[friedman23]

> “Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time”

Isn't Google's software engineering culture kind of a joke right now? I've spoken to multiple ex-Googlers and they tell me they leave because everything moves at a snail's pace. From the outside looking in, it seems like absolutely nothing is being done in Google and I would not want to replicate their engineering culture in any company.

Please don't take this as flame bait and I'm open to discussion about what I'm missing. I feel like for people in the know, Google has a reputation for being a "retirement home".

[danielmarkbruce]

Many things move at snails pace because when you generate 10's of billions of $$ every qtr, the first thing you want to do is not screw that up.

Google's reality is basically not like any other company (except maybe 2-3).

Google's engineering culture, at least a few years back, was insanely good given that reality.

[kudokatz]

> Google's engineering culture, at least a few years back, was insanely good given that reality.

If by "a few years" you mean 4-5, I have to strongly disagree. I witnessed extremely sloppy and incorrect general logic, even worse pathologies around concurrency, and disagreement between:

1. tech team gatekeepers 2. language police gatekeepers 3. mandated framework gatekeepers

when 1+2+3 all disagree and decide to block approvals, it's just comical. Especially since everybody is so sure they know "the right way". The high horse on which many devs at Google sit appears to be purely misdirected/unwarranted ego stroking from many people's point of view who are just trying to make practical, every-day decisions.

[danielmarkbruce]

I guess it shows there isn't as much consistency across the org as one might like.

It's also relative though, Google felt average until I saw a couple other companies...

[friedman23]

I feel like that's a terrible use of their capital if all they are trying to do is just not screw things up. I'm not a shareholder but if I were I'd rather have my money returned to me than have it spent on a bunch of projects that will get nowhere because the goal is avoid risk taking.

[smadge]

It’s not only “don’t screw things up.” They still develop features, they just go through a gauntlet of design review, experimentation, and then launch review.

[danielmarkbruce]

Many, not all.

[glisom]

Fair criticism, I have seen similar posts and articles about things inside there now. But the book is not so much about the current culture or setting now, but more on the authors experiences and what things have made the company successful long term from an engineering perspective. Good book to get insight on different topics or areas.