[mountain_man]

I worked at Google for 4 years, and chatted with you many times. I was unhappy for nearly all of my time there. I wouldn't say that I wasn't into algorithms or scaling, or hardcore cs, but I was never on a project at Google that used them, and I found moving between projects much harder than advertised. My job was routinely mundane and repetitive, and things that were exciting somehow got caught up in management red tape. But now I'm at a startup where I get to work on exciting algorithms, and I'm happy.

[cdibona]

I think that Google isn't always so good at helping people move between projects. I'm glad you found somewhere that worked for you, though.

[nostrademons]

That's curious, because I was told that inter-project mobility was a big strength of Google, first by the friend who referred me in, then by my recruiter, and then both my managers (I switched projects/managers on my second day, since my original one didn't really need another engineer) said that if it wasn't a good fit there were lots of other places within the company where my skills would be useful and I might be happy. It's a moot point for now, since I like my project and am excited to get going on it, though I'm kinda curious what'll happen if/when I outgrow it.

[mountain_man]

Teams and managers are very different there. I was told they liked it for people to stay on projects for at least 18 months, and that it's difficult to get a transfer with less time than that. That was the company line from my very first project there, in 2004, when it was still a relatively small company. A lot of it is just luck of the draw with your initial allotment there. Glad you found something that you enjoy though.