As another Xoogler, I'd dispute some of your points, though I agree with the rest: 1) The Cloud Console is very meh compared to the AWS frontend. Slow and cumb

As another Xoogler, I'd dispute some of your points, though I agree with the rest: 1) The Cloud Console is very meh compared to the AWS frontend. Slow and cumbersome. Otherwise GCP is generally playing catch-up, though it's closed the gap significantly in recent years. 2) Morale is low. Googlers used to see themselves as representatives of the most beneficial company in the world. Now, they're much more likely to view themselves as well-compensated cogs in the next IBM. Which is more realistic, but the negative vibe shift is real. 3) Privacy/security wise, I trust Google to do what it promises to do better than anyone. Which is to say, it will extract your data and monetize it to the maximum extent possible and make sure no one else has access to it. Still better than the alternatives, but that's a pretty damn low bar. And two other points: 4) Hiring standards have dropped. Googlers are more competent than the average SWE on the market, but they are not generally exceptional. And their experience at Google teaches them proprietary tooling and how to navigate bureaucracy. 5) On that note, the core issue is that Google is a bureaucracy split into fiefdoms, living off Ads profits like a Gulf oil state. It hampers execution and makes genuine product vision impossible.