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Comment by alain94040 | Hacker News Reader

I was expecting one more "google is great" love-post. It was anything but.

If you are dreaming of joining Google, this is the article to read. Really.

Google is still the best big publicly held company in the valley to work for. I wrote this to guide the thousands of Googlers they'll add this year.

Having said that, I've been at well functioning startups, and I've been at Google. Google when I joined was better than many many startups. Google when I left was not so.

What I've noticed at Google is that there's really no comparison between teams. Different parts of the company might as well be entirely different companies, aside from a few common cultural attributes (flat hierarchy, data driven decision, and of course all the perks.)

The best piece of advice in there (I think) is to pick your team carefully, and more importantly, don't feel shy about switching if you aren't making headway.

I think you'll find that is true for any company of sufficient size.

http://xkcd.com/192/

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/23/confirmation-bias/

For people that already have misgivings about interviewing for a position at Google, I'm sure this post was a god send.

I mean, after reading all those "google is great" love-posts, you read one that points out flaws, and all of the sudden that's the one to read? All the others go out the window? How does that work?

All the others are repetitions of the same positive points. This is one of the first one to list many negative points. This is an awesome reality check for anyone considering to apply at Google: they are just like any other large company, in that you need to be weary of managers, because their goals often don't coincide with yours.

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