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Still a great company to work for

Senior Software Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at Google for 20 years
September 18, 2019
Seattle, Washington
4.0
RecommendsPositive OutlookNo CEO Opinion
Pros

Almost everyone around you is pretty darn smart and works hard.

Managers are generally competent, smart, and well-intentioned, but not experienced and trained as managers, as they were mostly former engineers.

Salary and benefits are good, including free food.

The performance review system is complicated but understandable. You can generally understand pretty clearly what you need to do to get promoted and succeed, at least up to L5, Senior Software Engineer.

Cons

It isn't as good as it used to be. Ten years ago, the focus was entirely on doing the right thing for the user. Now, the focus is on keeping the money train going. This short-term thinking is hurting long-term potential and is often bad for users.

Management "Ethics" seem to be mainly: Whatever they can get away with, without annoying European and US governments too much, and makes money, is good, even if it is not good for our users.

Ten years ago, we had a lot more bottom-up innovation: 20% projects, taking risks, trying crazy innovative things. That's pretty much gone now. There's top-down planning, lots of status updates to management, proving that what you are doing is working and contributing to the organization's goals. There is much more bureaucracy than there used to be.

It's just another big company now. Good, but not exceptional the way it used to be.

Advice to Management

Get back to the long-term thinking that made the company successful in the first place.

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