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Honestly as a Googler I neither saw nor needed the vision of Larry, Sergey, Eric, Sundar, or anyone else except maybe Urs, Jeff, and Sanjay. I mean I worked on

Honestly as a Googler I neither saw nor needed the vision of Larry, Sergey, Eric, Sundar, or anyone else except maybe Urs, Jeff, and Sanjay. I mean I worked on the C++ toolchain. Making a bitchin' compiler is its own reward. I guess things are different on product teams?

whoisjuan 8y ago
Your work is crucial for the foundation of whatever Google builds. Unfortunately just like in construction, having a good foundation doesn’t mean that what gets build on top is the right thing.
- shereadsthenews 8y ago
  Well I think of it more like carpentry. I can build a beautiful house and not get upset later that the owner sits on the couch watching game shows on tv all day. Similarly it doesn’t have to bother me that the result of all my optimizations at Google was they had more capacity to let a computer play Starcraft against itself for fifty million CPU-years. Just does not concern me at all as long as my paycheck didn’t bounce.
  - antpls 8y ago
    Are you saying you have no ethic at all ? Are you comparing yourself to an independent carpenter ? An independent carpenter would be like a mercenary, who first works to earn money, and then eventually selects his/her clients according to his/her own vision. A carpenter working for a big corporation would wonder what is the vision of the company, what is he contributing to, beyond the delivering of the building, imo
    - shereadsthenews 8y ago
      No, but I am saying that I don’t need any executive “vision” to motivate my work, especially when the executive vision is obviously insipid, like it was with Vic Gundotra and G+. It is motivating enough for me if search gets 10% faster every year. If you hook your motivations to corporate figureheads then you’ll eventually find yourself without any reason to go to work.
      - antpls 8y ago
        If you are a Google employee and you don't care about the executive visions, you are a living proof that Google is made of people who don't even understand what they are working for, beside having a good salary imo. When you work for a corporation, you are supposed to embrace (and consent to) the company's goal, which is defined by the top level. Having a search "10% faster every year" looks like a narrow-minded KPI without awarness of a greater purpose. If you are happy, fine, but I think some people would trade your happiness for their freedom and privacy
        shereadsthenews 8y ago
        You obviously have some kind of very very dull axe to grind. I happen to think that universal search of all knowledge is a thing of significant benefit to humanity.
        havetocharge 8y ago
        There is absolutely no requirement for adoption of any ideology in an at-will employment environment.
    - taheca 8y ago
      I feel it's my duty to insert this here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQdDRrcAOjA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQdDRrcAOjA
azurezyq 8y ago
I work for cloud products. I cannot say much about others, but at least urs is the best technical infrastructure leader but not a good choice for cloud leader. Many people on customer engineering side also share the same feeling with me. Business is complicated. You cannot be narcissus forever.
- simonebrunozzi 8y ago
  I'm considering applying there. Any hint/help? username @ gmail. Thanks.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - bseidensticker 8y ago
    Read cracking the coding interview and do a few problems from each section. Make sure to cover dynamic programming. I spent about a month and I was very well prepared.
    - tjpnz 8y ago
      You'll need to do significantly more than just that.
  - simonebrunozzi 8y ago
    Really, downvoted? What the crap is going on?
saurabh20n 8y ago
Honest question: does the current Google have the environment to innovate on the next generation of compilers/PL/program synthesizers? I would have definitely said yes back in the day; but not so sure now. (Admittedly might be biased. I'm the founder of Synthetic Minds. We're building program synthesizers; basically all compilers work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19059922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19059922)
- shereadsthenews 8y ago
  No I don’t think Google is on the forefront of that type of thing. It’s more of a practical craft. There may be people doing interesting PL research at Google but they aren’t in the language platform team. That said these are probably some of the tightest, safest, and best-tested large-scale C++ programs ever.
  - saurabh20n 8y ago
    Agree with the scale. But do you mean the compilers toolchain is the largest/safest; or the overall C++ codebase. No questions about the latter, but would be surprised if you meant the former. Out of curiosity: if not the language platform team, then which team does PL research? My email is in my profile of you'd rather ping there.
apathy 8y ago
Urs and Jeff were amazing. Something has changed though. Granted it’s been 15 years since I worked there, but some of the incredible spark that used to be there seems to have gone out.
- vl 8y ago
  Urs is good engineering manager, but bad business manager. So while he was managing TechInfra, it was ok, once he started to manage Cloud, it wasn't. Interestingly, he is smart enough to realize it, this is why he hired Diane, who managed business side at least more competently. But it looks like Diane didn't demonstrate enough liberal virtue with her support for DoD contracts and got kicked out. Now they hired Oracle dude to replace her, most likely not a great culture fit.

