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Comment by gmjosack | Hacker News Reader

I worked at Google from 2010 to 2012, just under two years, as an SRE. Google was a great company to work for and the people I worked with were all awesome.

I ultimately left Google because I felt bored working there. You admin systems and fill out resource request through web browsers and work with proprietary stacks all day. It didn't take long to feel my skills as a Linux professional start to atrophy. The longer I stayed the more concerned I became about passing interviews in the rest of the industry as I became a Google engineer.

I often miss the tools I had at Google but it's exciting building those tools at smaller companies and working with industry best practices.

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Funny, I have this same concern working for a government organization.

Except for the "reasonable salary" part.

The GS payscale is a bit unforgiving for very early career technical folks, but regular pay raises, step increases, and grade advancement catches up later on.

Although congress has been pretty stingy with the "regular pay raises" over the last few years.

> I often miss the tools I had at Google but it's exciting building those tools at smaller companies

Interesting. Could you tell a little more about these tools? Which ones do you miss most, and why?

I agree. This seems like a great topic for a blog post.

ie. they have such an extreme scale that often what's best for them is also unique to them, so doesn't really work/apply/be-appreciated anywhere else. They want sharp folks. But because so many, and because folks at top are so sharp, and because their scale is so gigantic, they want sharp drones. Color inside the lines, just really really really fast and perfect. Getting something 1% wrong costs them millions more than otherwise. Which is different than the mindset of the vast majority of other companies where getting something even 91% right means making millions of dollars more for the shareholders, than otherwise. The rest is details.

Google seems perfect for two kinds of programmers/engineers:

1. you are 20-something, white or Asian, fresh out of college, Jewish/Stanford/Ivy/otherwise-2nd-gen-pampered-background, male, maybe still in college or 1st startup AND you are willing to move anywhere they want, do anything they tell you, you have no spouse, no kids, no ill parents, no local geo investments, no major illnesses, not multi-careered, you're still impressed by Shiny/Words, etc.

2. you are 30/40-ish but now established as a Major Name (Linus, Vint, Guido, etc.) and/or owner of a company Google wants to buy, and therefore $M+ talks loudly

if you don't fit (approximately) into one of those two boxes, then Google is a non-ideal fit for you

META: downvote me all you want HN, I do not care what the GroupMind's Allowed Opinion algorithm here thinks anymore

How about category 3: 30+, has a family, wants a stable job with good pay, but not crazy hours?

good point. reasonable. the making of generalizations does not outlaw other generalized groups or categories.

an entire side discussion about Bayes predictions could be entered here. where having a few rough rules would yield a 90% beneficial prediction. add a 2nd rule or exception boosts your yield to 95%. add a 3rd rule/exception boosts your yield to 97%. and so on...

Ding ding ding! That's me to a T. I'm in my early 30s, with a family, and just started in MTV this past Monday. I spent 11 years at a small company in Cleveland, and had reached the top of the engineering ladder there. Had the opportunity to move out to Silicon Valley, where I have much more varied career prospects if I decide Google isn't for me after my shares vest.

On my team are two very experienced engineers (one's been at Google for longer than all but 38 employees), and it will be a great opportunity to learn from some really great people and grow my skills, which had been stagnating due to lack of challenge at my last company.

There was never any pressure at my last job to work crazy hours, so that wasn't really a factor in moving per se; but Google is big on work-life balance, which is super important to me.

Why does your race matter in the first point?

observation of reality. not theory. not wish/want/should/ought. actual reality.

trust me, if you're smart and wise then the older you get you should be getting more and more reality-based in your decisions. not theory. not ideal. not PC. reality.

Do you have any data to support that?

Google has their own page on employee diversity:

http://www.google.com/diversity/index.html#chart

If you click the "Tech" tab, they self-report as 59% White, 35% Asian, 2% Hispanic, 1% Black. Note that the ethnicity data is US-only (the gender data is global).

That a lot of white and Asian people work there isn't evidence that it is only a good place for white and Asian people to work there, however.

Indeed, you'd need to ask non-white, non-Asian employees about their experiences there.

Here's a post from November 2014 about a black woman's experience at Google: https://medium.com/thelist/the-other-side-of-diversity-1bb3d...

It's a very interesting read, I recommend it.

>Indeed, you'd need to ask non-white, non-Asian employees about their experiences there.

