From my experience in working at another large Internet company, my advice to Google would be: get rid of middle management. Get rid of the people who are not a

From my experience in working at another large Internet company, my advice to Google would be: get rid of middle management. Get rid of the people who are not actually touching the product (in terms of code, design, testing, etc.). The impact of PMs is exponential in slowing down the processes in a company like Google (i.e. in the Internet space). Others may disagree (for example, established companies like Oracle may not fit this model); but I think if you're competing in the fast-paced "Web" world, you can't be slowed down by PMs. Good engineers are fairly self-driven. Hire people who work well in a team; make sure they get along well and just let them loose with minimal supervision. Have a decent set of guidelines in place; make an "architect" available to them who they can call on for advice and "best practices". I am reminded of this old article: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/28/ge.html http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/28/ge.html It's definitely worth a read.