Comment by varelse | Hacker News Reader

Comment by varelse | Hacker News Reader

Not one word about what I consider the most toxic aspect of working at Google: blind allocation.

Unless one absolutely does not care what one wishes to work on, joining Google is throwing your future into the Hogwarts hat of an ill-defined cabal of billionaires to pick your job at Google. Sometimes that works out, but most of the time you are allocated to whatever mission-critical project is currently leaking buttcheeks.

In my brief time there, I was placed on a 7-person team that lost one person per month. That is the single worst retention rate I have ever seen. I left after 4 months for that and the realization that the powers-that-be were in denial about the coming impact of an emerging technology that they have since embraced a year or so after my departure.

That said, the SCCS and the build process were top-notch.

But there are good reasons why despite all the perks and smart people, Google's overall retention rate is barely a month longer than Amazon's.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/07/28/turno...

Blind allocation?

When I joined Google I was given 4 teams in 2 different locations to choose. I had lunch with each of the teams, and chose the one that better suited my style.

To be fair, your experience at Google will depend a lot on what team you land in. Not everyone's given a choice, but now I know better: Talk to your recruiter and make them clear what you want.

Sure, that would be great, but as a result of leaving, I have been blacklisted by HR from ever returning. And the one guy that tried to bring me back in a year ago met in the lobby of his building and then walked me out to the marsh behind the GooglePlex before saying a word to me.

I then asked if I could use said technology for which I am a recognized expert, he said no, and that was the end of that.

I have been tempted to print myself a "Bad Cultural Fit - Google HR" T-shirt in response, but I have better things to do.

People aren't blacklisted for leaving, that's blatantly false. Your story is obviously missing some key elements.

Median tenure does not necessarily indicate retention issues for core roles at any company. It could simply be rapid growth or lots of roles that typically come with high turnover (e.g Amazon's warehouse employees).

Indeed, "blacklisted for leaving Google" seems pretty far-fetched. In reality people who leave Google with reasonable performance ratings have the option to return within 6 months after they leave.

You get classified as "regretted" or "non-regretted" attrition. If you're "regretted", you can come back anytime within I think 2 years without interviewing, or with favorable interview afterwards. If you're "non-regretted", it can become very difficult to come back unless you have a really strong recommendation from some other manager within Google, or come in through a company they acquire. They already have data on your job performance that's a lot more reliable than an interview, and if it's negative, it'll take a lot to overcome that.

That sounds right. I was on a team leaking personnel managed by a manager who clearly wanted to be doing other things with his other team and who forgot I existed for the 3 out of the 4 months I was there until I reminded him I existed whereupon I was told I was failing to meet his expectations.

Upon complaining that it was unfair to judge me behind the curve when there had been zero feedback whatsoever up to that point, he then reported me to HR and offered to let me leave the team. There were two other potential teams making use of the technology for which I have expertise: one was new and it had zero openings at the time but which is now arguably one of the most prominent teams at Google and the other one's manager asked me one question "Where did you get your degree?" and didn't like my answer (I suspect) because it wasn't Stanford (desirable attributes for the position listed a Stanford degree) but I don't know for sure because he cut off communication at that point

And yes, in a perfect world I should have reminded my manager sooner of my existence but he was off on paternity leave as well with no one to run things in his absence so I really don't know the winning move here other than what I did: leave for one of Google's competitors where I spent the next 4.5 years or so focusing exclusively on the aforementioned technology.

If Google HR is dismissing the AUC of my entire career over 4 blind-allocated months at Google, that's asinine, but it would explain a lot and fit the facts. Thanks for the info.

> Sure, that would be great, but as a result of leaving, I have been blacklisted by HR from ever returning.

I personally know several people who have left & come back up.

If you left on bad terms, then of course any company wouldn't want you back.

The thing is that it didn't seem like that at the time. Someone high up went around the company to see if there was a fit for me, claimed there wasn't, and then said I could either give up on the technology or go work somewhere else. An offer came in around then to do so, I took it. Ironically, that person ultimately left Google arguably over the consequences of adopting that technology later on.

That's interesting. When did you join, and where? There was no such option in 2011; you just ended up wherever you ended up, and were expected to make the best of it.

It largely depends on how impressive you are when you come in, and how in-demand your skillset is across the company. After the hiring decision is made, managers then "bid" on Nooglers they want for their teams, and higher-priority teams (like Android, Ads or Search) will beat out lower-priority teams (like Blogger or Finance). If multiple managers bid on you but you don't like the team you're assigned to, you have the option to work for one of other ones, eg. I was assigned to Search when I joined in 2009, but my recruiter made it clear that if I really didn't want to do it, there were teams in GMail and Docs that would be happy to have me. If only one manager has bid on you, then you're stuck there.

Ah, I see. Location probably has a significant effect, then - I joined the Seattle office, which had only a couple hundred people at the time.

The bidding process seems like something that could be brimming with discrimination.

For example, if you didn't go to a top tier school you could be hired on only to find out that a single team wants you. It's in bumfuck nowhere 2000 miles away and its primary purpose is to program the road sign outside google HQ.

It could lead to very different googles for different people, and makes me wonder if applying to work there would really be worthwhile for someone like me.

This remind me that I don't like employment anti-discrimination laws, especially for jobs highly unlike manual labor. One of the reasons is PIPs which best show the kinds of problems I am talking about IMO, and I think there is a lot of laws that varies by state there (with California being most strict I think).

There are ways to hack this if you know your way around the system.

What you need to do is find a team doing work you find interesting within a higher priority focus area with headcount, make contact with their manager, and start 20%ing. If you do a good job with your 20% project - high quality, and done timely - then you can float the idea of transferring permanently to their team. If a manager with headcount in a high-priority focus area requests a transfer from a low-priority focus area, and the employee is enthusiastic about it and has already done work for them, they're going to get it.

I've seen this work for several people who were there only 4-6 months. Officially, you need to be on your starting team for 18 months before transferring, but this is bullshit. Unfortunately, nobody in an official capacity is going to tell you this as a Noogler, so I've also seen a few talented Nooglers leave the company because they ended up on a poor fit for their skills.

I didn't even apply until finding a team I was really excited about. I had coffee with a couple TPMs and managers, found the right group, applied, and have been really happy. The median tenure of the folks I work with is 5 years, and so far it's been great.

Google is awesome if you can avoid the allocation problem, I agree. I was not given such options.

Could not you switch team while you were at Google?

You can, but not in 4 months typically.

People usually switch after a year and a half of being on a team, but not much different than that.

The above like appears to be based on using tenure of current employees to measure "retention". So that is going to heavily skew low for companies that are growing, which makes it unsurprising that Kodak has the best retention and growing tech companies are generally low.

So I wouldn't put much stock in that as a meaningful comparison.

That tenure report looks pretty useless. You can't tell how much of it is not hiring, and how much is people leaving. Any metric where Kodak is #1 is probably not a metric that indicates good places to work.

I remember michaelochurch.

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