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Google has solid to excellent engineering depending on where you are. The problem is and always has been that the leadership hires mid HR and business talent. I

Google has solid to excellent engineering depending on where you are. The problem is and always has been that the leadership hires mid HR and business talent. It’s hard to watch smart people with 40 years of experience having to jump to the tune of some MBA bro with a massive ego whose only qualification was going to the right school and a massive ego. Google’s problem was never a lack of ability to build and run impressive engineering artifacts. It was always that the business and product side of things was run very poorly.

foobiekr 4y ago
This just makes Google average. Execution isn't a problem at most tech companies, the problem is knowing what to build and stopping engineering teams from doing "new shiny"/resume-oriented-development. I've been working professionally for 25+ years depending on when "professionally" starts and almost _never_ has been "the team can't build it" even in the context of companies that are basically mountains of mediocrity. The problem has _always_ been that the team didn't know what to build, and very occasionally, the best way to build it for the long term.
- Arainach 4y ago
  Execution absolutely is a problem. Being able to build something is 10% of the battle. Being able to build it well and reliably is the other 90%. A culture around building the proper tests, monitoring, and tooling to handle launches safely and plan rollouts goes a long way and most companies don't have any of that. The difference is stark even at large companies. Oncall shifts for friends at places like Amazon and Meta are nightmares of constant pages and stress. Oncall shifts for my friends at Google have tended to be far lower key, with dramatically fewer pages and more straightforward resolutions when issues appear.
  - foobiekr 4y ago
    Most mature companies have _all_ of that. From the position of a large vendor, Google ships software with woeful quality practices on a regular basis. That Amazon and Meta are worse than google, well, I will grant that. Meta's internal culture is crazy.

foobiekr 4y ago

This just makes Google average. Execution isn't a problem at most tech companies, the problem is knowing what to build and stopping engineering teams from doing "new shiny"/resume-oriented-development. I've been working professionally for 25+ years depending on when "professionally" starts and almost _never_ has been "the team can't build it" even in the context of companies that are basically mountains of mediocrity. The problem has _always_ been that the team didn't know what to build, and very occasionally, the best way to build it for the long term.

Arainach 4y ago
Execution absolutely is a problem. Being able to build something is 10% of the battle. Being able to build it well and reliably is the other 90%. A culture around building the proper tests, monitoring, and tooling to handle launches safely and plan rollouts goes a long way and most companies don't have any of that. The difference is stark even at large companies. Oncall shifts for friends at places like Amazon and Meta are nightmares of constant pages and stress. Oncall shifts for my friends at Google have tended to be far lower key, with dramatically fewer pages and more straightforward resolutions when issues appear.
- foobiekr 4y ago
  Most mature companies have _all_ of that. From the position of a large vendor, Google ships software with woeful quality practices on a regular basis. That Amazon and Meta are worse than google, well, I will grant that. Meta's internal culture is crazy.