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Not really my experience at Google tbh. I've been at Google for a little under 4 years and been promoted twice but only work about 4 hours a day. Sometimes I do

Not really my experience at Google tbh. I've been at Google for a little under 4 years and been promoted twice but only work about 4 hours a day. Sometimes I don't do shit for weeks at a time and things seem to pan out ok. I'm not trying to humble brag that I'm 10x or anything--im not, I'm a B grade engineer at best. Sure it can be stressful sometimes, but I'd say that 80% of the time it's really chill.

semitones 5y ago
I'd bet that you're not on one of the profit center teams... And that you don't have an oncall rotation. I worked in one of the ads teams at Google. I quit a few weeks ago, with reasons similar to the ones described in the article. I was giving just way too much of my life away for that work...
- thethethethe 5y ago
  I am an SRE so I am in a rotation, I'm actually oncall right now. I was in Corp and now I'm in Cloud. I haven't interacted with anyone in ads so I am not familiar with the experience. Do you think your peers had a similar experience as you?
  - semitones 5y ago
    My peers on my team, and on our sister teams (we share the same manager's manager) have all had similar experiences in that: there is so much on everyone's plate, there is so much tech debt, so much to maintain, yet so much to build, so much that breaks, so much surface area to cover, and never enough time or energy.
- dcolkitt 5y ago
  Interesting… Out of curiosity, do people in profit centers get paid more to compensate for the stress? I’m thinking in terms of Wall Street banks, where for example traders might have very stressful jobs but receive huge bonuses that far outstrip what the more relaxed back office roles get.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    I can't speak for Google, but, at my most recent employer, people on the ads team told me their on-call is pretty hellish. There's no pay differential for switching teams that I know of, either.
  - ffggvv 5y ago
    there’s no difference in pay other than the fact that anyone with an oncall rotation gets a minor salary bump
  - Aunche 5y ago
    Compensation at FAANGs are more or less fixed by level and location. However, people with more stressful teams tend to get promoted much more quickly.
yodsanklai 5y ago
Lucky you. I've heard that Google was pretty relaxed. I've just started working in a big tech company myself. It's a bit early to tell but so far, I find that my colleagues are good (probably better than me) and efficient. It's not especially stressful yet, in the sense there are no hard deadlines or anything really critical, and the project is super interesting. But I can tell that if I were slacking, that would show and I wouldn't compare favorably with them. And it seems everybody is quite anxious with performance evaluations.
inlined 5y ago
I think it depends on what division you’re in and what role you have. I was TL of a team in Cloud and I ran myself ragged. I was getting anxiety attacks every day and felt a literal weight sinking into me as the bus approached the building. I took a 6mo medical leave and still haven’t really recovered.
- ffggvv 5y ago
  yeah cloud is a differnt beast. basically amazon within google
  - iamevn 5y ago
    same here in cloud, y'all are making me wonder if maybe I shouldn't have given my 2 weeks the other day and instead tried to do an internal transfer
    - ffggvv 5y ago
      maybe, depends what you want for your career. imo best thing about working at google is just having it on your resume, which you already have
  - zipiridu 5y ago
    I don't understand why people leave AWS to join Google Cloud only to replicate the environment they were trying to escape.
WWLink 5y ago
> Not really my experience at Google tbh. That's what I thought! Amazon sure, Apple maybe.. but Google seems like a pretty chill place to work. There's a reason it's like one of the hardest to get into, right? :D
ctvo 5y ago
You're not bragging, but perhaps you're a match for the culture? Your communication skills are better than your colleagues? You collaborate better across teams, and get more done? You're better at planning, and delegating? I'm trying to say that you being promoted twice and not being an excellent engineer doesn't mean it's easy. You may have other traits that allow you to excel in that environment. The level distribution by itself says that being promoted twice in 3-4 years, with a significant bump in pay each time, isn't the norm.
- novok 5y ago
  It depends what level he started at. L5 to l6 or l7 is way more impressive than l3 to l5
onion2k 5y ago
Being on-call but having no tickets come in is not the same as "not working".

semitones 5y ago

I'd bet that you're not on one of the profit center teams... And that you don't have an oncall rotation. I worked in one of the ads teams at Google. I quit a few weeks ago, with reasons similar to the ones described in the article. I was giving just way too much of my life away for that work...

thethethethe 5y ago
I am an SRE so I am in a rotation, I'm actually oncall right now. I was in Corp and now I'm in Cloud. I haven't interacted with anyone in ads so I am not familiar with the experience. Do you think your peers had a similar experience as you?
- semitones 5y ago
  My peers on my team, and on our sister teams (we share the same manager's manager) have all had similar experiences in that: there is so much on everyone's plate, there is so much tech debt, so much to maintain, yet so much to build, so much that breaks, so much surface area to cover, and never enough time or energy.
dcolkitt 5y ago
Interesting… Out of curiosity, do people in profit centers get paid more to compensate for the stress? I’m thinking in terms of Wall Street banks, where for example traders might have very stressful jobs but receive huge bonuses that far outstrip what the more relaxed back office roles get.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  I can't speak for Google, but, at my most recent employer, people on the ads team told me their on-call is pretty hellish. There's no pay differential for switching teams that I know of, either.
- ffggvv 5y ago
  there’s no difference in pay other than the fact that anyone with an oncall rotation gets a minor salary bump
- Aunche 5y ago
  Compensation at FAANGs are more or less fixed by level and location. However, people with more stressful teams tend to get promoted much more quickly.

yodsanklai 5y ago

Lucky you. I've heard that Google was pretty relaxed. I've just started working in a big tech company myself. It's a bit early to tell but so far, I find that my colleagues are good (probably better than me) and efficient. It's not especially stressful yet, in the sense there are no hard deadlines or anything really critical, and the project is super interesting. But I can tell that if I were slacking, that would show and I wouldn't compare favorably with them. And it seems everybody is quite anxious with performance evaluations.

inlined 5y ago

I think it depends on what division you’re in and what role you have. I was TL of a team in Cloud and I ran myself ragged. I was getting anxiety attacks every day and felt a literal weight sinking into me as the bus approached the building. I took a 6mo medical leave and still haven’t really recovered.

ffggvv 5y ago
yeah cloud is a differnt beast. basically amazon within google
- iamevn 5y ago
  same here in cloud, y'all are making me wonder if maybe I shouldn't have given my 2 weeks the other day and instead tried to do an internal transfer
  - ffggvv 5y ago
    maybe, depends what you want for your career. imo best thing about working at google is just having it on your resume, which you already have
- zipiridu 5y ago
  I don't understand why people leave AWS to join Google Cloud only to replicate the environment they were trying to escape.

WWLink 5y ago

> Not really my experience at Google tbh. That's what I thought! Amazon sure, Apple maybe.. but Google seems like a pretty chill place to work. There's a reason it's like one of the hardest to get into, right? :D

ctvo 5y ago

You're not bragging, but perhaps you're a match for the culture? Your communication skills are better than your colleagues? You collaborate better across teams, and get more done? You're better at planning, and delegating? I'm trying to say that you being promoted twice and not being an excellent engineer doesn't mean it's easy. You may have other traits that allow you to excel in that environment. The level distribution by itself says that being promoted twice in 3-4 years, with a significant bump in pay each time, isn't the norm.

novok 5y ago
It depends what level he started at. L5 to l6 or l7 is way more impressive than l3 to l5

onion2k 5y ago

Being on-call but having no tickets come in is not the same as "not working".