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Comment by BugsBunny1991 | Hacker News Reader

BugsBunny1991

How long have you been at Google, if you don't mind? I'm sort of curious about tenure and how long people typically stay. A recruiter reached out to me for an engineering position in their Chicago office. I'm considering interviewing, but since it'll require a good amount of preparation on my part, I've put it off. I've basically worked at start ups for my entire career so far (10 years) and I'm thinking it would be good to switch, both for pay and work life balance.

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I have been at Google for a little over three years. At least in Eng, you have people from the whole spectrum, new people, people that have been there for 17 years, and people who are closer to the middle, like me. I have heard that retention across the company is about 1.5 years, but, in my experience, most people I interact with have been at the company about as long as me or longer.

There are a lot of new people, but, when I joined, there were around 75k employees and now it is closer to 150k, so the new people are additive rather than replacements. Only two people I have worked with closely have left the company all together. There have been others in my circles but not really that many and I don't remember any of them. Instead of leaving the company, most people just leave the team for greener pastures elsewhere in the company

Google has grown from 75k to 150k people in the last three years?

More like four, but yeah. The week I joined I was in the largest intake group in Google history, which was like three thousand iirc. That record has been broken several times now, especially with acquisitions.

I put off interviewing at Google for 2 job changes ... went back for the third just to see. Ended up getting hired. My prior experience in terms of terrible people conducting interviews was so bad that I almost just wrote them off.

Compared to super-early and mid-stage startups, the ability to work a sane amount is done amazingly well at Google, and they pay too much. The downside is that the work is really simple, and the complexity (e.g. of service development) is through the roof and not supported very well. So just get ready to move at less than half the speed you're used to.

TOTALLY worth it to bank money for 3-5 years, IMO.

This is what I did. Coasted for 4.5 years, lived off the free food and got a shitty 250 sqft studio biking distance to work. Did laundry and ate all meals there. Got loads of cash now, trading it for more money and starting a real startup that is actually planning for impact (not perf ratings).

Were you able to build strong relationships (e.g. neighbors, friends, significant other) while living such a minimal lifestyle?

I couldn't imagine doing such a grind for more than a few weeks.

It wasn’t really a grind for me because I might enjoy minimalist more than others.

I'm definitely biased towards exactly that frugal-and-bank-the-money mentality ... but if others don't want to be friends with someone who doesn't spend money, that's their thing. I've found it much more rewarding to find people that like you for the way you are rather than trying to buy favor with status or money.

It's definitely not for everybody, but you might be surprised as to what you find by cutting expenses by what most consider to be "drastic measures" just to see. You can always just go spend more anyways after seeing what it's like!

Just because you want to hang out with, or want to date someone who has a space larger than a 250 sq ft studio doesn't mean you are materialistic.

The most important thing is can this person understand why you are living in a 250 sq ft studio and does that decision resonate with them? You would be surprised how few people that filters out. You aren't asking them to live in such a space with you, after all.

Great points

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