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> I think many of my colleagues at google found it surprising how many of the things they thought were unique to google actually also existed at FB. Google wor

> I think many of my colleagues at google found it surprising how many of the things they thought were unique to google actually also existed at FB. Google workers are groomed to believe Google is the best, and hence they are too. A corollary of that, then, is that nobody else has it that good, when in fact, others sometimes have it better.

kridsdale3 2y ago
I also made the move from FB to G and echo everything said above. Googlers have a massive superiority complex. In reality, it's naiveté. My 2 cents: OWNERS is fairly useful, if only as a form of automating code reviewer selection. Readabilty is a massive drag on org-wide productivity. I have had diffs/CLs take MONTHS to be approved by every Tom Dick and Harry whose claws were added to my code and made me re-design whole project approaches, and they were only there because they're supposed to check if my new-lines are in the right spot for that language. I thought about quitting.
- wavemode 2y ago
  People really underestimate how much productivity drain there is in having a bad code review culture. One of the worst things about working at Amazon was that any feedback on a merge request, no matter how small, required you to request a re-review.
  - snotrockets 2y ago
    It's not culture (organic), it's systems (planned): if you don't, on day zero, agree what code reviews should cover (and what not), then code reviews are a pissing contest first, and a useful tool second. I noticed a lot of people don't understand both the limitations of code reviews, and what issues they can and should solve. Writing good critique (of anything, not just code) is hard, we don't train people to do it, and usually don't even regard this as something that needs training and understanding.
- ynx 2y ago
  +1. Going from FB to $REDACTED to Oculus was a pretty wild ride, there were a lot of different cultures, though I think generally speaking the best qualities filtered through. (also, howdy former teammate)
  - kridsdale3 2y ago
    (trying to recall unixname to human name mapping.....)
elevatedastalt 2y ago
Huh? Facebook has a lot of that infra because ex-Googlers built it there. It takes an insane amount of delusion to notice something common between a father and a son and say that the dad inherited it.
- snotrockets 2y ago
  QED
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
pradn 2y ago
No, we’re quite aware the world outside has been catching up. There’s even a famous doc by a senior director about it…
- snotrockets 2y ago
  The system still grooms Googlers to think they're better than though. Until that root cause would be fixed (which would have to be at a huge cost to Google, so no surprise it'd never be), nothing would change.
  - pradn 2y ago
    In Google Cloud at least, we're quite aware we're not the market leader, so there's a pervasive humbleness. We're proud of certain technical achievements (ie: Spanner), but the world can catch up quickly (ie: CockroachDB, Foundation, CosmosDB, etc). This might be a departure from the feeling in older divisions of the company, haha.

kridsdale3 2y ago

I also made the move from FB to G and echo everything said above. Googlers have a massive superiority complex. In reality, it's naiveté. My 2 cents: OWNERS is fairly useful, if only as a form of automating code reviewer selection. Readabilty is a massive drag on org-wide productivity. I have had diffs/CLs take MONTHS to be approved by every Tom Dick and Harry whose claws were added to my code and made me re-design whole project approaches, and they were only there because they're supposed to check if my new-lines are in the right spot for that language. I thought about quitting.

wavemode 2y ago
People really underestimate how much productivity drain there is in having a bad code review culture. One of the worst things about working at Amazon was that any feedback on a merge request, no matter how small, required you to request a re-review.
- snotrockets 2y ago
  It's not culture (organic), it's systems (planned): if you don't, on day zero, agree what code reviews should cover (and what not), then code reviews are a pissing contest first, and a useful tool second. I noticed a lot of people don't understand both the limitations of code reviews, and what issues they can and should solve. Writing good critique (of anything, not just code) is hard, we don't train people to do it, and usually don't even regard this as something that needs training and understanding.
ynx 2y ago
+1. Going from FB to $REDACTED to Oculus was a pretty wild ride, there were a lot of different cultures, though I think generally speaking the best qualities filtered through. (also, howdy former teammate)
- kridsdale3 2y ago
  (trying to recall unixname to human name mapping.....)

elevatedastalt 2y ago

Huh? Facebook has a lot of that infra because ex-Googlers built it there. It takes an insane amount of delusion to notice something common between a father and a son and say that the dad inherited it.

snotrockets 2y ago
QED
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

pradn 2y ago

No, we’re quite aware the world outside has been catching up. There’s even a famous doc by a senior director about it…

snotrockets 2y ago
The system still grooms Googlers to think they're better than though. Until that root cause would be fixed (which would have to be at a huge cost to Google, so no surprise it'd never be), nothing would change.
- pradn 2y ago
  In Google Cloud at least, we're quite aware we're not the market leader, so there's a pervasive humbleness. We're proud of certain technical achievements (ie: Spanner), but the world can catch up quickly (ie: CockroachDB, Foundation, CosmosDB, etc). This might be a departure from the feeling in older divisions of the company, haha.