Why Google Employees Quit | Hacker News Reader

Why Google Employees Quit

techcrunch.com

202 pointspeter12398 comments

So: working for a large company is different than working for a small company. I started at G when it was ~2k people and now we're at ~20k people. I've worked for very small companies and much larger companies than Google and I have to say that Google is a great place to work, when comparing to both and is probably the best large organization for a real , cs focused, software engineer to work for. If you love algorithms, scaling problems and the rest, you are likely to find a group where you can be pretty happy, intellectually speaking. But, if you aren't into that kind of thing, it may not be the place for you.

As long as I've been there, Google has been about 1/2 engineer and 1/2 everyone else. That's very atypical for large technical organizations, where if you have 25% engineering you'd feel pretty lucky. This also means that sometimes there is a 'engineers and everyone else' sort of thing going on. This is reflected in the exit stories, as are the very real problems that face globally distributed engineering organizations.

I find myself wanting to make excuses for some of the complaints mentioned in the article, but it really comes down to not every company matching every engineer, and if you have a large engineering org, you'll have some people who don't fit the org (the short story writer), and some people treated lamentably or regrettably by thier co-workers or managers.

A side note: the hiring process is much better than when I started. I've been sitting on hiring committees for 4 years now, and it is much more efficient than when I interviewed. I was interviewing for an odd position though, so it was even more extreme in my case (for both good and bad). I interviewed with 13 people and was given an offer within a few weeks. but back then a typical interviewer would have 8+ interviews, now we almost never go over 6.

That said, hiring is a dark art. I don't pretend to have an answer for that.

Are you kidding me? Are you really saying that the people who didn't like Google are the engineers who aren't as interested in algorithms? That seems both condescending and arrogant.

As a San Francisco native with friends that are both at Google and have left Google, I can tell you it's not the dumb engineers that quit. It has absolutely nothing to do with that. Your answer is glib and is totally the wrong take "if you love algorithms, scaling problems and the rest, you are likely to find a group where you can be pretty happy, intellectually speaking. But, if you aren't into that kind of thing, it may not be the place for you."

Google attrition is 0% correlated to that. It's totally false, and it says something about you that you think that.

It has more to do with cultural fit, not technical fit. For example, at Google you have to be extremely persuasive and political to get anything done as an engineer. You seem like a pretty forward and well-spoken individual, so this environment made you thrive.

But if you're not much for that sort of thing, then trying to get anything done in such a flat management hierarchy is going to be impossible.

Let me say it again: the engineers who left aren't the dumb ones.

EDIT: Another thing. It's not that Google employees can't hack it and quit. A bigger problem is Google has so many smart people, that really great engineers often get trivial programming tasks. Google doesn't have enough interesting work to keep everyone interested.

I'm kind of wondering which comment you are answering, you seem to be angry at my post for some slight that I didn't even say in my comment (or even in the quote). If you have a chip on your shoulder about google, fine, but the things you seem to be upset about seem almost wholly unrelated with what I said.

I didn't say that those that quit are stupid or somehow inferior, and if you read that in the comment, I really don't know what to say about that. I don't think that is the case (except here and there, naturally) and that those engineers that left the company did so because they found an opportunity that fit them better. Turnover happens, and you can read some great deep meaning into it, I suppose, but sometimes people just stop being interested in a job after 2 or 3 years (or less)

I think that you are right in that you have to be persuasive (or political, for some definitions of political) to get new projects off the ground or to direct a project in some direction, but that's kind of academic, isn't it? Where isn't that true?

As to the great programmers getting trivial programming tasks: I'm certain this happens. Our readability guidelines almost require that people do something basic or trivial. Some people hate that.

Here's your quote again: "if you love algorithms, scaling problems and the rest, you are likely to find a group where you can be pretty happy, intellectually speaking. But, if you aren't into that kind of thing, it may not be the place for you."

The point is, the people who left Google did not do so because they weren't into algorithms! So why did you even bring up such a point when discussing attrition at the company? Almost every engineer Google hires likes this stuff and is good at it.

The reason I am so aggressive in decrying what you said is because it's both misleading and insulting to the people who left Google. Not only is your post at odds with what I know, but it's also at odds with the mailing lists posts people leaked to techcrunch.

Please show me one email in that whole sheaf in which a person says "I left Google because I didn't like working on algorithms and scaling problems."

So, look again at the words "If" and "may" and maybe you'll read that quote with less vitriol and see its not so different from what you are talking about. Also, note that nowhere in what I said did I say this is the only reason people leave.

