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> I love reading about Google's systems, but I wish I could work on those problems at scale, that is my dream really. I wonder what more systems Google has that
by rifung 7y ago
> I love reading about Google's systems, but I wish I could work on those problems at scale, that is my dream really. I wonder what more systems Google has that we don't know about.
I work for Google and I used to have this exact thought too. I think the reality is not quite as rosy, though far from bad!
You have to realize that there are hundreds of people who work on systems like this, and as a consequence, your day to day work is more or less the same as what you would do on systems of a smaller scale.
Before I joined Google I always wondered what things they did differently and what magical knowledge Googlers must have possessed. After joining I realized that while on average the engineers are definitely more capable than other places I've worked, there's no special wisdom and instead they just have more powerful primitives/tools to work with.
Of course, maybe I am mistaken and just don't know of the magic?
- ikiris 7y agoThere's still plenty of opportunity to do things at scale and change or replace major systems entirely.
- ngrilly 7y ago> there's no special wisdom and instead they just have more powerful primitives/tools to work with Reminds me of compound interests. Google operates at a scale where the company has enough brainpower to design systems like GFS/Colossus and Borg, which enable systems like Spanner, which enable systems like Zanzibar, and so on.
- fierro 7y agothis is correct