[zajd]

I think it's pretty safe to assume Google has plenty of dev work that isn't "uniquely complex and difficult technical problems"

[im_down_w_otp]

Yes they do. Tons of it. And, for that stuff that is "uniquely complex and difficult" they don't lean nearly as heavily on these practices. They pull those people straight out of postdocs at CMU, Cambridge, MIT, Stanford, etc.