I was relating my experience and trying to qualify it carefully, but you are choosing to read what you like and ignore the rest. Which is fine for an internet argument, I guess.

Actually, the way you read it almost exactly contradicts most of the reported reasons that the engineers who left did so. It seems far more likely and believable that you'r exactly wrong -- and that the engineers who are leaving google are leaving BECAUSE they like working on algorithms and solving scaling problems, and aren't able to get opportunities to do that at google.

Just for the record, since I think the feedback might be useful: I had the same read. The way you phrased things there did sound if not condescending, at least undeservedly elitist.

From what I've gathered from contacts of mine that have been through Google it is a good place to work, but it's good in that sense that big companies are good places to work, not because it's the computer science promised land.

When I hear ex-Googlers (or Mircosoft) talking about being in Google, it sounds a whole lot like what I felt in my 4 years at SAP, but that doesn't seem in tune with the recruiting rhetoric.

It isn't always a lack of technical fit if someone isn't interested in algorithms and scaling issues. What I am about to say is as a "devil's advocate": I, myself, deeply interested in these issues myself, to the point that I'd never want to work in a company that doesn't deal with these issues.

"Wanting to work on algorithms and scaling issues" is, ceteris parabis, a cultural issue. There's more to building a product than scalability and algorithm design: there's used experience, there's capturing requirements, there's the whole development lifecycle (testing, scoping). It may be true that people who are good at Computer Science may be on average more interested in algorithm design than in (say) requirements gathering or UI design -- but the converse doesn't follow (there are plenty of people who would prefer on the "simpler" issues of software development who are just as competent at algorithms).

So what kind of technical writer does Google hire?

I tried, twice upon a time: first in 2005 and later in 2006, for the advertised position of a "technical writer," both times subsequently told via email (no personal interview) that "we don't have a position which is a strong fit."

Who writes this form-mail content? Surely you'd best practice honesty in your rejection emails, perhaps something like "We pride ourselves in making a torturous psychological game out of hiring people, and therefore interview only for positions which don't actually exist."

I still do love Google, though, and can't even begin to bring myself to apply there again, out of fear of hating it for one last rejection. All the while do I figuratively starve to death.

I didn't get it then, and still don't get it now.

Surely you guys must know that writers aren't by nature people people. Even six unpaid interviews with actual people seems like too much for a career in writing web-friendly code.

Honestly, I have no clue. I've not sat in those committees and I've only seen a few of the tech writer packets, and I was at best observing (I don't know much about that group).

If I were you I'd track down Tom Galloway, he used to work in that team and he's on the internets. He's a friendly guy and likely to reply substantively to you. I've heard the writing test is....something.

Your use of four ellipses is in poor syntax. ;) It should be: three periods with one space in between each.

. . .

But nonetheless; thank you for replying. I very much appreciate the content of your reply.

It should be: three periods with one space in between each.

No! There's an ellipsis character: '…'

Yes! That way users relying on non-Unicode software or without huge font packages installed correctly see garbage.

really, with one space between each? That's probably one of the many reasons I'm not a tech writer :-)

It should be three periods when it comes in the middle of a sentence, and four periods when it finishes a sentence....

I worked at Google for 4 years, and chatted with you many times. I was unhappy for nearly all of my time there. I wouldn't say that I wasn't into algorithms or scaling, or hardcore cs, but I was never on a project at Google that used them, and I found moving between projects much harder than advertised. My job was routinely mundane and repetitive, and things that were exciting somehow got caught up in management red tape. But now I'm at a startup where I get to work on exciting algorithms, and I'm happy.

I think that Google isn't always so good at helping people move between projects. I'm glad you found somewhere that worked for you, though.

That's curious, because I was told that inter-project mobility was a big strength of Google, first by the friend who referred me in, then by my recruiter, and then both my managers (I switched projects/managers on my second day, since my original one didn't really need another engineer) said that if it wasn't a good fit there were lots of other places within the company where my skills would be useful and I might be happy. It's a moot point for now, since I like my project and am excited to get going on it, though I'm kinda curious what'll happen if/when I outgrow it.

Teams and managers are very different there. I was told they liked it for people to stay on projects for at least 18 months, and that it's difficult to get a transfer with less time than that. That was the company line from my very first project there, in 2004, when it was still a relatively small company. A lot of it is just luck of the draw with your initial allotment there. Glad you found something that you enjoy though.

