Google still has 20% time, in the aggregate. About 20% of engineers are Real Googlers and get to work on whatever they want, 100% of the time. The other 80% hav

Google still has 20% time, in the aggregate. About 20% of engineers are Real Googlers and get to work on whatever they want, 100% of the time. The other 80% have one job: appease your manager, because your manager is a SPOF for your whole career. In other words, it's no different from a typical dysfunctional corporation. Google claims to be a "peer review" driven company, but if you're below the RGL, then the odds are that your peers are too, and then they have no clout and can't protect you from a priapic manager looking to get some bad Perf on. Senior SWE is the traditional Real Googler Line, but now it's closer to the Staff rank.