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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.