> I've worked for very small companies and much larger companies than Google and I have to say that Google is a great place to work, when comparing to both and is probably the best large organization for a real , cs focused, software engineer to work for. If you love algorithms, scaling problems and the rest, you are likely to find a group where you can be pretty happy, intellectually speaking.

I think that gets to the core of it. I'd love to work in an environment like that (where algorithm design, cutting edge CS-focused concepts, scalability issues are the company's core competency, not a mere nuisance) - knowing I will be fully intellectually happy, irrespective of the salary.

Incidentally, this could also explain why there's often churn at start-ups that make it a point to recruit from places such as Google or Yahoo: you can easily build a profitable business without ever coming close to having to design your own algorithms or scale beyond a few front-end machines, a load balancer and a MySQL database (all in a single datacenter, likely through a managed hosting provider). 37signals is likely the best exemplar of that philosophy (through their posts encouraging people not to worry about scaling, database replication or building complex software).

In defense of the "simpler is better" philosophy some people would much rather work on the whole product, work together with customers/sales; some people are interested in writing code as simply as possible and find the whole idea of CS to be a nuisance (and would rather leave the issues of algorithm design and scaling to existing libraries/software packages. Some people simply wouldn't be happy taking a lower salary knowing that they could earn more elsewhere (which incidentally is a strong reason both not to underpay employees and also not to overpay employees or to give counter offers to people who found higher paying offers elsewhere).

Ultimately there is no perfect job: there is chance to work on unique/almost-academic/cutting edge subject matter (google can offer this, a start-up (say) making a lamp-based CRM product can't), there is a chance to get rich (start-ups are the best bet for this purpose), there is the ability to do easier work for high pay (enterprise IT).

You can have several of these (e.g. those who joined google when it was still a start-up both had a chance to strike it rich and ability to do unique and fascinating work; but they did hard work, for (usually) below-market pay) - you can't have all.

> probably the best large organization for a real , cs focused, software engineer

Makes sense, it's the only multi-billion dollar business based on an algorithm.

Patent-based businesses seem to encourage fundamental technical research. Consider: Bell Labs (Alexander Graham Bell's telegraphy patent); PARC (Xerography patent); IBM research (many patents).

I remember when I initially read these emails (the thread is from last year), my first though was, "I'm glad that I don't have to work with these people."

Perhaps this is unfair since they are just venting (and not all of the emails were in this category, some were reasonable), but there's something about their attitude that is just very unappealing. I can't quite put my finger on it though... Something about working at big companies seems to turn many people into whiny children. I think it's because they aren't really responsible for anything.

Unfortunately, Google's transition into "yet another big company" is inevitable at this point. If you take the same fundamental structure as every other big company, and hire the same people as the other big companies, then you shouldn't be surprised when you end up looking like every other big company.

  Something about working at big companies seems to turn many people into whiny children. I think it's because they aren't really responsible for anything.

I think you've just nailed something I've been observing at my own place of employment, thank you! To lack-of-responsibility, I would also add: security in the job. It's comfortable enough and you can get by without too much exertion, so there's little motivation to either leave or work harder.

I certainly don't work in an extreme case of that, but your hypothesis resonated.

What would you do different in terms of structure of a large company? Also who would you hire for large companies?

The other side of things, kind of rounding out the child-like analogy, is that the exposure to opportunity is limited similarly to the exposure to responsibility. Engineering hire number 14,162 might make it to middle management if [s]he sticks around long enough.

If you combine this with the trajectory that a lot of smart folks end up on -- home, college, grad-school, large corporation -- I think there's a natural disenfranchisement when kids that thought they were going to change the world and be astronauts when they grew up realize that they're staring down a few decades of project management meetings and internal bureaucracy.

Added to a smooth transition from their parents to their company taking care of all of the hard parts of life, it does lead to an odd form of young adulthood where a lot of folks are too afraid of deviating from the prescribed path to break out and do something that's more fulfilling to them.

I was really hoping to hear some insight from these ex-employees about the google culture to see how it compares to my disillusionment with a "cool" big company.

Instead, most of the comments (I couldn't get through all of them) were whining about benefits, pay, and snack stations. Seriously? As a friend of mine tweeted the other day about my old company - "people are getting laid off. stop complaining about the lack of free beer this friday".

I remember reading an article by Neil Strauss in Rolling Stone covering Jenna Jamison, the notorious adult film star and the adult industry in general.

