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After more than 5 years as an engineer, I left Google on April first. I was surrounded by intelligent, friendly, and honest coworkers. Across the company, good,

After more than 5 years as an engineer, I left Google on April first. I was surrounded by intelligent, friendly, and honest coworkers. Across the company, good, reusable, well-documented, well-designed code was normal. People also go out of their way to help, answer questions, and put an end to BS. I'd consider returning.

william42 15y ago
Out of curiosity, why did you leave?
- MattLaroche 15y ago
  I left for a few reasons: a) Google has good infrastructure, but there's a high barrier to adding a new technology in production. If I put 5 engineers in a room with a rough design for a product, they'd probably suggest the same components. I wanted to step outside and use new technologies. (I wouldn't do this off work hours because I don't have the brain bandwidth to work on side projects) b) Avoiding my own complacency. Google was my first gig out of university and I didn't want to stay there just by default. c) I wanted to work somewhere where success and failure rested on my work (and of everyone on the team's) - I wanted to put my heart into something, and that, for me right now, requires something that can fail and then I'd be out of a job as opposed to just switching teams. Later, I might be happy making 1 billion people's search results 0.1% better, but now isn't that time. Certain teams at Google are more at-risk like this, but mine wasn't. There are a few other minor reasons, but none of them were other people, an uncaring company, or incompetence. Google's certainly not perfect, but I'm pretty sure no other company even a quarter of its size is as good a place to work.
  - orenmazor 15y ago
    "Google's certainly not perfect, but I'm pretty sure no other company even a quarter of its size is as good a place to work." having done contracts for federal govt and companies the size of nortel, I expected otherwise, but this is exactly what I discovered when I was on site last week.

william42 15y ago

Out of curiosity, why did you leave?

MattLaroche 15y ago
I left for a few reasons: a) Google has good infrastructure, but there's a high barrier to adding a new technology in production. If I put 5 engineers in a room with a rough design for a product, they'd probably suggest the same components. I wanted to step outside and use new technologies. (I wouldn't do this off work hours because I don't have the brain bandwidth to work on side projects) b) Avoiding my own complacency. Google was my first gig out of university and I didn't want to stay there just by default. c) I wanted to work somewhere where success and failure rested on my work (and of everyone on the team's) - I wanted to put my heart into something, and that, for me right now, requires something that can fail and then I'd be out of a job as opposed to just switching teams. Later, I might be happy making 1 billion people's search results 0.1% better, but now isn't that time. Certain teams at Google are more at-risk like this, but mine wasn't. There are a few other minor reasons, but none of them were other people, an uncaring company, or incompetence. Google's certainly not perfect, but I'm pretty sure no other company even a quarter of its size is as good a place to work.
- orenmazor 15y ago
  "Google's certainly not perfect, but I'm pretty sure no other company even a quarter of its size is as good a place to work." having done contracts for federal govt and companies the size of nortel, I expected otherwise, but this is exactly what I discovered when I was on site last week.