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throwawaybipbop 3025 days ago

(throwaway account for obvious reasons)

I left Google a few years ago, and I did love working there, but unfortunately my experience was similar. I was on one of the non-software engineering ladders. The group I was part of grew very rapidly the first few years I was there. We were poaching the absolute best people from the best companies to come work on our team. It seemed like there was a new former principal engineer from MegaCo joining us weekly, and it was fantastic to be part of such a team.

But how people got promoted was sometimes a mystery, at least at first. Everyone knew who was the most productive, the most valuable. Yet the promotions too often appeared random. Because we were on a narrower, more specialized engineering ladder the promo committees consisted of the same handful of very senior engineers each time. After a while, it became clear to us that the people that worked with those engineers on the promo committee in their day-to-day ended up having their promotions approved. Those that didn't had far less chance.

This might not sound all that bad - if you're doing high-level work you should be engaged with high-level people. But it ended up becoming a patronage system: people would volunteer their support and time for the pet projects of those on the promo committee and in return they would get promoted. Engineers who weren't comfortable with such an arrangement ended up jaded and underpayed.

I saw one engineer who left a very, very senior position at a well-known company especially hurt by the realization that they would have to participate in this charade to move up. He/she had attempted to get promoted the right way a few times and failed. Under pressure from their significant other, they played the game and it visibly hurt their sense of pride. The promo committee members took turns jerking them around with various tasks for a year or so, but he/she got their promotion. The rest of us took notice.

I got the sense that this system was more comfortable to those who came to us from academia. I barely have a college degree myself so maybe I can't relate.

Google has an internal system which allows engineers to transfer to other teams. If what you described happened to me, I would secure a transfer and then report the situation to higher ups.

bitL 3025 days ago

IIRC that works only if you never got a bad performance rating, then nobody would touch you internally and your chance to transfer within Google is lower than to move to another company to a better level.

If you transfer, you don’t get promoted

thorwawayforg 3025 days ago

Can you tell me more about this? I have interviewed at google 2 times now. The first interview I bombed -- and I knew it. It was my first interview in near 10 years. The second interview I thought I aced. There was not a single answer I could not answer expect one about obscure hardware that nobody uses any more -- which I think was a test on how I handle not knowing something -- I ended up learning something neat.

The process took a long time -- much longer than the first interview or any of my other friends. And every time I talked to the recruiter I could tell something was up. At the end the recruiter confessed there was issues at the hiring committee and a unusual event of a manager getting involved. They seemed to indicate there was a fight about me being accepted. I have a unique skill set and am very qualified to work at google. I have over 15 years working the full stack. I write drivers for Linux, and design big cloud deployments -- I have the history and the background, so I would not be a gamble on any front. So I thought it odd that there would be an issue at this level, it was only later that I figured I was not diverse enough when a intern I helped train -- who happens to be diverse did get into google.

Anyways, with all the politics going on I am wondering if it is even worth responding to a current recurrent request.

My questions for you xxcode are the folllowing --

It sucks, but are there teams I can try and get on that would not suck? Somebody at google has to be doing good things and just be excited about working on the project they are working on.

I have a good job in Texas. It pays me $150k a year. I sometimes get bonuses and have a fairly good thing going with stock (not options, but stock). Is the money good enough at google to make it worth while?

Will living in CA/MV negate any gains in pay and benefits?

Is there any way to work at this company and avoid the entire diversity thing? I just want to write code and build awesome software that people enjoy using. Diversity -- while I care about it -- is not something I want to actively take cycles out of my life to solve -- there are fare more passionate people who are better equipped to think about these issues, I would rather write software.

Please don't think I am a horrible person. We here on this planet once, and writing code what I want to do with my life -- not everybody has to be a warrior for social justice.

eqdw 3025 days ago

I can't speak to most of the following, but I just escaped California for Texas and I'm fairly familiar with the numbers.

Per a recent news article (don't have it handy, but it was on HN so someone will probably post it), moving from SF -> Austin, holding salary constant, is a de-facto raise of $66,000 per year due to lowered cost of living.

And this is in _Austin_ which, I'm led to believe, has a very high cost of living relative to Texas. If you're somewhere else in Texas making $150k, your de-facto raise relative to California is even higher

Meanwhile, working at Google or another name brand company in SF, your total compensation is going to be anywhere from $200k to $300k. Working at a regular tech company in SF, depending on seniority, it's going to be $100k-$180k. Without giving specific numbers, I was making around $150k as a software engi with 6 years experience in SF, and I took about a 10% pay cut when I moved to Texas.

