Ask HN: Is Google still a cool place to work?
I'm most interested in opinions from xooglers. From what I see it's still a great company and great place to work. Some xooglers seem to think it's lost its luster. I'm trying to collect all opinions.
Was it cool? That depends on what you value and who you're trying to impress. I didn't think the work I did was very fulfilling. At Google many problems are already solved, and the ones that remain often seem like small incremental improvements. There's a ton of uninteresting work, just like anywhere else. The difference is that when something is interesting, there are a lot of very qualified Googlers who will flock to it because they're not really needed on what they're doing. So you rarely get opportunities to own something much bigger than you're qualified for. At a smaller company those things can drop in your lap.
A lot of coolness is about perception, and I can definitely say that recruiters think it's cool. When I was at Google I would get a couple of LinkedIn messages each day. The effect still seems to linger.
The difficulty I saw was more that your actual slice of responsibility on such a project is likely to be somewhat small. Of course, your mileage may vary.
However, with a company this large, this is not generalizable to absolutely all teams. There are smaller teams building new products and working on interesting and challenging things. In case you are interested in Google, my advice would be to look for the right team and ask a lot of direct questions to understand the team dynamics and the actual day to day work. It might also be worth considering non-Google Alphabet companies as they tend to have newer things to work on.
Unsure what you mean here. Do you mean because teams can only have so many heads at certain levels, the people who are holding those seats block others from getting promoted?
I'm on my 3rd team, and 2nd PA in 9 years at Google and I've never seen a dearth of upward mobility opportunity for any junior engineer who wants it. There are almost always new an innovative projects beginning and available to work on.
Once devs have worked on a particular system for long enough, they become a nuisance because they know all the (good) reasons not to do something. Not necessarily because they are lazy / don't want to grow.
I've also heard that in the past things were a lot more bottom up - teams advocating what they thought they should build up to leadership and getting approval, and while that still happens, there's more top-down than before.
I have very little experience with large companies, so I can't compare Google to FB or Microsoft or any of the other big tech companies. But I will say that what's cool about Google is (depending on your team) you can work on highly impactful and highly visible products, you see a lot of interesting technology, the people are generally extremely smart and capable, and the benefits and quality of life are great. Because it's a big company, things are very slow - planning cycles are long. Stuff that was a six week cycle at a startup are a six month cycle at Google, but I will say that when I was at a startup, I'd often get pulled into a meeting where someone says, "Oh, hey, for X we were building, we realized that it won't work for Y reason, so we have to either push out our timeline for a lot of time, or cut Z critical feature out of the launch". At Google, that's a lot rarer, because the planning up front tends to be comprehensive and carefully designed (it is not unheard of, but it is a lot less likely).
I'm not sure that it's an ideal place for junior folks to learn how to build software, just because Google is so unique and specific in how they do things - I suspect that a lot of people who start their careers at Google and then shift to your typical smaller software company get whiplash (I have no data to back this up, it's just a gut feeling). But for people who already have a grounding in other companies or are further along in their career, I think it's a really interesting place to work at a different scope than is typically available at a smaller company.
- Perks are excellent. While I despise the work that is the only thing keeping me here.
Edit: Not sure why I got negative votes. Having this discussion on HN is not effective. I am fairly unbiased, but i need to know what kind of person he is, what kind of work he is willing to do, and might also offer career advice.
I don't think I've ever gotten a single positive response from applying to any company via their online application system. Every interview I've ever gotten from any company was via a recruiter reaching out first, or through an internal referral.
Having said that, there was a Google recruiter I had spoken to in the past, but I had declined to interview back then due to being in the process of getting married. Reached out to him last week but seem to have been ghosted.
The opportunity for growth, colleagues, support, tooling, pay and perks are far beyond what I've had in other jobs.
There's a bit of a monoculture here though.
The bulk of folks with myriad backgrounds would be in higher positions & most likely brought in by acquisitions or recommendations, but not from the typical interview cycle.
I think with generalisations, some people forget its only generally true (or not).
https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...
On topic: I think the comments already give a broad overview of what to expect, and not the idealized but non-existent average. Though a lot posted here seems to be quite generic; I know some issues first hand though I never worked at a company that could compare to Google on matters of size (similarities might be related to the composition of employees and the maturity of the product and processes).
I think this talks to "I think with generalisations, some people forget its only generally true"
Here sizing was specific. E.g. Even simplified to a single measure, the Dutch are generally tall. Few are likely to be exactly the average height, and that number of exactly average people is going to reduce the more specific the measurement e.g 183cm vs 182.523431412cm
So if you want to fault a generalisation, be more specific.... see second line.
Would I try get a job there if the salary was the same, or even more, than my current job but the interview process is how it is? Nope.
It is understood that Google is a large enterprise, and by no means a business unit represents the entire company culture. But it would be enlightening to hear what individuals views.
Complex.
The company is so large and hiring managers are so dependent on recruiters that actually having a diverse pipeline is difficult. There are processes that can help ensure that you hire from a diverse pool if it exists, but they can only do so much.
People from less represented groups consistently self-report lower scores on things like feeling included at the company or feeling like their voices are being heard. The scores aren't awful, but there is clearly a statistically noticeable effect. There are examples of people being treated badly that are heartbreaking.
Still, I see managers consistently taking bias and inclusion extremely seriously, especially regarding performance management. And not just for the obvious big categories (race, gender) but also for all sorts of other ways that a person might not fit the common mold. I've seen high level leaders take dramatic action to rescue people from bad situations.
I'm also somebody with a very typical background for a Googler, so I don't think I have a clear view of how everybody feels. My conclusion is that things definitely are not squeaky clean but I suspect that Google is a better place than many for people who don't fit the typical silicon valley mold.
It really depends on what you want to do, and where you want to do it.
You may be happy there if you like breaking things for no apparent reason that used to work.
I was talking with some people from Facebook about whether Facebook was too evil to work at. They said Facebook only wishes it could ever someday be as evil as Google. Nowadays even Microsoft wishes that. Not sure where Apple fits: they have a lock on contempt for users, but do they hate everyone else equally?