5 ms·

The size of Google makes me very skeptical about working there, despite getting called by recruiters fairly regularly. I feel drawn to a more informal startup

The size of Google makes me very skeptical about working there, despite getting called by recruiters fairly regularly. I feel drawn to a more informal startup or academic atmosphere. My experience with large companies is that the number of meetings and cover-your-ass behavior that goes on increases greatly as the company size grows. Can anyone who has seen Google grow comment on culture shift over the years?

endtime 15y ago
I had a summer internship with Microsoft in 2009, then worked on a startup, and recently joined Google NY. So I can't talk about Google changing over time, but I do have some baselines to which to compare it. IMO it's somewhere between the two, but feels more like a startup than like Microsoft (which I liked, fwiw). I have a lot of the freedom in my work that I'd have at a startup. I have a broadly defined problem and can decide how best to try and solve it. I do happen to be on a relatively new and small team, which could be a factor. I took a couple days this week to add a feature to a popular internal app, because I wanted the feature to exist...didn't ask anyone (other than the guy who owns the app), just did it. I don't think I've been at Google long enough to evaluate how much politicking there is, but I don't seem to have many meetings and as far as I can tell people are happy with me just for being productive. If I were you, I'd interview at Google and, if you get an offer, request to be on a team which is more academic in nature...e.g. ask to be on an AI/ML/NLP team rather than an infrastructure team.
- gms 15y ago
  How do people track your work, if at all? Daily status meetings? Weekly status meetings?
  - endtime 15y ago
    I have a short weekly update with 3-4 other people, just so we know what each other are doing.
rachelbythebay 15y ago
The Google that was everyone's darling from the early part of the past decade is gone. If you want to learn how big companies work from the inside, or discover the true meaning of "the one that's deprecated and the one that doesn't work yet", go for it. If you'd rather deal with the acquisition and management of disk and RAM quotas instead of coding, apply now! When one of the questions to "ask the eng elders" is "how do I become an elder", and when the only real answer is "go start your own company", the sweetheart days are gone. If you weren't there in the beginning, you missed the train. It's unfortunate, too, since there's a lot of good infrastructure left over from those classic times which is all tied up inside. It's treated as Secret Sauce and will never see the light of day. Various escapees have started re-implementing bits and pieces on the outside, however, so this will eventually take care of itself.

endtime 15y ago

I had a summer internship with Microsoft in 2009, then worked on a startup, and recently joined Google NY. So I can't talk about Google changing over time, but I do have some baselines to which to compare it. IMO it's somewhere between the two, but feels more like a startup than like Microsoft (which I liked, fwiw). I have a lot of the freedom in my work that I'd have at a startup. I have a broadly defined problem and can decide how best to try and solve it. I do happen to be on a relatively new and small team, which could be a factor. I took a couple days this week to add a feature to a popular internal app, because I wanted the feature to exist...didn't ask anyone (other than the guy who owns the app), just did it. I don't think I've been at Google long enough to evaluate how much politicking there is, but I don't seem to have many meetings and as far as I can tell people are happy with me just for being productive. If I were you, I'd interview at Google and, if you get an offer, request to be on a team which is more academic in nature...e.g. ask to be on an AI/ML/NLP team rather than an infrastructure team.

gms 15y ago
How do people track your work, if at all? Daily status meetings? Weekly status meetings?
- endtime 15y ago
  I have a short weekly update with 3-4 other people, just so we know what each other are doing.

rachelbythebay 15y ago

The Google that was everyone's darling from the early part of the past decade is gone. If you want to learn how big companies work from the inside, or discover the true meaning of "the one that's deprecated and the one that doesn't work yet", go for it. If you'd rather deal with the acquisition and management of disk and RAM quotas instead of coding, apply now! When one of the questions to "ask the eng elders" is "how do I become an elder", and when the only real answer is "go start your own company", the sweetheart days are gone. If you weren't there in the beginning, you missed the train. It's unfortunate, too, since there's a lot of good infrastructure left over from those classic times which is all tied up inside. It's treated as Secret Sauce and will never see the light of day. Various escapees have started re-implementing bits and pieces on the outside, however, so this will eventually take care of itself.