Everyone is welcome to point out the contradictions in this article and talk about the silliness of walking away from the comfort of FAANG workload and compensation while talking about "work life balance",... that's your right, and you're probably correct in one interpretation...
But Google is terrible for our industry. On the whole. And for many people who are trying to get satisfaction out of their work.
For innovation generally, and a terrible employer for people like TFA writer (and myself). The more people who quit to go to startups or smaller companies, the better, because it will ultimately accelerate technology and innovation.
This is precisely why compensation at Google is what it is: to capture a chunk of talent and cordon it off from the potential of creating value elsewhere... to keep the revenue firehose running there but most importantly to make sure none of that revenue firehose ever diverts elsewhere.
All the talk of "innovation" there amounts to: we want your intellectual property, yes, but if we can't get it or it's not worth much, we mostly want you to not create intellectual property elsewhere (or for yourself). And we'll pay absolutely handsomely to make sure that nothing you ever think of or write contributes to the success of anybody else.
That's how a behemoth like Google survives.
I'm surely not the most amazing engineer in the world, but at Google I was a mediocre one. Not technically, mind you, but organizationally: I was terrible at playing the game, writing the design docs and getting the comments, presenting my work to other people, snatching "impactful" projects before others could take them... and showing it all off to perform the promo dance. I sucked at that, and that is primarily what success at Google is about...I failed at it... Except they didn't care, that was all fine, there was plenty of space to just plod along... because they don't need you to succeed. Just not succeed somewhere else.
But before Google I aggressively contributed to the success of some of the companies I was at, including ones competing with Google. Once I was at Google, I was no longer doing that. And, actually, it became clear to me... that was my actual value to Google...
You can tell the author is mostly worn out not from long hours or challenging technical work, but from fighting against the overwhelming inertia that faces building/shipping anything. It’s exhausting.
Curious if you worked with smaller companies since your time at Google and how does you experience compare?
My personal experience says most mid-sized startups don't do any better on most fronts either. Contrast the process you described "writing the design docs and getting the comments, presenting my work to other people" to "the SVP engineering feels we should do X by Friday even though it isn't urgent to business" and the former doesn't sound as bad. In fact, you have way more agency in former.
The promo game sucks, no doubt. But there are games at play in companies of all sizes. Promo games in some, authority games in others.
Not since, not yet. And for sure I can imagine things going like you say. There's always drama. Small company drama can be even worse sometimes. So far in my search I've been trying to target companies under 100 people, aiming for more a more lead / principal type role. But we'll see how it nets out. I have a few months left of, uh, RSU runway.
> This is precisely why compensation at Google is what it is: to capture a chunk of talent and cordon it off from the potential of creating value elsewhere...
I recall reading a thread on some facebook group where the OP was freshly hired at an (undisclosed) Large Company with amazing compensation only to do... well, nothing in particular for there weeks at the time of writing.
Commenters tried to make sense of it and figured that either no one is in control of the budget or he's essentially "parked" for a project that's supposed to launch at the start of the next quarter.
But perhaps the said company was large enough to engage in such practices.
But Google is terrible for our industry. On the whole. And for many people who are trying to get satisfaction out of their work.
For innovation generally, and a terrible employer for people like TFA writer (and myself). The more people who quit to go to startups or smaller companies, the better, because it will ultimately accelerate technology and innovation. This is precisely why compensation at Google is what it is: to capture a chunk of talent and cordon it off from the potential of creating value elsewhere... to keep the revenue firehose running there but most importantly to make sure none of that revenue firehose ever diverts elsewhere.
All the talk of "innovation" there amounts to: we want your intellectual property, yes, but if we can't get it or it's not worth much, we mostly want you to not create intellectual property elsewhere (or for yourself). And we'll pay absolutely handsomely to make sure that nothing you ever think of or write contributes to the success of anybody else.
That's how a behemoth like Google survives.
I'm surely not the most amazing engineer in the world, but at Google I was a mediocre one. Not technically, mind you, but organizationally: I was terrible at playing the game, writing the design docs and getting the comments, presenting my work to other people, snatching "impactful" projects before others could take them... and showing it all off to perform the promo dance. I sucked at that, and that is primarily what success at Google is about...I failed at it... Except they didn't care, that was all fine, there was plenty of space to just plod along... because they don't need you to succeed. Just not succeed somewhere else.
But before Google I aggressively contributed to the success of some of the companies I was at, including ones competing with Google. Once I was at Google, I was no longer doing that. And, actually, it became clear to me... that was my actual value to Google...