----

In short, if you're making $150k/yr in Texas, anywhere, you are doing better in terms of overall life (money after adjusted for stress/QoL), and if you're making $150k/yr in Texas outside of Austin, you are probably making more money in absolute terms than the typical Google employee. Please, do yourself a favour and stay in Texas

----

Edit: To add, a major part of why I moved out of California was because the politics was omnipresent and unavoidable. I have so many horror stories, things I would not believe to be true if I didn't witness them first-hand. And this is at regular normal tech companies. Companies that don't have the budget to spend on politics. Companies that risk their existence by spending money on things outside of their core business (read: the software they're building).

If you're like me, and you just want to do the job you're good at, do it right, and make a good wage, then California is not for you. It's not avoidable, it will drive you crazy. Maybe California will sort itself out five, ten years from now, but right now people are silently leaving in droves over it.

Please, for the love of reasonableness and moderation, stay in Texas and help us keep this place focused on the craft, instead of getting distracted by orthogonal social issues

Why don’t you work for google for a bit and experience it first hand. You can probably go back to your present job later if you want. As senior engineer at google, it is definitely 75%+ politics and project management and 25% technical competence. Depends on a group but perhaps if you are on a mission driven group like Brain etc, it can be better. I don’t know.

I would recommend joining a smaller group at google, and also one which has engineers who haven’t all been around at google for 5+ years.

Overall, it can be fun at times but relatively unfulfilling. Google pays above market though. I think if it paid market, almost 50% of tech staff would leave.

Product managers at google are also very political and if they are not, they get pushed out etc. I had one PM who always passionately argued about the user etc, and was eventually pushed out because he was not internally ‘aligned’. The product he was arguing against got cancelled this Friday after 2 years of work

https://mtlynch.io/why-i-quit-google/

pizza234 3025 days ago

Based on an article that went on HN a few days ago:

it seems luck (as in being the right person on the right project) plays a large factor (not the only factor, of course).

jstalin 3025 days ago

I wouldn't think of someone as "horrible" for not caring what color other people's skin is. That's a testament to the world we're in. If you don't actively and consciously take skin color into consideration, you're a bad person!

nojvek 3025 days ago

On the other side Google’s getting shamed for not being diverse enough. I’m sure many recruiters and hiring managers’ bonuses are tried to how many diverse candidates are hired.

In other words, this mess could be due to a lack of true leadership. They're reacting to one criticism then the next, without really having a coherent, defensible idea of their own.

mostlyskeptical 3025 days ago

Companies will always be shamed for not being diverse enough. Tis the call of outrage culture.

Eridrus 3025 days ago

I don't think this anecdote is a good way to judge bias. Companies don't always want to hire the most senior and experienced person that interviews, and that's not always a bad thing.

Google already suffers from a lack of junior people (see the post from a few days ago from a Xoogler complaining that the work he was doing was not deemed promo worthy), so it's not necessarily a surprise that the hiring bar for junior engineers would be lower - they're junior engineers.

And this law suit alleges that Google discriminated against non-diverse candidates at the most junior level anyway.

univalent 3025 days ago

I feel I must respond since I also moved from Dallas to SFO. Equivalent salary will be around 230ish for your 150. You may still struggle to buy a house because of competition. Just a head's up.

eclipxe 3025 days ago

I feel the exact opposite. I love going to work everyday at Google. I get the way you describe at previous companies. Not at Google.

Cthulhu_ 3025 days ago

Maybe you two should compare where you work and what you do; Google's a big company with over 72.000 employees, it's highly unlikely everyone has the same experience worldwide.

Exactly, two engineers could have an entirely different experience based on their team. Engineers can transfer to different teams too, though that team will obviously look at the engineer's history of performance.

izacus 3025 days ago

Two engineers on the same team can even have vastly different experience. Google is big enough that it attracts a huge spectrum of engineers and one person's hellish workplace is another person's bliss.

pizza234 3025 days ago

How long have you been working at Google and what's your position (if you don't mind the question)?

Both factors may make a significant difference in the judgment of "working at Google" (I don't imply anything, either negative or positive).

hodgesrm 3025 days ago

Please don't take this the wrong way, but attitudes like what you just described contribute to a toxic work culture--people sticking around just because of the money but hating every minute of it. It implies that people there are not just unhappy but will do/say things they don't believe in just to keep the paychecks rolling in.