whoisjuan 8y ago

Your work is crucial for the foundation of whatever Google builds. Unfortunately just like in construction, having a good foundation doesn’t mean that what gets build on top is the right thing.

shereadsthenews 8y ago
Well I think of it more like carpentry. I can build a beautiful house and not get upset later that the owner sits on the couch watching game shows on tv all day. Similarly it doesn’t have to bother me that the result of all my optimizations at Google was they had more capacity to let a computer play Starcraft against itself for fifty million CPU-years. Just does not concern me at all as long as my paycheck didn’t bounce.
- antpls 8y ago
  Are you saying you have no ethic at all ? Are you comparing yourself to an independent carpenter ? An independent carpenter would be like a mercenary, who first works to earn money, and then eventually selects his/her clients according to his/her own vision. A carpenter working for a big corporation would wonder what is the vision of the company, what is he contributing to, beyond the delivering of the building, imo
  - shereadsthenews 8y ago
    No, but I am saying that I don’t need any executive “vision” to motivate my work, especially when the executive vision is obviously insipid, like it was with Vic Gundotra and G+. It is motivating enough for me if search gets 10% faster every year. If you hook your motivations to corporate figureheads then you’ll eventually find yourself without any reason to go to work.
    - antpls 8y ago
      If you are a Google employee and you don't care about the executive visions, you are a living proof that Google is made of people who don't even understand what they are working for, beside having a good salary imo. When you work for a corporation, you are supposed to embrace (and consent to) the company's goal, which is defined by the top level. Having a search "10% faster every year" looks like a narrow-minded KPI without awarness of a greater purpose. If you are happy, fine, but I think some people would trade your happiness for their freedom and privacy
      - shereadsthenews 8y ago
        You obviously have some kind of very very dull axe to grind. I happen to think that universal search of all knowledge is a thing of significant benefit to humanity.
      - havetocharge 8y ago
        There is absolutely no requirement for adoption of any ideology in an at-will employment environment.
  - taheca 8y ago
    I feel it's my duty to insert this here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQdDRrcAOjA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQdDRrcAOjA

azurezyq 8y ago

I work for cloud products. I cannot say much about others, but at least urs is the best technical infrastructure leader but not a good choice for cloud leader. Many people on customer engineering side also share the same feeling with me. Business is complicated. You cannot be narcissus forever.

simonebrunozzi 8y ago
I'm considering applying there. Any hint/help? username @ gmail. Thanks.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bseidensticker 8y ago
  Read cracking the coding interview and do a few problems from each section. Make sure to cover dynamic programming. I spent about a month and I was very well prepared.
  - tjpnz 8y ago
    You'll need to do significantly more than just that.
- simonebrunozzi 8y ago
  Really, downvoted? What the crap is going on?

saurabh20n 8y ago

Honest question: does the current Google have the environment to innovate on the next generation of compilers/PL/program synthesizers? I would have definitely said yes back in the day; but not so sure now. (Admittedly might be biased. I'm the founder of Synthetic Minds. We're building program synthesizers; basically all compilers work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19059922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19059922)

shereadsthenews 8y ago
No I don’t think Google is on the forefront of that type of thing. It’s more of a practical craft. There may be people doing interesting PL research at Google but they aren’t in the language platform team. That said these are probably some of the tightest, safest, and best-tested large-scale C++ programs ever.
- saurabh20n 8y ago
  Agree with the scale. But do you mean the compilers toolchain is the largest/safest; or the overall C++ codebase. No questions about the latter, but would be surprised if you meant the former. Out of curiosity: if not the language platform team, then which team does PL research? My email is in my profile of you'd rather ping there.

apathy 8y ago

Urs and Jeff were amazing. Something has changed though. Granted it’s been 15 years since I worked there, but some of the incredible spark that used to be there seems to have gone out.

vl 8y ago
Urs is good engineering manager, but bad business manager. So while he was managing TechInfra, it was ok, once he started to manage Cloud, it wasn't. Interestingly, he is smart enough to realize it, this is why he hired Diane, who managed business side at least more competently. But it looks like Diane didn't demonstrate enough liberal virtue with her support for DoD contracts and got kicked out. Now they hired Oracle dude to replace her, most likely not a great culture fit.