Since Neil was sent "on set" while Jenna was filming, a lot of the article details him talking to people that work in the industry (journeyman/freelance make up artists, camera men, sound guys, Male "Actors").

One thing that stuck out to Neil that he drew attention to is what these guys bullshitted about at work: Sports. Kids. Health Care. Wages. Tax tips (since they're all contractors).

The reason I bring this up is to make this point: No matter how mundane or bizarre your industry, people still have the same genuine needs. A company that addresses those needs in a superb factor will have loyal employees. If Google is subpar in salary and puts people in jobs that're menial and they're overqualified for them, they will get bored and they will leave. I can't simplify it any more than that. Any company with 18,000 employees can't rely on "cool" to motivate. For an easy 17,000 of those workers, money (or stock options) is the biggest motivator.

A lot can be said about this, but I'll go out on this note: Not all of the world's greatest problem solvers are in their mid-20s and are motivated by the "cool" factor of a web app and think in Python.

The majority of people, in any field, are motivated by money. Microsoft pays in the 68th percentile for a reason. You'll never be rich, but you'll always be comfortable. And yes, intelligent 24 year old Standford CS grad should feel like there's something more to life than supporting Google AdWords code, which, according to other internet rants, is simply a frustrating experience.

Exactly - I expected more of the frustration to be about the menial work and how people weren't feeling motivated, not how annoyed they were when google skimped on snacks.

I haven't read it all, but only one person was complaining about snacks. Most complaints, as far as I can tell (having been shafted by companies, and also having found great matches) seem legitimate.

The big complaint about food is that it seems its expected to work after dinner, and that a lot of politicking happens after dinner as well. The people who go and be social at the dinners tend to get the "cool" assignments. Others tend to be multiple bosses, inability to shift projects, or just a better offer came along.

That said, I don't think these people are "bitching" or disgruntled. Google asked for their brutal honesty (which deserves credit) and they're being open about it. Not everyone is going to find Google to be a perfect match. And for tech firms that aren't Google, that's a good thing.

Google's "official" hiring docs say that they pay in the 75th percentile, with stock options in the 90th percentile. I'm not sure if that's true, but then, I'm not sure if Microsoft's claim of paying in the 68th percentile is true either. From the Envy data someone else posted on the thread, it looked like Google engineers were being paid just slightly more than their Microsoft counterparts.

I have only ever heard of one person getting a better offer at Google, but I have heard countless times of people getting low offers or taking a pay cut to work for Google. So to see so many leave because of pay in the end isn't surprising. Working on cool things only gets you so far (six months? a year?) When your friend gets more then double your salary then you for doing something much easier and has a better out of work life it really makes you wonder if there isn't something better. Perhaps not Google, but a nice place to work now that google is on your resume.

Could be selection bias. People who got a better offer at Google tend not to trumpet it, they just work there and keep quiet about salary. After all, why make your employer think that they're overpaying you?

Is that 75th up or down?

75th up, i.e. 25% of the time you likely could find a better offer than Google, 75% of the time it'd be your best offer. I have no idea how they calibrate it.

What's really interesting is all of the 'ship jumpers' lamenting how much better it was at Microsoft.

That's not a jab at Microsoft. I was just thinking there must be something there with respect to employee benefits, or maybe just employee treatment, that other large companies may want to look at.

Out of curiosity, are there any ex-MSFT employees here that could tell us what you like or dislike about MSFT? I guess the most illustrative ideas might come from knowing what you MISSED when you left MSFT. If anything.

I think Microsoft has had longer to adjust to the fact that they're not the new hotness and is probably closer to recruiting / compensating accordingly.

You NAILED it.

I wrote about my internship experiences at Microsoft and Google a while back: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=227162>. What you say pretty much sums it up.

Google is just so used to being the hot cool shit and they haven't been large enough for long enough to realize that simply isn't true any more. Don't get me wrong, they are both incredible places to work, but Google needs to adjust to their new count and composition of employees.

Luckily, the original article is just one of many bits of proof that Google is aware of problems and is working to resolve them. Microsoft would never show this level of transparency for (the obviously justified) fear of these sorts of forum posts leaking.

When I was interning at Amazon a little while back I was quite surprised to hear from Google interns how little they were being paid (in comparison, the salary is still respectable). I'd always imagined Google to be the type that showered you in money/perks simply because of their Googliness.

Turns out they rely on the "but we're GOOGLE!" schtick a lot when hiring.

I can't say much for full time employees, but I've heard the exact opposite for interns. The Google interns I've spoken with all said Google was their best offer as far as compensation goes.

