[0xbear]

Google is a very “sink or swim” place, and these well intentioned studies aren’t going to change that. I suspect they get funded in part for their positive PR aspect. Anecdotally, two of the three teams I worked in at Google were among the highest performing if you look at impact and results, and there was nothing “touchy-feely safe space” about them. It was pretty much “deliver or GTFO”, and how you feel about any of it didn’t matter one iota.

[KKKKkkkk1]

When you say GTFO, what is it exactly that you mean? Have you seen anyone fired or punished for underperformance?

[0xbear]

You won’t be fired per se. You just won’t perform well against your peers an will feel like shit because of that. After some time you’ll leave on your own accord to a team where demands aren’t quite as high. There are plenty of those around: it’s a huge company now, and demanding, high performance teams that do something that actually matters are a small minority.

[itronitron]

How do any of us know what the other means by 'touchy-feely safe space' ? I am pretty confident I have never worked in such an organization although someone with a different work experience might disagree. Same goes for 'deliver or GTFO' << that pretty much defines every work environment even though they are all different.

[0xbear]

What I’m saying is that at no point in my rather lengthy stint at Google were my feelings even a passing consideration to anybody in my chain of command. A couple of peers cared, but even there the environment is much more impersonal than in other companies I’ve worked at. And that’s _good_ for things like code quality etc, because your design won’t gain approval if it sucks no matter how chummy you are with your peers or boss. Same with code reviews, you will regularly get mercilessly savaged with the most pedantic nitpicking you’ve ever seen, sometimes to the point where your blood would boil. And that’s how it’s supposed to be if you want excellent engineering. But it’s not the most hospitable atmosphere for you as a person.

[itronitron]

>> with code reviews, you will regularly get mercilessly savaged with the most pedantic nitpicking you’ve ever seen

That is interesting and I would not have expected that as I keep hearing that google's hiring process is focused on only hiring the best.

[0xbear]

Obviously it’s not possible to hire just “the best”, but I can confirm one thing: the quality of their engineering talent is very high, and a lot of the best people in their respective fields work there.

[oxryly1]

Yeah, I'm guessing that if you're underperforming and you bring up how you feel psychologically unsafe you'll still get drummed out all the same. Which validates your unsafe feeling...