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There seems to be 1-2 posts per week about how terrible $FAANG is to work for (google is in the hot seat this month) If google has ~200k (I don’t have exact da

by wepple 3y ago

There seems to be 1-2 posts per week about how terrible $FAANG is to work for (google is in the hot seat this month) If google has ~200k (I don’t have exact data) employees, there are surely a significant number of people who either don’t hate it enough to blog, or actually enjoy it. It’s just that nobody writes a blog post saying “I went to work and things were good”, and nobody (especially HN) would upvote it. But remember, if you see a new update about React, Android, ChaosMonkey, or every time a new apple product lands… that’s someone’s work being released, and at least a subset (possibly small, possibly large) are happy with the work and the outcome

Etheryte 3y ago
Honestly I think that would be great content. "Went to work, it was okay. Meeting was boring, had a chat in the coffee corner." Basically the HN equivalent of the local news "local man paints fence".
- WesleyJohnson 3y ago
  "Roman is having an okay day and got a coke zero at the gas station. Raise the roof" https://youtu.be/58VhB4R-4XY?t=100 https://youtu.be/58VhB4R-4XY?t=100
yoz-y 3y ago
It has its ups and downs. Yes bureaucracy can be annoying, but. Thing is, that with such a huge company the teams and cultures are so different that it doesn't really make sense to talk about Google culture as a whole.
- wepple 3y ago
  Yeah exactly. Being a tech lead for the next iPhone and being tech lead for some HR system that organizes people’s 401k contributions are both experiences of “being a SWE at apple” but probably overlap in infinitesimally small ways. A lot of folks don’t seem to get this. There are plenty of horrible 100 person startups, where you quit and move to a different 100 person company where life is amazing. There are hundreds of 100 person units in a FAANG. It’s similar to the shortsighted conclusion “Americans are X”, ignoring the diversity of different states.

by wepple 3y ago

Etheryte 3y ago

Honestly I think that would be great content. "Went to work, it was okay. Meeting was boring, had a chat in the coffee corner." Basically the HN equivalent of the local news "local man paints fence".

WesleyJohnson 3y ago
"Roman is having an okay day and got a coke zero at the gas station. Raise the roof" https://youtu.be/58VhB4R-4XY?t=100 https://youtu.be/58VhB4R-4XY?t=100

yoz-y 3y ago

It has its ups and downs. Yes bureaucracy can be annoying, but. Thing is, that with such a huge company the teams and cultures are so different that it doesn't really make sense to talk about Google culture as a whole.

wepple 3y ago
Yeah exactly. Being a tech lead for the next iPhone and being tech lead for some HR system that organizes people’s 401k contributions are both experiences of “being a SWE at apple” but probably overlap in infinitesimally small ways. A lot of folks don’t seem to get this. There are plenty of horrible 100 person startups, where you quit and move to a different 100 person company where life is amazing. There are hundreds of 100 person units in a FAANG. It’s similar to the shortsighted conclusion “Americans are X”, ignoring the diversity of different states.