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As a counter-point, I worked at Google for two years and what the author is describing is completely consistent with my experience with the engineering culture

As a counter-point, I worked at Google for two years and what the author is describing is completely consistent with my experience with the engineering culture and the systems it produces. Fundamentally there is a hostility towards the philosophical aspect of software engineering which involves a careful consideration of the essential nature of the system as a whole as it relates to some ultimate end and the nature of logical components of the system and how they interact. Note that these considerations can occur prior to any code being written and also as part of an iterative process as the product and understanding of the product develops. I believe this stems from three sources: 1. The criteria and process for getting promoted is very focused on shipping new and complex things which in practice is at the exclusion of all other considerations. This means that improving or maintaining existing systems or producing systems which are well architected at all is not as clearly valued. The promo committee is comprised of people who don't know the specifics of the systems you're working on so the easiest thing to convey is that feature X or product Y was shipped. 2. There is a hyper-rationalist, hyper-modernist, data-driven, anti-intuitionist view which pervades Google which completely discounts any sort of philosophical/qualitative thinking. People get really uncomfortable when you try to start even the most anodyne discussion about the product or service as it relates to some broader goal since those involve qualitative judgements that can't be reduced down a set of metrics. Some of this may be attributed to the CYA culture among management. 3. The interview process doesn't select for software engineering or software architecture skills (aka people who have developed an intuitive understanding of the art of software engineering) so there are many people within Google who lack the ability to effectively evaluate the architecture choices that are being made around them or that they themselves are making. With all that said I did meet and work with many brilliant engineers and others who were very talented and did think deeply about things but those were relatively rare. And yes it is a big company with many different teams and subcultures but what the author and I have described are the patterns that one sees broadly across Google.

amscanne 6y ago
It’s pretty uncool to use just two years of experience at a place as a credential to shit on the culture of that place (and through implication, the engineers there). I’ve been at Google for six years, and I’ve never encountered a “hostility towards the philosophical aspect of software engineering”. What a bunch of hooey. There are certainly problems with the promotion system (and incentives it creates), but it’s laughable to say that it rewards shipping “at the exclusion of all other considerations”. In two years, I imagine that you didn’t yet serve on promo committees (or see many successful and failed promotions of colleagues), so I’m not sure your criticisms are coming from a deep understanding of how they work. I’m sorry that you had a bad experience, or that you felt your specific working group had some kind of CYA culture or anti-engineering vibe. But it upsets me to see people indirectly shitting on or commenting about tens of thousands of engineers that they had never worked with or even interacted with. I don’t know why it’s fashionable to do this with Google right now, but it just shouldn’t happen with any company. If you want to describe your specific, concrete experience, I’m sure that would be much more helpful and constructive than saying “the culture is X”, “Google engineers are Y” without any connection to specifics. My 2c.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kevingadd 6y ago
  Why would six years as an individual contributor be enough to make sweeping assertions about an entire company when two years is not? googthrowaway's experience more closely matches my experience at Google, fwiw, but it's certainly the case that your experience depends on which org you're in. My org had a notoriously incompetent VP running things and it hemorrhaged staff to companies like Apple and Microsoft.
  - amscanne 6y ago
    You missed the point: I didn’t make any sweeping generalizations. I’m advocating against that. The only generalization I made is that the existing generalization about anti-engineering is hooey. And I don’t know why you’re assuming I’m an IC; I didn’t say that either. I don’t have any problems with people sharing their specific personal experience. I have a problem when people start claiming good engineers are “rare” — you’re just insinuating bad things about tens of thousands of people you have never even met.
    - googthrowaway42 6y ago
      As a meta comment I will say that the rhetoric you're using is representative of the kinds of rhetoric you see on the internal mailing lists in case anyone reading whose never worked at Google wants to get a taste of what that's like. It literally reminds me of being back at Google.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- googthrowaway42 6y ago
  If you've been at Google for 6 years then you know that my point about the promo system is the dominate opinion held by engineers there. Not that Memegen is the best barometer but you should check that out around promo time since it does comport with the opinions of engineers I talked with in other contexts. I had thought that would be the least controversial point. When I was there they added "Landing a product" as perf criteria as opposed to "Launching a product" and they added some lip service towards maintenance tasks being perfable which is a reflection of the problems I laid out. I don't know you or your situation and there are always exceptions (e.g. Bram Moolenaar, of course, and others not as famous) but in my experience the more tenure an engineer had the worse they were. The best engineers I've met in my career were ex-Googlers who were only there for a few years (some of them became Xooglers while I was there). My assertion is that generally speaking the people who stay are the ones who don't see the problems in the system because they don't have the talent, experience, or perspective OR they have other priorities in their life (raising a family) and Google makes it easier for them. What I encountered was that many long time engineers just weren't aware of what else was out there, the advances in the state of the art, and how things could be better because they were cozily ensconced within the Google ecosystem for so long. It's an incredibly ossified environment.

