I don't know about Google or Facebook, but here is my story.<p>I turned down an offer from a big investment bank (after working there for few months) and now joined a company which I can say is just average. For me I wan't to keep a work/life balance. Wanted to give time to myself as well few side projects. Staying in former would've required too much commitment.<p>But here's the lesson I learned, no matter what company it is they will ask for same amount of time commitment. Only difference lies in the type of work they assign to you. So it is good to be in an awesome company so atleast you can work on some challenging assignments.
I work at Google on websearch indexing. I usually arrive to work between 9 and 10am and leave around 7pm. I don't work from home and I have never worked on a weekend.<p>There are many engineers around me who choose to work very long hours and weekends, but I never received a reproach or a scornful glare for not being like that.