Google reviews

Cult of growth. Everything is measured, quantified and evaluated in terms of growth and impact. Exponential growth is expected in every single metric: number of projects, number of users, lines of code, impact, whatever. If something stops growing, it usually gets killed. Do you remember Google Reader? It stopped growing. Look out for your own stats, and get transferred quickly if you stop growing at your current place. Lack of focus. Hyperactive and very disruptive development in most areas, with user experience neglected. It is starting to hit back (as of 2014-2015). Unfortunately, I can't go into details on the consequences of this one, due to confidentiality. Chaos. There is no stable point, everything changes all the time. All documentation is unfinished and/or outdated. Very few people have the 'big picture' and they don't have time to share it, because they have to chase their own growth. Reorganization is continually happening. People come and go, teams come and go, products come and go. Usually we move 3-4 times a year. Noogler onboarding is often forgotten. There's a story about a noogler haunting the buildings for 2 months before finding out whom he reported to. I'm not sure if that ever happened, but I've seen people wandering around for several days. (Now I have the routine to spot them and help finding their team.) Long working hours and stress. This is most prevalent in SRE, but many development teams experience it, too. Cult vocabulary. There are hundreds of words for common things. On top of that, all projects have their internal codenames, and sometimes 3-4 different names refer to the same thing. You can speak whole sentences with words that only googlers understand. Willpower, Ikea, magnet, batman, etc.: those words do not mean what you think they mean. Location-specific issues. The company is centered around Mountain View, and you are almost certainly required to move there if you become important. Other sites (especially non-US sites) provide significantly less perks and choices. Mountain View is extremely crowded, and facilities can't keep up with the growth. Property prices are crazily inflated by googlers, and traffic is bad for the same reason. London still has some office space, but it pays much less than other sites, while living costs are the same or higher. The company sets the salaries based purely on industry average, not on living costs. The London benchmark seems to be flawed. You can't afford to rent any decent flat near the office, and commute is awful during peak times. Offices are open plan everywhere. Waiting for male toilets is very common at most sites. With regards to quality of life, the Zurich site is the most livable in Europe, and maybe New York in the US (until Eric Schmidt applies his stupid crowdedness-makes-you-creative theory).

Long hours: It depends on the individual, but it's easy to feel that you need to produce more and ending up selling yourself short. The work involves a lot of time wasting "archaeology" - sifting through wikis, code labs and other people's code figuring out what is the latest recommended way to do something that sounds boiler-plate and obvious, so it's easy to feel unproductive at times. Also, the availability of free food, gym, etc. on campus and the plenty of fun distractions on its corp network make it easy to spend more time there. Hard to be visible and make an impact. Visibility and Impact are the economy by which software engineers are measured, and they are becoming harder to come by. I feel that most joining now are likely to end up being just a number: average (in Google standards) impact and zero visibility, irrespective of how much of a rock star they were in their previous jobs. It's becoming more and more the target of lawsuits, which basically means that legal fees will continue to cut a larger share of its revenues. In general, operating margins have been decreasing, although they are still amazing. I'm not saying that legal fees are the reason for decreasing operating margins. Google is investing heavily (in new hires, acquisitions, etc) and any benefits from this spike in investment will take some time to catch up with the costs, and there is no guarantee that they ever will. I am a relatively recent (post-recession) hire, and after way over a year on the job I still feel that I am evaluating Google and wondering whether I can have a career here, which is not a good sign. Compared to previous jobs, I feel less recognized, having to work more, less proud of my work, and being more conscious on the effect that specific projects will have on my career instead of just doing what is right for the users/company. It is not that I am less smart/capable/experienced than others, it's just that the opportunities are less compared to someone who joined earlier. The work is not the most interesting I ever done, but it is OK and gives me the opportunity to expand my technical breadth. If this is all Google needs from me, then I am likely to move on, more sooner than later, and if this is a common experience of the relatively recent hires then the smartest and the brightest will not be flocking to Google anymore. Nothing particularly wrong with Google, I assume that's part of a company's normal progression from start-up to behemoth, and I still recommend giving Google a try, especially for new grads as it can be a good place to jump-start an engineering career. Just keep an eye on what you're getting out of your work and don't let the perks distract you from the bigger picture.