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FWIW I am an ex-Googler and I agree with you. The principal authors of Go are not really Googlers in the sense that other "mere mortals" are. Their engineering

FWIW I am an ex-Googler and I agree with you. The principal authors of Go are not really Googlers in the sense that other "mere mortals" are. Their engineering skills, practices, and decisions are not informed or subject to the strictures of the wider culture at Google.

akerl_ 6y ago
To help me understand, can you give an example of the kind of stricture that applied to other engineers but not to the Golang core team?
- googthrowaway42 6y ago
  Rob Pike and Ken Thompson have Sundar as their manager (I saw this at least with other Google Fellows) and don't go through perf in any real sense if they actually do have a perf process which I doubt they do. They do whatever they want and set their own agendas. At Google seniority is revered. It's very strict in that sense so I literally cannot imagine someone "overruling" or mounting any serious opposition to Pike or Thompson on anything. Edit: They're not actually fellows it's been pointed out but high ranking ICs like that do have a lot of respect within Google and are treated deferentially, especially famous ones just based on my own experience with high ranking ICs.
  - akerl_ 6y ago
    I’m not sure I understand your examples. You note that they don’t go through any sort of performance review process, but your subsequent sentence suggests you don’t really have visibility into whether that’s the case? And then you point out that as senior engineers, you can’t imagine anybody opposing things they say. Do you have an actual example of ways in which their treatment by Google differs from other engineers? These seem like conjecture about what their work experience is like.
    - googthrowaway42 6y ago
      I'm attempting to offer you some insight in good faith. I can't offer you a mathematical proof of this so I'm not sure what you're looking for. If you insist on asserting that Google Fellows are treated the same as other engineers then I'm not sure what to tell you. Holding that view would call into question exactly why they had that title but I'm not you and I don't hold that view.
      - akerl_ 6y ago
        I’m asking for an anecdote or some other practical example of a time that you or another Google engineer had a policy or “stricture” applied to you, and that policy or stricture or procedure didn’t apply to a Fellow. I don’t expect there to be a mathematical proof, but I was curious for something that wasn’t conjecture about what people assume their work environment is like. Regarding being a Fellow: finding out that people respect senior engineers and take into consideration their past experience isn’t shocking, or an example of the rules not applying to them. Similarly, if you told me that a head chef at a restaurant has more impact on the menu than a line cook, it wouldn’t be an indication that the rules don’t apply to head chefs, or that nobody cares about their performance. And nobody would make claims that restaurant’s menu didn’t reflect their “ethos” because it was designed by an experienced head chef.
        googthrowaway42 6y ago
        It's been pointed out by someone who still has access to the internal org chart that they're not actually fellows so the point is kind of moot with respect to that. I assume they're distinguished engineers but I'm not sure. I actually do think that Go in its adoption by Google is a reflection of Google engineering values. I still don't think that someone who comes in to Google at the level that the Go creators came in would have the same experience as someone who came in entry level cut their teeth moving up through Google but that's just my perspective. A lot of people I met had only been at 1 or 2 other companies before Google (my TL had actually been at Google his whole professional life) and a lot of their opinions about engineering were shaped by how Google did things.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    > Rob Pike and Ken Thompson have Sundar as their manager This isn't true (and I don't believe it's ever been true). > I saw this at least with other Google Fellows This also isn't true in general, there are no Google Fellows that report directly to Sundar. Not to mention that neither Ken nor Rob is a Fellow. > and don't go through perf in any real sense Why do you believe this to be true? Many people of similar stature (VPs are approximately equivalent to Google Fellows, and there are tons of VPs) have a real perf process, although it doesn't quite resemble the one you or I would have. If you mean that he has no incentive to "play perf games", then that's true only insofar as they don't want to advance, which is true for the average Google engineer starting at L4 or L5. > At Google seniority is revered. This hasn't been my experience at all, I've had quite reasonable experiences pushing back against my directors and questioning my VPs.
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akerl_ 6y ago

To help me understand, can you give an example of the kind of stricture that applied to other engineers but not to the Golang core team?

googthrowaway42 6y ago
Rob Pike and Ken Thompson have Sundar as their manager (I saw this at least with other Google Fellows) and don't go through perf in any real sense if they actually do have a perf process which I doubt they do. They do whatever they want and set their own agendas. At Google seniority is revered. It's very strict in that sense so I literally cannot imagine someone "overruling" or mounting any serious opposition to Pike or Thompson on anything. Edit: They're not actually fellows it's been pointed out but high ranking ICs like that do have a lot of respect within Google and are treated deferentially, especially famous ones just based on my own experience with high ranking ICs.
- akerl_ 6y ago
  I’m not sure I understand your examples. You note that they don’t go through any sort of performance review process, but your subsequent sentence suggests you don’t really have visibility into whether that’s the case? And then you point out that as senior engineers, you can’t imagine anybody opposing things they say. Do you have an actual example of ways in which their treatment by Google differs from other engineers? These seem like conjecture about what their work experience is like.
  - googthrowaway42 6y ago
    I'm attempting to offer you some insight in good faith. I can't offer you a mathematical proof of this so I'm not sure what you're looking for. If you insist on asserting that Google Fellows are treated the same as other engineers then I'm not sure what to tell you. Holding that view would call into question exactly why they had that title but I'm not you and I don't hold that view.
    - akerl_ 6y ago
      I’m asking for an anecdote or some other practical example of a time that you or another Google engineer had a policy or “stricture” applied to you, and that policy or stricture or procedure didn’t apply to a Fellow. I don’t expect there to be a mathematical proof, but I was curious for something that wasn’t conjecture about what people assume their work environment is like. Regarding being a Fellow: finding out that people respect senior engineers and take into consideration their past experience isn’t shocking, or an example of the rules not applying to them. Similarly, if you told me that a head chef at a restaurant has more impact on the menu than a line cook, it wouldn’t be an indication that the rules don’t apply to head chefs, or that nobody cares about their performance. And nobody would make claims that restaurant’s menu didn’t reflect their “ethos” because it was designed by an experienced head chef.
      - googthrowaway42 6y ago
        It's been pointed out by someone who still has access to the internal org chart that they're not actually fellows so the point is kind of moot with respect to that. I assume they're distinguished engineers but I'm not sure. I actually do think that Go in its adoption by Google is a reflection of Google engineering values. I still don't think that someone who comes in to Google at the level that the Go creators came in would have the same experience as someone who came in entry level cut their teeth moving up through Google but that's just my perspective. A lot of people I met had only been at 1 or 2 other companies before Google (my TL had actually been at Google his whole professional life) and a lot of their opinions about engineering were shaped by how Google did things.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  > Rob Pike and Ken Thompson have Sundar as their manager This isn't true (and I don't believe it's ever been true). > I saw this at least with other Google Fellows This also isn't true in general, there are no Google Fellows that report directly to Sundar. Not to mention that neither Ken nor Rob is a Fellow. > and don't go through perf in any real sense Why do you believe this to be true? Many people of similar stature (VPs are approximately equivalent to Google Fellows, and there are tons of VPs) have a real perf process, although it doesn't quite resemble the one you or I would have. If you mean that he has no incentive to "play perf games", then that's true only insofar as they don't want to advance, which is true for the average Google engineer starting at L4 or L5. > At Google seniority is revered. This hasn't been my experience at all, I've had quite reasonable experiences pushing back against my directors and questioning my VPs.
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