The people I know directly also got Google offers as good or better than anything else - keeping in mind this was 2+ years ago.

I got internship and full time SWE jobs at Google. They're competitive. About the same as Microsoft (though, they have better insurance and different tax situation), I'd say pay is comparable (I am getting quite a bit of income out of the food lets say). All in the last two years.

Microsoft has gone from the company that promised you the ability to never work again in 7 years to a place that's your usual 5pm parking lot traffic jam. Compared to those days, compensation has fallen off a cliff.

However, with respect to slinging code at any non-equity day gig, Microsoft's rates are great. Microsoft has a lot of Partnerships with other large companies that stretch their benefit package.

Put it another way, when I interviewed there and asked about compensation, the recruiter simply said, "You can still go to any dealership in the area and say, "I just got hired at Microsoft" and expect to be approved on the spot, regardless of past credit history."

I worked and left Microsoft in the past two years.

For some background -- I was always the 'linux guy' in school/college, trying my best to use non-MS alternatives, just out of purse spite for the 'big corporation’ I guess.

Anyway, I got a sweet offer straight out of college while I was rejected by Google (might have something to do with me having low GPA).

I worked at Microsoft for about 18 months. For me, the work environment, compensation and benefits were simply amazing.

The main reason I left was to pursue goals of doing independent software development which worked really well for me when I was in college. I found that work more satisfying and I wanted to do more of that.

What was your position there? Did your friends bust you a bit for going to work there as a Linux guy? :)

My position was SDET or "Software Design Engineer in Test". What the title means, how it interacts with other titles is fairly complicated and depends on the group. Overall though, the position was technical and involved coding which some people might assume it doesn't.

I did get a lot of flak for turning on my 'open source ideals' but I just ignored it and I learnt enough new things at my time at Microsoft to be convinced it was a good choice after college.

There was an interesting blog posting a while back about life at google from a "microsoftie" perspective:

http://no2google.wordpress.com/2007/06/24/life-at-google-the...

I worked in MS for 10 years and still work here and I think it can be a great place to work, with one caveat - it depends on the group. Microsoft is not a monolith and different groups have different managers, different cultures (values and expertise among peers), different customers, different business and are in different stages (e.g. mature product, young product, life support etc). Most discussions about life at Microsoft are bound to be characteristic of small number of groups and not necesarily representative.

The benefits are mostly the same across the board, and you can get those at glassdoor: http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/Microsoft-Salaries-E1651.h...

Yep, I heard the same thing about ms... it really depends on the group there. That's an understated important point to consider anywhere.

I strongly believe the "sweet zone" for headcount is somewhere around 200-500 employees. You can still make a difference, but at the same time you're not struggling with the day to day nuances of a 5-50 person startup. To sum it up:

You will get paid next week, you're no more than 2-3 levels removed from the CEO, and the fiefdoms don't have the coffers to squabble.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

Funny, I've heard of that before, but the correlation didn't strike me until I reread it. I remember it from when it was mentioned in the book "The Tipping Point".

That article mentions that Dunbar proposed 150, but the real count is probably closer to double that.

I think for a company, 150 is probably perfect. If the real number of relationships one person can maintain is 300, that grants an allowance of 50% of their maintainable relationships for both work and play.

That 150 number made me remember this nice, little compact, too nice story about Gore-Tex which was probably in 'The Tipping Point' (I don't remember):

"What is most unique about this company is that each company plant is no larger than 150. When constructing a plant, they put 150 spaces in the parking lot, and when people start parking on the grass, they know it's time for another plant. Each plant works as a group. There are no bosses. No titles. Salaries are determined collectively. No organization charts, no budgets, no elaborate strategic plans. Wilbert Gore - the late founder of the company, found through trial and error that 150 employees per plant was most ideal. "We found again and again that things get clumsy at a hundred and fifty," he told an interviewer some years ago"

http://www.commonsenseadvice.com/human_cortex_dunbar.html

Yup, that was The Tipping Point. Quite interesting...

I remember reading about a tech company 20 years or so ago (cant remember the name or industry) that attributed their success to splitting divisions in two when the head count exceeded 600. 600 was the maximum size where everyone knew everybody's name.

My experience is that 100 is a very good size to join. It's small enough that an individual can have an impact, that everyone knows who you are, that stock options mean something, and that you get paid every month.

Is it Gore-Tex maybe? I've read something like this in "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell.

This is a must-read.

