But it's kind of sad that the place where I can get the most value is seemingly the place where my skills will be utilized the least. It just seems... strange.
Think of it like this: The kinds of lawyers who get a lot of "on retainer" type work are the best ones. Because those people will not often utilize those lawyers, but they want to make sure they're available when needed, because when needed, they need the best of the best and they need them now.
Google is treating you the same way. They want to make sure they best of the best are available for them when needed, and not available for anyone else. By paying you $MAX_COMP, they ensure that you're there when they need you, and its a cost that is worth it to them. They hope that you do some great things for them in the interim.
Your reasoning sounds right.
Like buying a perfectly functioning goldmine, only to close it solely to drive up the price of gold.
But you can have one of you want one.
A common reason people do 20% work is to test the waters of another area of the company. It's also a kind of tryout for you.
You do tell your manager in this case, yes. They're not supposed to say no. Hard to say what the range of responses is in practice. In my experience managers are supportive of this.
I'm in europe, I guess we are a bit behind on the pay scales but that's an absolutely incredible amount of money to me; I'm genuinely curious what you're being paid to do for that level of compensation...
A CRUD ceases to be a CRUD when one is dealing with Google-like scale and/or arbitrarily complex requirements behind each of those letters in the acronym!
There are no European companies on the list.
Companies that make enormous profits per employee can pay top employees a lot of money.
When people wonder why Americans work so much part of the reason is that these people desperately want to make it to the top where the rewards are lucrative. Is this rational? Probably not, because the top seems to get smaller in every field and most don't make it.
Also take a look at the BigLaw Profits per Partner. Top equity partners can make $4 million+ because they are at the top of a pyramid. Mostly this is in the US
Not using all of your skills can be a concern but you will gain new skills.
So... not that I think it's necessarily easy but how did you score such a lucrative gig at google? How can I do the same? Do they hire generalists? Thanks.
If you study Cracking the Coding Interview, and you know that book inside and out, and you feel confident you can solve all of the questions in it (you can ignore the Java/C++ stuff if you're not applying for one of those jobs) -- you have a /chance/ to get hired.
But there's lots of smart people with those skills who fail the interview every day.