Taro Logo

So many smart people. Such little worthwhile work

Engineer
Former Employee
Worked at Google for 20 years
August 11, 2022
3.0
RecommendsPositive OutlookNo CEO Opinion
Pros
  • Best in class compensation.
  • Amazing perks.
  • Quality of co-workers (for the most part).
  • The best place to learn distributed systems engineering.
Cons
  • Massive organizational bloat, with attendant massive overhead (meetings, reviews, etc.) to accomplish very little.

When major movements do happen, it's almost always with direct SVP intervention.

Everyone has a vote, and it's almost always "no", especially if you might get promoted ahead of them (see point on promo culture below).

  • Lots of jerks, especially in middle (Director/Senior Director and lower-rung VPs) management.

  • Poisonous promotion process.

  • Increasingly back-stabby culture (I suppose that's what the influx of Tesla/Amazon people eventually brings).

  • "Followership" and "inclusiveness" wielded as cudgels. No one is willing to disagree openly with anything (I'm referring to technical topics only) as a result, making the backstabbing and behind-the-scenes undermining really exhausting to deal with.

Teams are incentivized therefore to maintain the status quo (in other words, "innovate" at the edges, or basically do nothing.)

Advice to Management

Your hiring process is not infallible, even at the VP level.

You sometimes hire jerks, and more rarely, incompetent and venal jerks.

Best to acknowledge that these folks should go, rather than let their organizations suffer and wither under them.

Additional Ratings

Work/Life Balance
1.0
Culture and Values
3.0
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
2.0
Career Opportunities
2.0
Compensation and Benefits
5.0
Senior Management
4.0

Was this helpful?

Google Interview Experiences