Not surprisingly, they're on this list every year:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2008/sn...

No formal titles, egos are strongly discouraged and business units are divided when headcount goes over 100.

I think you are talking about BSO-Origin. I worked there for 4 years, and they called divisions "cells" for that reason. I think it worked wonderfully for IT services, and I wonder why other companies didn't adopt that model as well.

BSO-Origin also had something called "Environmental Accounting", where the environmental impact of each project was estimated, and a certain amount was re-invested in environmental projects.

The founder (Eckart Wintzen) was a true visionnaire, and unfortunately he passed away recently. Here is a great article about him, back from the 90s:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.11/es_wintzen_pr.html

Google could be nothing, but disappointment from the way it's built up. It's seen as this magical place where work does itself and things flow so perfectly. The fact is that at Google, most people are going to have to slog away somewhat tedious things like making context ads match their page content 0.1% better. It's not all fun, change the world Gmail and such. Most of it isn't the interesting stuff that we see. That's not really what makes Google, Google. What makes Google what we see is that relentless pursuit of increasingly tiny increases in efficiency. Sure, they had great theoretical ideas like BigTable, PageRank, etc. but what made something like PageRank work was that they didn't stop - they kept making ever more tiny increases in accuracy in a way that could become quite tedious to program and test.

You also tend not to get a full view of things at Google. If you're in backend engineering, that's what you work on. I know that I like seeing the full product and knowing that I've worked on what the users are going to see.

> What makes Google what we see is that relentless pursuit of increasingly tiny increases in efficiency.

Absolutely. This fact is literally in the comapany's dna. A lot of issues that were mentioned in that article are a direct result of this.

I'd be curious to know how this affects all of the startups they acquire that remain dormant for so long.

"... most people are going to have to slog away somewhat tedious things like making context ads match their page content 0.1% better."

I'm not sure why you think that the 0.1% improvments are assumed to be a tedious slog. They may have required some seriously interesting new ML techniques just to get that extra boost. Recall the Netflix recommendation algorithm improvement contest that had teams working very hard to get those last fractions of a percent.

Small adjustments to a huge system can have huge impact: http://norvig.com/speech.html

Everything I read here I can relate to with big companies. It seems once companies reach that 1000 employee mark the culture changes drastically. I can also relate to how going from a private to public company can impact employee "life". Not that money is necessarily tight or the company can not afford the "perks" they once gave to employees as a private company, but with being public comes added scrutiny and greater sense of needing to be responsible with spending. The average Joe investor does not want to hear that employees are enjoying free meals when his stock drops $1.00.

On the other hand though, from reading these emails it seems most of these people went to work at Google with a preconceived notion that it was going to be different and that somehow Google was going to be this theme park environment. As with any job at any company it is what you make of it. If you take a job solely because you think you are going to eat/drink free everyday, have daily live entertainment, and going to work is going to be fun then you are taking the job for the wrong reasons. Work should be fun, but you need to make it fun and not rely on the company or the culture to make it fun for you.

As for salaries, while I do not know exactly Google's salaries, I would be willing to bet that they are extremely competitive. I do know that a starting salary is most often highly negotiable and the people that tend to complain about receiving a low salary are the ones who go in expecting to be offered some godly amount right from the start. The other thing you have to weigh is the benefits or perks in relation to the salary. For example, if you get to eat lunch and dinner free every day at the office then you are saving around $10-20 a day in food. That adds up to over $200 a month or probably around $3000 a year in extra compensation you are receiving. Just like the one person did comparing the job at Google to buying a luxury car with all the fancy options and extra cup holders, you have to compare the salary plus perks to your current salary with no perks.

I have been there, not with Google, but with a startup. I went from government contracting, to a small startup as a very early employee, and then to Microsoft, and back to startup life. I can say that once you are bit by startup life it is tough to move to a big company like Google or Microsoft and be truly happy. The culture is not the same and to expect it to be is ridiculous. That is why I am back in startup life now. It is fun, fast, and everyday is a new adventure.

It's actually $3,000 in after-tax (federal, state, and SS) dollars, so it is really closer to a $5-6,000 difference in base salary, as long as you are a glutton.

yeah, but it kind of sucks thinking about it as part of your salary, because then you feel like you're throwing money away if you don't stay for dinner every night. Sometimes you just want to eat with your friends and family.

yes, that is definitely a downside when you don't or are unable to take advantage of the perks. That is where negotiating your salary comes into play though. If you know that you are not going to be staying for dinner then negotiate up for that extra $2000-3000 to get it back.

i feel the same way about taxes though. I pay them and half the things they go to I never use. I wish I could negotiate them with them government better :)

I think you can substitute google for any other >1000+ company and most of this would ring true. Managing thousands of people in getting things done quickly and where people feel productive is a very hard problem.

