things happen despite bureaucracy. They lead multiple teams to achieve impossibles. They cut through red tapes like hot knife cutting through butter. They build a company to last.

So, the real question one should ask is: which type of person am I?

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