4 ms·

I know someone who left Google about 6 months ago after having worked there for 12 years, and I had a lot of interesting conversations with them recently. I lef

I know someone who left Google about 6 months ago after having worked there for 12 years, and I had a lot of interesting conversations with them recently. I left Google many years ago. Google is in the midst of an epic struggle to transform itself. I think it's succeeding in turning into a sustainable post-ads company, and I think Google will be around for many years to come. However the transformation is not pleasant for many of the SWEs, particularly those in GCP. I can say with some confidence that GCP is not in peril. TK is turning the ship around, and a fresh infusion of "conventional company" executives are doing what it takes to make the changes happen. A lot of Google SWEs are suddenly being directly exposed to revenue targets that they have to meet by clawing enterprise sales from Amazon and Microsoft. Not all of them are up to the task, and many are fleeing to... well, I bet many of them are getting a "rude awakening" about how the tech industry outside of their popping Google bubble has to operate. All of the sudden they can't sit back in their castle and wave their "A/B test" wands to figure out which experiments draw in 20,000 daily users vs. 17,000 daily users. Instead they have to take orders from sales and PM as they scream at them to hurry up and build features to get 5 or 6 more enterprise contracts signed by such-and-such a date. Google SWEs have never needed to pay any heed to sales or PM; they just used to do whatever they felt like doing, launching it, creatively selecting metrics that demonstrate "success," collecting their promos, and dancing along to the next shiny thing. That fantasy world is gone. As ads revenue falters, the real world is slamming into Google full-force. I actually expect the opposite of "not caring" about photos, music, etc. to happen. Google is quickly moving into a phase where a reputation for shipping and supporting stable, durable, and compatible solutions is what it desperately needs in order to win and keep enterprise customers. We're going to see it happen, and the Google SWEs who survive are the ones who are willing to humble themselves, roll up their sleeves, and compete head-to-head with AWS and Azure SWEs on a level playing field. It will mean harder work for less pay, fewer promos, and less autonomy. I have a hard time feeling sorry for anyone working at Google today. It's still a very privileged place to work, especially in the midst of the global turmoil going on around us right now. I do, however, have little patience for any Google SWEs who still expect the "ship shiny, collect promo" career path to work out for them there.

gogopuppygogo 6y ago
If that shift you described is indeed under way then public relations should all be fired. Google has a well deserved horrible track record and no serious enterprises should consider it.
fivre 6y ago
This implies that the incentives are any saner when driven by sales, which isn't necessarily true. At least on the enterprise end (which is presumably where GCP wants to make a significant chunk of its revenue), sales can be equally driven by what's essentially "ship shiny", it's just that the rewards are even more immediate (collect commission). Salespeople will gladly hound engineering teams to pound out an MVP for whatever their particular prospects want this quarter, and a shiny MVP is often enough to close a deal so long as it holds up in a demo with managers whomever has purchasing power. Once that's done, sales is happy to forget about that product, or at least convince themselves that it working in a demo means it will work well in production (they lack the technical competence to see the inevitable holes that will appear down the road if the MVP isn't developed past minimum viability). If next quarter's customers want a different set of features, well, sales will push for those, often to the detriment of fleshing out existing functionality or ensuring they're stable and maintainable. They're insulated from any pain that results from half-baked products if the people tasked with actually using products aren't those with purchasing power, and in the enterprise context, they usually aren't, and are themselves insulated from line workers who could tell them they've essentially bought a lemon, or more the promise of functionality instead of actual functionality.
paganel 6y ago
Not sure about how things are in the States but around my neck of the woods (Eastern European country and EU member) in order to win enterprise&government contracts you need contacts, lots of them, actively maintained. Microsoft is by far the best at this, they've been at this game for what, 20, 30 years? That's why Azure has bigger numbers than GCP and it's the only one capable of confronting AWS head-on (AWS which is winning merely on technical merits, at least for now). My gf works for a Microsoft cloud re-seller (among other things) and I've recently asked her if GCP has ever come into the conversation when it came to their clients (clients among which are a few government entities), her answer was "never", followed by a quick laugh, as in "who would even ask such a thing?" Google and its cloud offering is missing in action around here big time, and I have a feeling the same situation happens in other European countries. They still have this mistaken belief that people will come to them hat in hand just because they're Google, but when it comes to the cloud market that has never been the case.

gogopuppygogo 6y ago

If that shift you described is indeed under way then public relations should all be fired. Google has a well deserved horrible track record and no serious enterprises should consider it.

fivre 6y ago

This implies that the incentives are any saner when driven by sales, which isn't necessarily true. At least on the enterprise end (which is presumably where GCP wants to make a significant chunk of its revenue), sales can be equally driven by what's essentially "ship shiny", it's just that the rewards are even more immediate (collect commission). Salespeople will gladly hound engineering teams to pound out an MVP for whatever their particular prospects want this quarter, and a shiny MVP is often enough to close a deal so long as it holds up in a demo with managers whomever has purchasing power. Once that's done, sales is happy to forget about that product, or at least convince themselves that it working in a demo means it will work well in production (they lack the technical competence to see the inevitable holes that will appear down the road if the MVP isn't developed past minimum viability). If next quarter's customers want a different set of features, well, sales will push for those, often to the detriment of fleshing out existing functionality or ensuring they're stable and maintainable. They're insulated from any pain that results from half-baked products if the people tasked with actually using products aren't those with purchasing power, and in the enterprise context, they usually aren't, and are themselves insulated from line workers who could tell them they've essentially bought a lemon, or more the promise of functionality instead of actual functionality.

paganel 6y ago

Not sure about how things are in the States but around my neck of the woods (Eastern European country and EU member) in order to win enterprise&government contracts you need contacts, lots of them, actively maintained. Microsoft is by far the best at this, they've been at this game for what, 20, 30 years? That's why Azure has bigger numbers than GCP and it's the only one capable of confronting AWS head-on (AWS which is winning merely on technical merits, at least for now). My gf works for a Microsoft cloud re-seller (among other things) and I've recently asked her if GCP has ever come into the conversation when it came to their clients (clients among which are a few government entities), her answer was "never", followed by a quick laugh, as in "who would even ask such a thing?" Google and its cloud offering is missing in action around here big time, and I have a feeling the same situation happens in other European countries. They still have this mistaken belief that people will come to them hat in hand just because they're Google, but when it comes to the cloud market that has never been the case.