I think that jives with people's expectations when they go to work for other mega-companies though. It seems people going to Google too often assume that the rules really will be drastically different there.

There were a couple posts a while ago about the Semco management style which felt like a much better solution than the traditional vertical hierarchy. I would have thought Google would be a lot flatter as an organization.

Google is very flat by reputation, but that is not an unequivocal good. If your manager is also managing 50 other people, to the extent that you would benefit from management you are probably not getting those benefits.

All of the big silicon valley companies claim to be "flat." When I started at Yahoo!, all I heard about was how flat the organization was. Doesn't mean it's true.

Indeed.

The number of times a product idea was sent from an SVP to the divison VP who forwarded it to the group head of product who forwarded this with the note added "SVP wants this done by the end of the day" was more than I'd even like to think about.

Employees normally quit their Managers.

This is a good point I think many people are overlooking. (Full disclosure - I work at Google now.) Your project matters too. People working for great managers on things like search algorithms, Android or open source initiatives are much more likely to love their job. People working for managers they hate on things like Orkut, ATS, or cross-browser compatibility testing are much more likely to leave.

In a company as big as Google, different employees can have very different experiences. When you read this group set up for employees who quit, you're seeing the least happy segment of the employee population. I know it doesn't work out for everyone, but I think the average Google employee really likes their job, and I would recommend working there to any programmer who was thinking about it.

Just my 2 cents.

I would imagine orkut dev is being done by Google India, otherwise it is gonna be frustrating, just like you can't make a shop in India work on Facebook: because none of your friends are using it!

Orkut dev in Mountain View had a lot of Indian engineers. They've since moved all dev work to Brazil and India.

Orkut was initially developed in Mountain View and I know for some people it was a frustrating job for exactly the reason you describe. I am not sure but I think it is primarily developed in Brazil now (where Orkut is very popular).

Is there a big company that has solved or at least significantly reduced any or all of these problems?

They seem to come with the territory, which is one of the reasons why startups always have a chance.

I'm surprised by the comments about low salaries. From the public records, it certainly looks like Google pays somewhat higher salaries. The difference though is that there is a huge variance.

http://envy.appspot.com/?q=microsoft|google&title=softwa...

The issue with reports like these is that it is a biased audience. It could very well be that only the people who had low salaries posted their comments on the website.

"You will fail in a boring and project specific way"

Corollary: and then you will blame it on something else

I mean, who really quits their job because of the copayments on their health insurance?

The only reason I am considering leaving my job is compensation. I make around 2/3 of what I could at another companies now the benefits are nice but typical for large companies. For now I think it's reasonable but if they reduced the benefits so I needed to pay more out of pocket I would defiantly leave.

Sounds to me like you are already ready to leave. I'm guessing it's just the poor economy that is keeping you from wanting to search for another job right now.

No so much, I really like my job. I gave up 5k/ year to work here because it was prestigious and good for my career. Now I got a promotion, but not much of a pay raise so I could be making even more. But, I am surrounded by smart people, it's low stress, I work 40 hours a week, and I spend 90% of my time developing so it's nice.

I think co-payments are a good thing. There has to be some disincentive to over-treatment.

This could be said for any company. I worked at company "X", where middle managers and coworkers pissed me off too. Desicions would get pushed around and I felt hugely disalussioned and ineffective. It's not surprising Google is the same way. What is striking is how quickly people left Google was. I've heard all the rest about low salary, but there bonus package is awesome if you're an engineer. So I've heard.

This makes me feel like I wasn't alone as a few people mentioned in the article. I think if you're ever to work at a large company again, you should set realistic expectations for what it is. It's great otherwise having the security, benefits and other amenities... but it's not for everyone as I suspect it wasn't for these people. Just as being at a startup isn't for the kinda people who find success in large companies.

I think most people have realised that there's no security at large corporations.

For recent proof, look at the thousands laid off at many large corporations (google, yahoo, ms, etc).

