Working at Google
You’ve probably already read the little Q&A from a former Googler who’s returned to Microsoft talking about what it was like to work at Google. Everything seems pretty credible about the piece, I’m guessing it isn’t one of Microsoft’s classic paid for research pieces.
Everything about it seems about what I thought it’d be like to work there. All the huge perks, free food, free on-site everything, etc… are all great perks but all imply that you are working such long hours and so many days that you can’t get enough time of your own to actually go and do those things. Google, in effect, becomes your life.
People are generally in the building between 10am and about 6pm every day, but nearly everyone is on e-mail 24/7 and most people spend most of their evenings working from home.
It’s interesting and unsurprising that:
Google believes that developers are, with few exceptions, interchangeable parts. [...] There are even buildings that experiment with no pre-defined workspaces or workstations – cogs (err, people?) just take one of the available machines and desks when they get to work.
I’ve always believed that at Google, unless you were a big brain PhD you were essentially a cog and that it probably wasn’t all that fulfilling a working experience. Of course, now that Googlers are vesting their options and becoming fabulously wealthy - that probably makes it more fun. :)
Even the ever lauded 20% time is something you have to do yourself. I’m guessing that very few people there actually have time to take their 20% time. And those that do are probably carving that 20% out what would otherwise be their personal time.
it’s your job to carve out 20% of your work week for a project. If you don’t carve out the time, you don’t get it. Your project needs to be tacitly approved by your manager. Whatever it is, is owned by Google. If you’re organized, you can “save up†your 20% and use it all at once. It’s not unheard of for people to have months and months of “20% time†saved up.
Most people don’t actually have a 20% project. Most managers won’t remind you to start one.
How can you say 20% of your time should be devoted to a personal project, when you’re spending 100% of your time at work? If this was a 10-6 job and you really got to spend an hour or two a day doing your personal project it would be great. But if you’re working longer hours than that, what does it actually mean? It means, you take your own time to work on a project that Google will own.
What I think is interesting (and admirable) is for a company that size to have such a flat management structure. Line Developers -> Middle Manager -> Division VP -> Management (Larry, Sergie, etc..). That’s remarkable. Unfortunately, this flat structure seems to also prevent any real career growth for engineers, a fact I find very, very at odds with my image of the company.
There is no career development plan from individual contributor to manager. Basically if you get good reviews, you get more money and a fancier title (“Senior Software Engineer IIâ€) but that’s about it.
The article’s really interesting if you ever wondered what it was like at G. They provide you with a ton of really great perks, but perks aren’t free. You pay for it by working around the clock and feeling lucky to be working there because remember that for every guy working at Google, they’ve got 10 more waiting to take his spot. Sure, at the rate G’s growing they might hire those 10 even if you don’t leave, but it won’t matter much to them if you do.
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:00 pm
[...] Link to Article google Working at Google » Posted at #comments on Monday, July 02, 2007 [...]
July 2nd, 2007 at 4:47 pm
People outside of Silicon Valley (and many inside of it) might find it odd that a company would offer so much free perks and one of the first thoughts people have is that it is a way to trap a person on campus so he works all the time, but that’s not necessarily true.
At my company, we have many of the same perks at Google. One of the perks is an on-site post-office. Because it is on-site, I don’t have to plan to get up earlier, leave work earlier or use the weekend when I need to ship something. My work hours doesn’t change because there is a post-office. I still can go off-campus for lunch but that lunch isn’t cut short because I have to go to the post-office and wait in line.
One thing that these type of articles always fail to do is to put their observations into context. In this case, it isn’t that the company defined the culture but that the culture defined the company. A company of geeky engineer-types likes to be online and work at night and they do so whether they’re at Google or another company.
If someone observe a typical CS student, they might say that colleges drive their students so hard that they never sleep since they are always typing at 2am and made them drink on weekends. :-)
The interpretation that Google and other Silicon Valley companies have some conspiracy to brainwash engineers to slave for them like a cult is a bit unfounded. :-) I’ve yet hear from any company say, “You can’t go home! We’re have all these perks!!!”
July 2nd, 2007 at 5:32 pm
That’s a really good point and perspective - and I may need to clarify. I don’t mean to say that Google shouldn’t offer these perks or that it is an insidious plot by Google. Indeed, I wish that I had those perks at places where I’ve worked!
Here’s the thing, though, I disagree with you that all these Googlers bring that 24/7 culture with them. Once “always working” is part of the corporate culture it is *very* difficult to be the one to buck that trend. And startups are notorious for requiring that of their employees, in many startups, G most likely included, people want to work that hard because they are excited by the newness and the need to get things going. But Google having progressed so far from there can no longer be considered a startup - but that mentality is still ingrained from the early days. And why should G try to do anything to de-grain it? It’s employees are working mad hours.
I’m not saying that the perks are there to make people stay, they are there because people are already staying and it makes financial sense to encourage that. I completely disagree, though, that all these people would be working 24/7 by unpressured choice. It’s possible to keep that up and enjoy it for awhile, but not forever.
July 2nd, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Google is definitely unique in their ability to sustain the culture of pushing ahead like a start-up even though they are around 7 years old as a company. The perks help but I think there’s something else in the kool-aid there that is driving them. :-)
Oh, when I re-read my comment, I realized I should’ve been more specific. When I said “these type of articles”, I was referring to the original one which makes some very generalized comments. If I was to read his article and not have some experience with Google and SV, I would come to many of the same conclusions as you.
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:50 am
Heh! Well, we may just have differing perspectives. I’ve worked at several startups (on both coasts!) and have seen the insides of various companies at various consulting gigs. I know how the startup mentality goes - and in a startup it’s excusable, with a small staff, excitement in the air, it’s easy to get hyped up about your project and grind through the days. I’ve also seen what happens when the company matures, there’s an existing product and there’s a lot less excitement about the product but the startup mentality persists because that’s simply the way the culture was. It is exceedingly difficult to break out of that, especially when the company remains small to medium sized. Typically there is a culture change when there’s an exodus of original staff and a lot of new blood comes in - this breaks the culture and marks the transformation from a startup to an established company.
I think that Google has not experienced, yet, what I think of as “the fall”. Yahoo, Microsoft and countless other high flyers all used to be able to do no wrong - but then they goofed up. Googlers all still believe that they can do no wrong and their stock prices march ever higher seeming to prove it - this definitely helps contribute to the air of excitement making it seem ok to work 24/7.
Nevertheless, I’ll stand by what I’ve said up there. :) I don’t believe that all many thousands of Googlers are working 24/7 because they love giving their entire lives to G. They work like that because that’s the culture there and when everyone else is doing it, it skews your perspective on what the norm is. Since you no longer have a life, normal is what everyone you work with is doing - and they’re all working forever, so you do too. In some ways, I think it’s mildly cultish. Of course the kicker is that at the end, a lot of these guys are going to be fabulously wealthy, and that helps, too.
August 24th, 2007 at 6:16 am
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