I can tell that this was written by an outsider, because it focuses on the perks and rehashes several cliches that have made their way into the popular media but aren't all that accurate.<p>Most Googlers will tell you that the best thing about working there is having the ability to work on really hard problems, with really smart coworkers, and lots of resources at your disposal. I remember asking my interviewer whether I could use things like Google's index if I had a cool 20% idea, and he was like "Sure. That's encouraged. Oftentimes I'll just grab 4000 or so machines and run a MapReduce to test out some hypothesis." My phone screener, when I asked him what it was like to work there, said "It's a place where really smart people go to be average," which has turned out to be both true and honestly one of the best things that I've gained from working there.<p>A lot of the observations in the article fall out of this, but in ways that are less sound-bitey. Google doesn't enforce set working hours - you can get in as late as you want (the latest I've been in is around 4:15 PM, but that was because I had a DMV appointment, the latest from just not waking up was about 2:00), stay as late as you want (my latest was about 1:00 AM, though I worked from home until 6:00 AM last Thursday), duck out during the day if you're meeting a friend or have a date or need to pick a sick kid up from school, or work from home as necessary. You also don't have a set workload: you do as much work as you think is appropriate and then go home.<p>The thing is - you are surrounded by incredibly intelligent & fiercely hard-working people. Many of them were used to being top-dog at whatever institution they came from before - hell, many <i>were</i> top dog (we have a lot of ex-startup-founders; there's a good chance that you're working with someone that's founded a company or originated a successful open-source project). And that can be a big adjustment, and the types of folks that Google typically hire usually react to not being on top by working harder. It's up to you to set limits on the amount of time you're willing to spend working, and most new hires at Google are used to being limited by "the amount of work my boss/professor/thesis advisor throws at me", not by the number of hours in the day.
When I was younger, I would have considered the Google environment to be perfect. A utopia for software engineers - especially if you have to be in the suburbs like Mountain View. The size would never have worked for me, but seeing something similar implemented at a startup level would have been my dream.<p>Now on my fourth startup, I feel it's unhealthy for the employees and the company. Having everyone's life revolve around a corporate culture is stifling. Employees lose perspective and balance. They lose touch with people who are not like them. Monoculture develops; groupthink flourishes.<p>It is a dangerous thing to be completely dependent on a company for basic necessities or for your friends. It makes it hard to leave everything you knew behind. It makes people defensive when any criticism of the company is raised since it attacks their way of life.<p>While a comfortable work environment is important, I reject the idea that employees should be encouraged, even passively, to stay at work all the time. I think employees should have a life outside of work involving people who aren't at the company and don't work in tech.
FWIW, this doesn't especially match my experience at Google. (I was an engineer there for four years, ending about a year and a half ago. I doubt things have changed drastically since then.)<p>Most of the descriptions about the environment and perks are accurate, though the article may somewhat exaggerate the extent to which people participate. However, I never felt pressure to devote my life to the company, and certainly there was no direct connection between hours worked and compensation.<p>Long term, the biggest personal variables in Google compensation are promotions and stock grants. The biggest determinant of those, in turn (luck and politics aside) is a perception that you're doing important/great work. Burning the midnight oil is not necessarily going to help with that, and it's certainly not the only way to get there.<p>Maybe the culture is different in other parts of the company. But I don't think it could be that different... there's a deliberate process for bringing people together from different parts of the organization to make decisions on promotions.
Disclaimer: I'm no expert only having worked here for little more than a year (true veterans can speak to Google culture far better than I) but I'll add my perspective.<p>None of this rings false although there's not really that much substance to the piece and certainly nothing new.<p>I will add two things:<p>1. You get as much out of it as you put in; and<p>2. As an employee you are empowered.<p>(2) can be a little hard to explain. Basically the rules (apart from a few like keeping confidences and not doing anything criminal) are really guidelines. A lot of effort is made to accommodate outliers. Let's face it, there are some engineers who are quite brilliant but have a lot of, well, idiosyncrasies.<p>Also if you need to work early, late or need new hardware or whatever you use your discretion because if you ask for something you'll probably get it but the culture of being "Googley" includes not getting or doing things just because you can. Use your judgement.<p>Oh in New York it's a little different. Commutes can be a lot smaller (I'm a 5 minute walk from work) so there's not as much of an issue with crazy hours because the travel time, being a fixed cost, may jot encourage you to make the most of it, as it were.
Speaking as a fairly recent Google hire: No, this is not what it's really like to work at Google.<p>I considered writing more, but really, what else is there to say? Working at Google is not defined by the presence of cafeterias, alcoholism is not a way of life, and overwork is no more prevalent than any other Silicon Valley company I've worked at.