Its basically grass is greener on the other side syndrome...people have built up Google in their minds, and it just couldn't live up to their expectations

> ...people have built up Google in their minds

If that was the case, shouldn't the exact opposite happen? The Subject-Expectancy Effect states that a person's expectations directly influences their views.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject-expectancy_effect

I don't think expectations has much to do with it. Very few people (Issara, Lilly) actually referred to expectations at Google. There is a recurring theme of employees complaining about management/bureaucracy, salary, hiring, and job satisfaction.

Even though you said "basically", it seemed to me like you are generalizing too much (sorry if I'm wrong and hypocritical). Some people (search for Aaron on the page) got a job there out of necessity, not purely open choice.

I would really be interested in seeing attrition rates for engineers and non-engineers. Sales guys are the revenue producers almost anywhere else, and as such, are favored in the way that Google stereotypically favors their engineers. I know that this was the Kirkland office, as well, and there's always something about moving from HQ to a satellite office that's probably captured in the sentiment expressed.

It may be just me, but I was continually irked by the thread's subject line: "So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously."

I mean, seriously, it doesn't even make sensed!

See also: Why Video Game Company Employees Quit

A lot of the reasons here are similar: disenfranchisement, low pay, long hours, crappy benefits (though this is not true at all for some companies). Also, unlike Google, there is usually very low job security and you sometimes have to accept a semi-nomadic lifestyle.

GASP A JOB AT GOOGLE IS A JOB?!!!

Lay off the caps lock and excessive punctuation, no need to yell around here.

Looks to me like the caps lock and excessive punctuation were intended ironically. Which may or may not justify them, but the problem isn't a failure to realise that there's "no need to yell around here".

The yelling will turn a polite conversation into digg. And sarcasm doesn't make it any less so, it actually compounds the problem.

I sure wish there was a NH filter that would enable me to /ignore any TechCrunch sourced articles…

The parenthetical indication of source domain after every submission to HN works pretty well for me. Some sources I ignore regularly, and others (TechCrunch is one) I ignore selectively.

For Greasemonkey: http://internetducttape.com/2008/05/23/filtering-reddit-and-...

>And let me say this: if Larry Page is still reviewing resumes, shareholders should organize a rebellion. That is a scandalous waste of time for someone at that level, and the fact that it’s “quirky” is no mitigation.

Regarding this quote, I'm not so sure. Delegation and hands-off management is important and necessary indeed, and I loathe micromanagement no matter which end I'm on, but I think that hiring would be my most closely guarded and reviewed process. Employees are the weakest link, the ultimate valuation; you can have fancy processes or equipment or a lot of hype, but the real value of your company ultimately boils down to the work force -- the capability of yourself and the people backing you up to deliver, maintain, and evolve your money-makers.

I actually developed this concept while working at a medium-sized (revenue-wise) niche company. The company was impaired because nobody cared about the bigger picture; we were all just office workers doing our office jobs and trying to push through without killing ourselves. Inter-departmental relationships were tense and there was no cohesion or overarching social glue between the groups, and no understanding managers in between, which led to animosity between obviously less-valued departments and obviously more-valued departments. It was a sad place to work, but it only had about 200 employees. I found this sad.

There should be no peons; every employee is an important contributor (or the job shouldn't exist) and every employee should be well-screened and found to be competent for their position and somewhat like-minded with the rest of the force on foundational issues (i.e., no disengaged, uninvolved typical office workers, only people who generally respect but never fear management and direction, ideally someone who thinks the company's revenue generators are enthralling, etc.). You need the kind of people who will push things forward, the kind of people willing to call their managers out, people who will provide mini-revolutions in product and process development for years to come. People who cultivate conviction, respect, and love, and constitute best-in-class performers.

Your company is only as good as your people. Your "company" is a company, consisting of the company your entity employs and regularly keeps, not a soulless, faceless, independent, autonomous corporate machine. Any corporation operated at the "machine level" and not the "company level" is just a story in systemic and institutionalized inefficiency, corruption, and incompetence. Companies operated are breeding grounds for corruption and greed and their ugly consequences, and eventually begin to falter, and do so until someone cognizant of this takes over and starts to turn things around by bringing in new, high-caliber, high-vision employees and keeping them motivated in the right ways.

In autonomous corporate world, inefficiency and unhappiness are the hallmarks. In good world, employees and employers care about each other and care about their work, contribute and share openly, and push their sector forward, setting new records for morale, efficiency, innovation, and profits.

I think if I were Larry Page, I wouldn't waste time with BS like resumes, but I would interview every candidate, and refuse a permanent hire until I was confident that their thought process and personal style was conducive to the overall goals of a non-evil company.

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