amscanne 6y ago

It’s pretty uncool to use just two years of experience at a place as a credential to shit on the culture of that place (and through implication, the engineers there). I’ve been at Google for six years, and I’ve never encountered a “hostility towards the philosophical aspect of software engineering”. What a bunch of hooey. There are certainly problems with the promotion system (and incentives it creates), but it’s laughable to say that it rewards shipping “at the exclusion of all other considerations”. In two years, I imagine that you didn’t yet serve on promo committees (or see many successful and failed promotions of colleagues), so I’m not sure your criticisms are coming from a deep understanding of how they work. I’m sorry that you had a bad experience, or that you felt your specific working group had some kind of CYA culture or anti-engineering vibe. But it upsets me to see people indirectly shitting on or commenting about tens of thousands of engineers that they had never worked with or even interacted with. I don’t know why it’s fashionable to do this with Google right now, but it just shouldn’t happen with any company. If you want to describe your specific, concrete experience, I’m sure that would be much more helpful and constructive than saying “the culture is X”, “Google engineers are Y” without any connection to specifics. My 2c.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kevingadd 6y ago
Why would six years as an individual contributor be enough to make sweeping assertions about an entire company when two years is not? googthrowaway's experience more closely matches my experience at Google, fwiw, but it's certainly the case that your experience depends on which org you're in. My org had a notoriously incompetent VP running things and it hemorrhaged staff to companies like Apple and Microsoft.
- amscanne 6y ago
  You missed the point: I didn’t make any sweeping generalizations. I’m advocating against that. The only generalization I made is that the existing generalization about anti-engineering is hooey. And I don’t know why you’re assuming I’m an IC; I didn’t say that either. I don’t have any problems with people sharing their specific personal experience. I have a problem when people start claiming good engineers are “rare” — you’re just insinuating bad things about tens of thousands of people you have never even met.
  - googthrowaway42 6y ago
    As a meta comment I will say that the rhetoric you're using is representative of the kinds of rhetoric you see on the internal mailing lists in case anyone reading whose never worked at Google wants to get a taste of what that's like. It literally reminds me of being back at Google.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
googthrowaway42 6y ago
If you've been at Google for 6 years then you know that my point about the promo system is the dominate opinion held by engineers there. Not that Memegen is the best barometer but you should check that out around promo time since it does comport with the opinions of engineers I talked with in other contexts. I had thought that would be the least controversial point. When I was there they added "Landing a product" as perf criteria as opposed to "Launching a product" and they added some lip service towards maintenance tasks being perfable which is a reflection of the problems I laid out. I don't know you or your situation and there are always exceptions (e.g. Bram Moolenaar, of course, and others not as famous) but in my experience the more tenure an engineer had the worse they were. The best engineers I've met in my career were ex-Googlers who were only there for a few years (some of them became Xooglers while I was there). My assertion is that generally speaking the people who stay are the ones who don't see the problems in the system because they don't have the talent, experience, or perspective OR they have other priorities in their life (raising a family) and Google makes it easier for them. What I encountered was that many long time engineers just weren't aware of what else was out there, the advances in the state of the art, and how things could be better because they were cozily ensconced within the Google ecosystem for so long. It's an incredibly ossified environment.