Working at big companies like Google is not for everyone. Unless you have material reasons for staying--such as funding care of aging parents--wouldn't you be happier and more successful by taking your own advice?

p.s., I don't work at Google and don't ever want to.

eeZah7Ux 3025 days ago

Management is responsible for the environment that is created in a company.

Please don't blame employees that are complaining about stressful working environments - their plate is already full.

millzlane 3025 days ago

There is no victim. This isn't chattel slavery. OP can say no to shitty culture and find another job. Take some of that good money save up a 6 month emergency fund and GTFO. There is no reason you should be going into work everday with a curdled stomach.

xuhu 3025 days ago

There is no victim. This isn't chattel slavery. Women can say no to shitty culture and find another job. Take some of that good money save up a 6 month emergency fund and GTFO. There is no reason you should be going into work everday with a curdled stomach.

jknoepfler 3025 days ago

people should take ownership of the consequences of their actions, especially when those actions are part of their professional identity and are reasonably within their control. Google is by almost no account a "stressful" working environment in the sense that its employees are well paid even within the context of a wealthy developed nation, have the freedom to leave, have ample access to health care, sick days, and paid vacation, have a physically safe workplace with minimal to no risk of personal injury, have socially highly respected work that is building a foundation for whatever career future they want, etc. etc.

This isn't a field worker complaining about back-breaking labor conditions and wage theft, this a professional engineer at a top company who I certainly would not want on my team (I'm also a software engineer) if they're as checked out as they say, both for their sake and mine.

I've worked with plenty of checked-out paycheck/stock-vest campers, and their effect on team morale is palpable, and the damage they do during their remaining tenure is usually pretty severe.

jerf 3025 days ago

"people should take ownership of the consequences of their actions, especially when those actions are part of their professional identity and are reasonably within their control."

That's a normative statement, which I personally agree with, along with the rest of your post, so this is by no means disagreement with anything you said. But it's really easy for people to rationalize away normative statements.

I prefer something a bit more direct: Nobody else is going to save you. Whether or not it "should" be your job to manage your own happiness is an interesting philosophical discussion that happens to have absolutely no bearing on your life, because in your real life, it's on you.

If you are that unhappy with your job, do something. Nobody else will.

Agreed and I did. I quit Google this Friday.

jerf 3023 days ago

Congratulations on your determination. Many people don't have the fortitude to take such a step; while it may seem a bit silly, I recommend going ahead and taking a moment to allow a bit of pride in that, so as to encourage the brain bits that allowed you to do that.

I wish you the best.

TheRealDunkirk 3025 days ago

So you don't see the problem as lying with the people who dictate stupid policies because they don't know what they're talking about? You think the problem is with the people who try to push back, realize that there's no future in it, and learn how to shut up and keep their head down? Uh...

bitL 3025 days ago

Consider deleting this post. You can be easily doxxed from your HN post history; it's not worth it.

Once there's a reply it can't be deleted, only edited to remove the content. After two hours that's not even an option anymore.

Generally, I think it's good policy to be very guarded on the internet and/or change accounts often. There are all kinds of awful people out there, and you can't control who you may come across.

cpeterso 3025 days ago

It doesn't hurt to try emailing the HN contact address hn@ycombinator.com asking to remove or edit a post after the time limit.

epx 3025 days ago

Which confirms what he said?

bitL 3025 days ago

It's not only about malicious actors within the company; they might end up in some sort of external blacklist scrapped off HN that would complicate their life once they depart their current company. It's best to have 0 private opinion trace on doxxable accounts these days and usual VPN + Tor circuit.

Thank you. This is a good point. I deleted a submission that had my email address. Perhaps they will black ball me but I dont think I said anything that was libel or false. I just shared my opinions.

hkmurakami 3025 days ago

Seconded.

throwaway1584 3025 days ago

You are correct that if you work in tech create a throw-away account to discuss anything critical of the prevailing viewpoints. Many holding the prevailing viewpoints are tyrannical and have shown themselves willing to destroy the lives of anyone pointing out problems in their viewpoint.

driverdan 3025 days ago

It sounds like the best thing that could happen to them is to be fired.

nojvek 3025 days ago

Oh man. That is quite a twist to the Google of 2010. But I guess any company that crosses 10,000 people mark will have heavy politics.

