Google

• Smart, kind, helpful coworkers who want to see you succeed.
• Lots and lots of possible stuff to work on internally, because Google really does everything.
• The perks and good job stability.
• Good work-life balance; my workload is totally manageable.
• Cool to work on stuff that so many people use.

The company (and codebase) is so big it will swallow you whole if you are not careful.

Getting promoted or "growing" in your career is a big corporate game which feels slimy at times, to me.

It takes forever to launch anything. Sometimes you will work for months and months at a time on something, and the project will get cancelled. It's fine when this happens once, but when it happens several times in a row, it can be disheartening.

The culture of your specific team and manager kind of defines your experience.

It can feel like a cog in the machine.

Stop firing people mysteriously and then claiming you didn't.