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> You promote people not for being lucky and on a successful project, At Google you are explicitly rewarded at L5 and up for picking the right project to work

> You promote people not for being lucky and on a successful project, At Google you are explicitly rewarded at L5 and up for picking the right project to work on. It's wisdom of the crowds. You pick what project you're working on and you should be picking a good high-impact one that actually brings value to the company, for which you might be promoted. This ensures that incentives are aligned. Google doesn't want experienced, highly capable engineers sitting around wasting their talents on dead-end projects, and they certainly won't be rewarded for it. You need to be proactive about ensuring that you're working on something valuable.

petre 4y ago
So Google Feed, Chat, Hangouts, social networks are out because they're highly likely to get killed.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  It's so obvious for Google. And that's probably part of what's happening at Apple as well ? We've seen important, but not quite groundbreaking products get left for dead, and eventually killed when at Apple's size it probably wasn't that problematic to keep them alive. I'm thinking about their network router lineup for instance. Or how nobody cares enough to make a Calculator app for the iPad.
  - _cenw 4y ago
    > Or how nobody cares enough to make a Calculator app for the iPad. Supposedly Steve Jobs hated every iteration of the calculator on the first iPad, so they just didn't ship it at all. Might just be tradition at Apple to not touch that topic.
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    I think its the opposite actually. Google pays over $300k a year for many of their engineers, and Apple pays quite well too. Regardless of how easy that calculator app is, it'll take a team of people to build, and that team is expensive, like millions of dollars expensive, and it'll never be worth it.
midoridensha 4y ago
>Google doesn't want experienced, highly capable engineers sitting around wasting their talents on dead-end projects, and they certainly won't be rewarded for it. It's supposed to be management's responsibility to pick projects that will be successful. If a project turns out to be a dead-end, that's either management's fault, or just the way the market worked out and no one's fault (you can't always predict what's going to be popular or successful). And if a project is clearly a dead-end, then why is management wasting money on it instead of canceling it and moving the talent to better places? Basically, Google's system just rewards people for being lucky.
- morelisp 4y ago
  Engineers: "We want an engineering-led organization!" Google: "OK, here's some real responsibility over company direction." Engineers: "No, not like that." I mean, I work at a normal-ass medium-sized company and at our top level of IC technical staff even we're expected to help management choose between different strategic options and point out places we can improve the product based on technical synergies or easy wins they may not be aware of. If we do a bad job at this, we will also get laid off on way or another, at latest when the company runs out of money. Especially at Google's size, you can just throw up your hands and say "oh well, the market is hard to guess." You are the market!
  - ohgodplsno 4y ago
    Except Google is everything but an engineering-led organisation. Google: "Here's some real responsibility over company direction" Engineers: "So we get to work on things we want to move the company forward with, yes?" Google: "Yes" Engineers: "And we get rewarded for making good products that work well, yes?" Google: "Only if the MBA clowns decide that's what they want" Google's behavior is even more insulting than being purely management-led.
    - morelisp 4y ago
      > Engineers: "And we get rewarded for making good products that work well, yes?" This is not what engineers say (nor what the company needs unless you take vapid definitions of "good" and "well"). The MBAs aren't the ones asking for a dozen messaging apps!

petre 4y ago

So Google Feed, Chat, Hangouts, social networks are out because they're highly likely to get killed.

makeitdouble 4y ago
It's so obvious for Google. And that's probably part of what's happening at Apple as well ? We've seen important, but not quite groundbreaking products get left for dead, and eventually killed when at Apple's size it probably wasn't that problematic to keep them alive. I'm thinking about their network router lineup for instance. Or how nobody cares enough to make a Calculator app for the iPad.
- _cenw 4y ago
  > Or how nobody cares enough to make a Calculator app for the iPad. Supposedly Steve Jobs hated every iteration of the calculator on the first iPad, so they just didn't ship it at all. Might just be tradition at Apple to not touch that topic.
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  I think its the opposite actually. Google pays over $300k a year for many of their engineers, and Apple pays quite well too. Regardless of how easy that calculator app is, it'll take a team of people to build, and that team is expensive, like millions of dollars expensive, and it'll never be worth it.

midoridensha 4y ago

>Google doesn't want experienced, highly capable engineers sitting around wasting their talents on dead-end projects, and they certainly won't be rewarded for it. It's supposed to be management's responsibility to pick projects that will be successful. If a project turns out to be a dead-end, that's either management's fault, or just the way the market worked out and no one's fault (you can't always predict what's going to be popular or successful). And if a project is clearly a dead-end, then why is management wasting money on it instead of canceling it and moving the talent to better places? Basically, Google's system just rewards people for being lucky.

morelisp 4y ago
Engineers: "We want an engineering-led organization!" Google: "OK, here's some real responsibility over company direction." Engineers: "No, not like that." I mean, I work at a normal-ass medium-sized company and at our top level of IC technical staff even we're expected to help management choose between different strategic options and point out places we can improve the product based on technical synergies or easy wins they may not be aware of. If we do a bad job at this, we will also get laid off on way or another, at latest when the company runs out of money. Especially at Google's size, you can just throw up your hands and say "oh well, the market is hard to guess." You are the market!
- ohgodplsno 4y ago
  Except Google is everything but an engineering-led organisation. Google: "Here's some real responsibility over company direction" Engineers: "So we get to work on things we want to move the company forward with, yes?" Google: "Yes" Engineers: "And we get rewarded for making good products that work well, yes?" Google: "Only if the MBA clowns decide that's what they want" Google's behavior is even more insulting than being purely management-led.
  - morelisp 4y ago
    > Engineers: "And we get rewarded for making good products that work well, yes?" This is not what engineers say (nor what the company needs unless you take vapid definitions of "good" and "well"). The MBAs aren't the ones asking for a dozen messaging apps!