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I find this interesting. While Google's culture and perks are fetishized in any sort of online thread, I haven't heard much about Netflix. As an outsider, all I

by rocgf 9y ago

I find this interesting. While Google's culture and perks are fetishized in any sort of online thread, I haven't heard much about Netflix. As an outsider, all I have heard is that there is a lot of pressure to deliver, or otherwise you're out. Genuinely curious, what is better at Netflix vs. Google?

drewg123 9y ago
The basic difference is that Netflix still feels like a small company, in terms of bureaucracy and management overhead. At my level (Senior SWE, promoted to Staff SWE), Google was a place of secrecy verging on paranoia, endless meetings, and insanely huge amounts of process. You had to really work hard to get things done across organizations. Most people were just a cog in the machine, cranking stuff out. The meetings were huge, because all stakeholders needed to feel represented. Google was my first big company, and I'm sure others are worse. But Google was kind of a shock. At Netflix, most groups develop their own process. If you see a problem, you go fix it. If you see an opportunity for improvement, you just do it. There is a lot more independent work, and a lot more small collaborations, especially across organizations. I think most of this comes down to the Google "fungible SWE" concept vs the Netflix "Freedom and Responsibility" culture. For a concrete example, I had a bigger impact at Netflix in my first few weeks than I did in my entire career at Google. Within my first week at Google, I was still taking "new employee" classes and trying to sort out how to use the several different code repos my org used. Within my first week at Netflix, I'd identified and fixed a small regression in our FreeBSD TCP stack that was costing us 3-5% CPU across our CDN. The one thing that sums up the different cultures is business travel. At Google (at least when I was there), you needed to find airfare and hotel that was at or below the median price paid by other Googlers. If you didn't, you needed to get your VP to sign off on your travel expenses. At Netflix, you book things yourself, looking out for the best interests of the company, and submit your expense report & get reimbursed 48hrs later. The food was much better at Google, though. And I really miss TGIF, eng-misc, and memegen.
- rocgf 9y ago
  Awesome reply, thank you!

by rocgf 9y ago

drewg123 9y ago

The basic difference is that Netflix still feels like a small company, in terms of bureaucracy and management overhead. At my level (Senior SWE, promoted to Staff SWE), Google was a place of secrecy verging on paranoia, endless meetings, and insanely huge amounts of process. You had to really work hard to get things done across organizations. Most people were just a cog in the machine, cranking stuff out. The meetings were huge, because all stakeholders needed to feel represented. Google was my first big company, and I'm sure others are worse. But Google was kind of a shock. At Netflix, most groups develop their own process. If you see a problem, you go fix it. If you see an opportunity for improvement, you just do it. There is a lot more independent work, and a lot more small collaborations, especially across organizations. I think most of this comes down to the Google "fungible SWE" concept vs the Netflix "Freedom and Responsibility" culture. For a concrete example, I had a bigger impact at Netflix in my first few weeks than I did in my entire career at Google. Within my first week at Google, I was still taking "new employee" classes and trying to sort out how to use the several different code repos my org used. Within my first week at Netflix, I'd identified and fixed a small regression in our FreeBSD TCP stack that was costing us 3-5% CPU across our CDN. The one thing that sums up the different cultures is business travel. At Google (at least when I was there), you needed to find airfare and hotel that was at or below the median price paid by other Googlers. If you didn't, you needed to get your VP to sign off on your travel expenses. At Netflix, you book things yourself, looking out for the best interests of the company, and submit your expense report & get reimbursed 48hrs later. The food was much better at Google, though. And I really miss TGIF, eng-misc, and memegen.

rocgf 9y ago
Awesome reply, thank you!