Google reviews

1. Not really a technical role. You basically resolve customer issues. There is almost no coding. This is great for people who are not technically inclined but still want to get paid well for support work. But it drained me as I did not feel challenged and had nothing to actually learn as I believe that the only way to learn is to implement things. I am surprised by how many of my fellow TSEs (with MS degrees) were OK with this sort of work. 2. No opportunities to learn and grow by building a project from scratch. This may seem like a copy of the first point but it's not. Before joining Google Cloud, I had 4 years of experience as a Software Engineer and a Data Engineer at multiple companies. In all of them, you either had a new or relatively-new project that you got assigned to and you contributed to its development. Watching your project grow and get to production is an important part of being an engineer and why I love my line of work. But this is not possible when you are flooded with cases that you need to resolve. Google does allow 20% of your time to work on projects outside of your work, but unless you come up with an idea to benefit your own sub-organization (i.e. Cloud Support), you cannot really include that work in your year-end performance review. I am observing a pattern where GCP is focussing more on hiring interns straight out of college. The good thing is that it prevents them from hiring experienced over-qualified engineers for support work. The bad thing is that many new engineering graduates will accept the fact that solving customer cases is true engineering work and will never venture outside of this proverbial well. 3. Lot of churn in employees. Based on the above 2 points, employees are dissatisfied. I have seen quite a few people either leave Google or move to a different role after less than 2 years. This reinforces my belief that I am not the only one who feels the same way about this role. This is even true even for senior leadership. During my time working there, I saw a lot of changes in the leadership structure. 4. Customers are not the most patient people in the world. This is especially true when they are facing an issue and they have asked you to resolve it. I had a particularly bad experience when on a customer call, the customer talked to me like I was a waiter who had made a mistake with his order. Not all customers are like this, but it takes only one to make you rethink your career choices.

Google has to make some serious changes to improve its performance management and promotion processes. Called "Perf", it's a twice a year process that managers and staff alike despise because it takes up enormous amounts of time and results in questionable promotion decisions. In Finance, approximately 10% of the team can get promoted in any given Perf cycle and there are only two per year. I recommend learning about Google's internal level system during the hiring process and asking what level your role is before you accept the job offer. Talk to a friend or contact and see if the leveling of your role is reasonable to start with. I was hired at too low of a level and then slow (3 years) to reach my first promotion. Finance Levels at Google (rough work experience required): L3 Financial Analyst (1-2 years) L4 Financial Analyst (2-4 years) L5 Senior Financial Analyst (4-6 years) L6 Finance Manager (6-8 years) L7 & L7.5 Senior Finance Manager (8+) L8 Finance Director (12+) L5 is the terminal level for many Finance employees. It's extremely difficult to get into management. L6 and above are very political promotions. For promotions at levels 3-5, they are largely time-based (2 years on average for L3/L4, 3 years for L5). Super strong performers do not get promoted more quickly, contrary to what Google claims. While total compensation (salary + 15% bonus + equity) is often competitive, the salary component is quite low and makes it hard to afford the SF Bay Area cost of living, especially in your first year before you get a bonus and before any of your equity vests.