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Heh. I had this conversation with a Google recruiter (paraphrased): GR: "Hey, you seem perfect for a position I have in mind. Want to chat?" Me: "Sure. What's

• RyanMcGreal 17y ago
  I understand that people at Google are allowed to work on whatever project they want, at any time. If an employee working on project X decides they want to switch and work on project Y instead, they just inform their manager and then make the switch. If you assume that: a) people are most productive doing something they're passionate about; and b) the set of Google employees is smart and creative enough that what they want to work on is probably the right thing to work on; then this is probably the optimum method of allocating developer resources.
  • adamhowell 17y ago
    Before I arrived I was told that it used to work somewhat this way way back when. But while I was there it did not -- for the simple reason that it doesn't scale and just isn't practical. Gmail can't take on a dozen new engineers every week, nor can it lose a handful of crucial engineers. You're encouraged to move on to another project every 18 months or so, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen too often, either.
    • RyanMcGreal 17y ago
      You've shattered my dreams. :) Thanks for the clarification. The ad hoc manner in which many projects roll out at google, it almost seems as though they're still following the previous method; but I suppose that it could also be a function of management deciding to jump when a 20% project bears fruit.