"At Google, individual engineers are far more empowered than that. There is a strong internal process for simply changing projects." That assumes the Hogwarts

"At Google, individual engineers are far more empowered than that. There is a strong internal process for simply changing projects." That assumes the Hogwarts Hat of random allocation doesn't land you with a stinker from the get-go. And I speak from personal experience that it occasionally does. If I had been able to change projects to something more relevant to my skills, I would still be there. There have been far too many stories of arbitrary google managers both here and elsewhere to keep putting forth the story that if one goes to google, one can simply change projects if one doesn't like what they're doing. Just one example from http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9079.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Google-Reviews-E9079.htm "For the most part, Google is held together by duct tape. Management quality is clearly below what's required for a company of this size. In a lot of cases managers are simply too junior and lack people skills."