Google makes so much money from ads, it doesn’t know what to do. Like Microsoft, so much middle management that from customer pain to engineers, requirements are loaded with a ton of personal agenda and political gain.

kraig911 3025 days ago

Reading this hurt. Life's to short. Quit. There are plenty of places that pay just as good or give you much more than just raw cash. If you've a family to feed (like me) I totally can get why you'd want to say. I know it's easy for me to say quit and find something else too. But please take it from a dumb guy who pities others that he feels are making the same mistake as he did. Quit. The world is too beautiful and miraculous to lose days to feelings like that.

walshemj 3025 days ago

Performance systems are always political and if you are unlucky driven by Dogbert in hr who's bonus is based on cutting the pay quanta.

pmarreck 3025 days ago

I have nothing but loathing for performance evaluation metrics... which is partly why I’m a solo dev right now

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number

_jal 3025 days ago

I have avoided LargeCos for precisely this reason. Worked in one a long time ago and witnessed the same thing - this is hardly unique to Google.

Once companies significantly outgrow the Dunbar-number range[1], political processes are the only way to manage things, and it infects everything.

For me, my quality of life is worth the tradeoff[2], and I turn down headhunters from them AmaGoPleBook seemingly constantly. If you want to pursue your actual work, as opposed to refining your skill at signaling games, move to a smaller shop.

[2] Another reason to keep debt low and personal commitments fluid - turning down a six figure raise because it would make life hell gets harder with both.

hi41 3025 days ago

I found this shocking. How did this come to be? Don't places like Google reward people based on merit. Isn't it the hallowed ground for egalitarianism? I read an article about the hiring practices at Google that spoke highly about it.

Honestly, I'm not so surprised. A lot of stuff about employment Google reads like hagiographies. Maybe it was that way in the distant past, but its most notable perks (20% time, etc.) have been cut and it's big and publicly traded now, so rot has definitely had time to set in.

20% projects have been cut? I wish someone told me that before I started a 20% project which spanned multiple quarters, and still did well in my last performance review.

If an engineer isn't doing well on their 80% project, a 20% project might be frowned upon, that is true.

https://www.hrzone.com/lead/culture/why-did-google-abandon-2...:

I guess the policy has changed. My impression was in the early days you could work 20% on your own stuff (no/few approvals necessary) and 80% on your corporate assignments. That's changed into something that, frankly, isn't very unique:

> Why did Google abandon 20% time for innovation?

> In 2012 the firm began requiring engineers who wished to work on individual projects to run their proposals by their managers first. This was a significant change from the firm’s previous policy.

> In 2013 it was reported that managers had clamped down on staff taking ’20% time’ so as to avoid their teams falling behind in Google’s internal productivity rankings. Managers are judged on the productivity of their teams—Google has a highly developed internal analytics team that constantly measures all employees’ productivity—and so time spent on ’20% time’ projects would impact this.

2013 Google sounds like pretty much every other major company, in this area.

I think you can still do a 20% project. This was about the performance systems, and not about workload. Workload is easy peasy. Its almost a sinecure for most people because all you need to do is to optimize for promo.

Eridrus 3025 days ago

The refrain I hear is that you can do 20% projects, but you have to do it on top of your 100% project, which isn't contradicted by what you say.

So that refrain seems to imply the 20% project must be done as additional work after spending 40 hours a week on the 100% project. My point was you actually can spend roughly 32 hours a week on your main project, if you are performing well, and then roughly 8 hours a week on your 20% project, and still get high performance ratings.

Eridrus 3025 days ago

But do managers adjust their expectations of your main project to 0.8 of expected output?

Sure if you can get everything expected of you done in 32 hours, you can spend the remaining 8 on something else.

yupyup 3025 days ago

If you don't mind me asking... Why do you continue working there?

kelukelugames 3025 days ago

Pay attention to what people do more than what people say. People vote with their feet. A senior engineer at Google can easily get a high paying job anywhere else.

koonsolo 3025 days ago

Imagine that you find a job that excites you, and you look forward to working on challenging stuff every week.

So the question you have to ask yourself is this: Is the difference in pay between these two jobs really worth it?

The times when I asked myself this question, the answer was always really clear.

dilap 3025 days ago

a quick browse of your comment history suggests we'd enjoy working together. n3twork, mobile video games. san francisco. email me at erin@n3twork.com if you think you might be interested.