[unclekev]

> programmers where programmer is the king and each and every decision is made by programmers

Programmers at Google make no decisions. The only people 'making decisions' are the product owners and project managers.

> Even I found their coding interviews so damn hard.

A hard coding interview is not a valid metric on how good a place is to work.

> Google is considered to be the final nirvana and a Software Engineer badge the ultimate status of "you made it in life"

I've known people who feel like this as well. Some of them are still at Google and it's the best thing they ever did for their career.

On the other hand, I know people who felt this way, got a job at Google and it completely destroyed any passion for programming/computers that they had, to the point where they never worked in tech again.

Personally I feel it's dangerous to attach "you made it in life" to getting a job at Company X.

[planet-and-halo]

My general impression is that there are only three broad ways to be happy in life:

1. Genetically (i.e. your brain just works that way)

2. Luck into it

3. Iterate towards it (continuously)

The whole concept of "get job X and now I'm done" doesn't really fit well into any of those. A job could be a good iteration or you could get lucky and have it turn out to be a wonderful team/position/whatever, but the likelihood of your plan being "I need to do x" and then you do x and are then happy seems immensely unlikely. Like Samuel Johnson said, "Life is a progression from want to want, not enjoyment to enjoyment."