Well, seeing as I am a non-white non-Asian former Google employee....

Using "you" in the indefinite sense. :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you

Also note the survey of non-Google experiences in that article. Google vs the rest of the for-profit tech biz is one question, business vs non-profit?/charity is another.

Non profits and charities can discriminate far easier than a for profit business.

Interesting link (even if it is a rather depressing confirmation of typical white tech-worker douchebagginess).

The wording of:

> When I transferred to my second team there, Desktop Support, diversity lightning struck: I was a black woman reporting to another black woman in a technical role. Moreover, our team was predominantly black.

strikes me as a bit funny. Clearly "diversity lightning" implies an interesting chance outcome, facilitated by the possibility of there being similar people around, but "a black woman reporting to a black woman, in a predominantly black team" is stretching "diversity" to mean non-white (or more probably, non-white, non-male, non-gay).

I completely understand (in an entirely outside-looking-in way) the authors perspective -- but in my book a "diversity success story" would've been if the co-workers at Google hadn't been close-minded fucks, pardon the expression.

Now, I still think positive (hiring) discrimination is one of the best ways to achieve a mixed/diverse team, and that in turn is one cornerstone for a diverse and tolerant culture.

But sometimes you find yourself in the cultural stone age, and it's hard to see a good way out. Sounds like Google California was one such place -- not just due to Google, but apparently due to something (real equal opportunity) missing from higher education in the US in general?

Others might also find:

https://medium.com/@ericajoy/seeking-happy-58a2a375340a

relevant, interesting. And a bit more positive to boot.

Basically it comes down to her not feeling comfortable being around a majority of whites and asians and she feels that she has to change her whole personality just s others like her more.

She also prefers to be around blacks, preferably black women.

This has little to do with Google though.

Google is rather corporate and thus it's only for people willing to adapt a corporate personality during the day - often in combination with a rather conservative physical appearance.

Cornrows and overly casual probably wouldn't fly too well in the head office, no matter if you're black, white or asian.

She should just get another job.

Agree. I've spent a lot of time in tech, biotech and hanging around the medical community and it's no secret that certain racial & ethnic groups are overrepresented here in the US vs the standard population.

Why that is and if that's something to be concerned about are separate questions which I think are out of scope here, but it certainly doesn't necessarily imply that you need to conform to have an enjoyable work experience.

Thanks for the link. I don't however see any evidence to support the initial assumption that it's "perfect" for those races.

Your race has nothing to do with whether or not it's a good place to work as far as happiness goes. I am about as anti-PC as it gets. I can see you are a jaded individual but that's no excuse to post garbage that has no credible evidence backing it.

Probably just observation.

I've been to google campus on Mt. View and LAX Google (which is really in Venice...).

They're mostly Asian and White. On a Saturday I was visiting a buddy and I swear it was 90% Asian.

Race doesn't really matter, it just that it happen to be there are just many Asian and White in the tech fields.

Since this guy has no clue, let me clarify as someone who worked at Google until recently:

Any Google employee who spews something like "Google is perfect if you are 20-something, white or Asian, Jewish/blah blah background male..." will be (with high probability) asked by his[1] coworkers WTF he is talking about, and would he please shut up or learn to open his mouth without insulting his coworkers. If the behavior continues, it may or may not result in disciplinary action, though the consensus seemed that there aren't enough disciplinary action. (I guess it depends on who you ask.)

Contrary to popular conception, Google employs a lot of thoughtful people and they want to make their workplace a better place to live and work.

[1] I'd normally say "their", but it seems "his" here is more coherent with my... "observation of reality."

May I ask which Google location you were/are located at?

Mountain View. (DISCLAIMER: It's a vast office space, so different part of the organization might have different cultures. My perception is from my personal experience as well as from reading through internal Google+, mailing lists, etc.)

Hearing this from a korean that moved to US is funny :-)

"Any Google employee who spews something like" -- I don't see that he was commenting on what Google employees say.

While I didn't love your tone throughout, I downvoted for the "META" comment.

I'm glad that you spoke your mind however unpopular even though I disagree with some of your findings/conclusions but it's really brave of you to stand up to the downvote goons on HN that all they care about is social engineering, suppressing free speech and stifling constructive debate.

It might apply to some positions like SRE, but surely for an engineer working on one of their mobiles apps, there are still many problems to solve.

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