ExGoogTA88

What I mean was that I saw no middle - people working okay hours and enjoying themselves. You had motivated people producing good work with decent load but hating it, like me. Or people not caring and coasting doing little work - also like me when I got depressed from the work. And people super stressed and burning out. But I saw no happy people.

> Either you are trying to rank up or you're not trying to rank up.

I've seen coasting people getting promoted, and hard working people not getting promoted. But you could be hard working and not stressed is my point. I know because I've been there. I've even been there at Google for a short while. I ran a cool project, people were nice, work was interesting, it wasn t stressful at all but it was challenging. Sadly it didn't last long.

I'd settle for at least feeling like my time on earth is not wasted and my talents are appreciated. I completely felt that in jobs before Google and I'm feeling it right now in my post-Google job at another FAANG (but it could be because I'm at a more senior role and it's a honeymoon phase)

Probably. But I feel like there's something in Google's current culture that leads to this. I've mostly had these conversations with people from the search and cloud PAs. Could be different in other orgs. Maybe I just got extremely lucky with my pre-Goog jobs that were ultra satisfying and challenging in a good way, I just had a blast coming to work every day and doing the work.

For sure, that's the upside of working there. Every aspect of my life outside of career satisfaction improved considerably - I relocated to the US, was able to buy a house, my work life balance got a lot better compared to working at startups, etc. But as a job in and of itself it was pretty lame (apart from a few periods that were fun). The thing is, I feel like that's true for most people there.

Recent Xoogler here. I've never met anyone who was actually happy at Google when you sat them down for an honest talk. Everyone was either coasting and depressed/disengaged, or overworked and stressed (I would say 80% were the former). People were frustrated about the bureaucracy, the promo process, the slow pace, the meaninglessness of the work an individual IC does, the stress for managers. Even on a super sexy project dealing with cutting edge AI that got tons of press coverage, everyone was frustrated. This company has a serious cultural issue.