Google

1. The culture is such that the standard is to share information openly with colleagues and assist with one another's work as necessary. Teams within the company are not generally encouraged to compete, and instead collaborate to maximize the outcome for everyone. Within teams, it's highly encouraged to help newcomers best the learning curve and find an effective role for them on the team while setting a reasonable pace for both learning and working.

On another note, learning is considered working, and people are hired for their ability to learn rather than their ability to memorize pedantries like libraries or language factoids. They also hire for attitude, which I think contributes to why we have such great people working at Google.

1. Exceptional work-life balance. I have seen no tight restrictions on scheduling, as long as one shows up to their daily standups/weekly meetings and contributes to their team in terms of work and communication. Working remote isn't generally considered a standard, but people usually work from home once a week and put in as many hours as they need to in order to be effective.

2. High degree of lateral mobility. It's easy to move from team to team, as long as one is willing to put the time in to deal with the learning curve involved with new material. This is an aspect of employee satisfaction that I think contributes to people staying long-term.

3. Google takes perks-related feedback very seriously. In order to stay competitive while hiring the best people, they will gladly take any well-constructed feedback related to food, transportation, work environment, pay, etc., directly into mind. The feedback system for perks is quite elaborate, and they're always trying to improve conditions for workers.

4. Google has a very healthy codebase, and people take submitting code into production very seriously. Expect to have at least a half-dozen comments on your code if you're submitting more than 50 lines of functional code; someone else will think that something could have been refactored or named better. Being able to accept criticism and not take it personally is deeply ingrained in our culture, and I think this is one thing that helps us to flourish and avoid critical failures when the stakes are high.

1. Low vertical mobility. Google is known for being very bottom-heavy, and engineers need to accept that while they will get world-class benefits, pay, and career opportunities going in, engineers also tend not to get much more recognition or responsibility as they work more. Google mostly does front-line software/firmware development, so this is a reality for people within the company.

They also hire some of the most fluid and competitive engineers in the world, so the bar is very high. On the bright side, this also means that people who want to spend their entire careers in development can do so while expecting to live a comfortable lifestyle. I don't see many people who spend their entire careers at Google, but doing so also is not a bad career option at all and a great opportunity to develop expertise in a field.

1. Due to the slow and steady attitude held towards development and releasing products, it can also mean that at times there are a lot of hurdles to overcome during development. While other companies might move faster with a more "hacky" culture, Google does not encourage this in any way, shape, or form.

If you want to turn out really healthy, well-documented, well-tested, and effective code that will be used entirely on the basis of its usefulness to other people, Google is a great place to be. If you want to quickly turn out products with a high-risk, high-reward basis at a fast rate, then a startup company might be a better option.

Continue improving transparency within HR regarding hiring practices and salary.

Transparency is now considered a trait of a company that employees take into consideration, and the positive trend I've been seeing should definitely continue.