It doesn't seem to me that the father of the 18-month old son is trading the chance to spend time with his offspring for cold hard work, but rather trading it for salsa dancing classes, a couple of pints at the bar with his friends, and whatever else fancies him out of the thousands of distractions on campus.<p>I've heard all too many stories of people "working" insane hours at Google only to find out that they're merely <i>working</i> normal hours and spending the rest of their time <i>living</i> at Google. And it's great to have the option to do that.<p>(Disclaimer: I've been working/living at Google for 2.5 months now.)
I've been at Google two years, in the Cambridge office. I work pretty long hours, but part of that is because work is my hobby. I'd be working on the ext4 file system whether Google paid me or not. It's something that I'm passionate about it. Heck, even if I won a lottery and had a $20 million dollar windfall, I'd probably still be working there, because it's incredibly fun working with lots of smart people, and I'm at a place where I can definitely and directly see how my work is making a difference.<p>So people who talk about it as being a velvet cage have gotten it all wrong. It's a cage, if you want to call it a cage, that I've chosen of my own free will; it's how I've wanted to spend my time even before I joined Google. Google has simply removed obstacles from allowing me to work on my passion as much as I like; in general, I think it's fair to say that Google wants to find people who are smart and passionate at what they do; those for whom their work is a joy, and not just something they do so they can put bread on the table.<p>As far as promotions are concerned, the criteria at least for software engineers is pretty simple: it's a matter of demonstrating that you are already working at your new level, in terms of technical expertise, scope of your work, and impact to the company. As far as I'm concerned, that's the way it should be at any company where good engineers would want to hang their hat.
I work there. Its been four and a lot years. I don't work in mountain view, though.<p>working hours: I average 40h a week. Which is what all the studies say is optimal. The key perk here is picking your hours. If I'm feeling hungover, I work less. If I'm on a roll, I work more. If I have to wait at home for half a day to let in my landlord or something, thats fine. As long as work get done, no one cares. no one clock-watches. I do think there is a correlation between working hard and getting promoted, but its not that strong a correlation - my last promotion came at the end of working 40h weeks... I can't imagine people feeling like they have to leave because they aren't putting in stupid hours.<p>boozing: there is a certain amount of company paid for drink. there is a certain amount of people bringing in booze. However, the line has been drawn about having a drink and then working. And really, on the scale of drinking, google is kinda lame. At tgif I think the most I've managed is a couple of beers.<p>Another twist on the "smart people" thing: its not about everyone being smart, its about no one being stupid. I don't have to spend tons of my time explaining stuff to people. I don't have any co-workers where it would be faster to do their work for them.<p>grades etc: I do run into people who name drop uni or test results or whatever, but most of the time, no one cares. I work with people who studied a subject completely different to computers at uni. I work with people who never bothered with uni. I do think there a bits of the company where going to mit over random uni still matters, but I don't work with those bits.<p>My big dislike is that its a big company - there is lots of existing code and systems, some of which is showing its age, its hard to change company policy on the big issues, you do feel like one in X cogs, and there is a lot of internal bikeshedding.
This sounds very much like how it is to work at DESY and CERN. However, at CERN and even more so at DESY, the general environs are not <i>that</i> pleasant. CERN can be pretty sweet, although many of the buildings don't have aircon and the furniture and computers can be outdated. DESY is worse and just tore up its soccer pitch a couple of years ago to build on top of it.<p>The canteens at CERN are pretty good, but the canteen at DESY is dire. However, there seems to be the same easy-going, yet intensely competitive dominated-by-young-clever-people vibe at Google as I've seen at these labs. I wonder if they took any inspiration from particle physics labs when they designed their offices?
> The software engineer I spoke with...<p>One is not a valid sample. Other than a single persons perspective, everything else is speculation.<p>Disclaimer: I work for Google.
This is article is very light on evidence, citing one engineer the author spoke with.<p>Having worked there I'd say the article is unfairly one-sided. There are plenty of Googlers who maintain a normal work-life balance.
It's strange how this article praises what appears to be a lifestyle that's utterly devoted to and centered a corporation as a good thing. The guy spends his day doing Google things (some work, some merely provided by Google), goes home and sees his family for a couple hours, does a few more Google things, then goes to bed.<p>Surely our lives should involve more than that.
The sentiment I have is that of the 30 year old. When I was 19 and working as a hardware and software designer at a start up, my boss found out that I had come in on a Saturday and worked all day. I thought it was cool and awesome to design hardware, and then write the firmware for it.<p>He was #5 out of 120 employees with 20+ years of experience. He took me to the side and said, one day, you will have a family. Working on the weekend and long hours should not be something you strive for. He worked 9 to 5, and so did the rest of the team.<p>I'm 33 now and have a 2 month old. I work 9 to 5 Mon to Friday. No more, no less. His was the best advice ever given by a manager of mine. Only took me 14 years to "get it" :)
Another googler here. I don't see people over working. My boss, who I totally respect as a programmer, leaves at 5pm every day. So did my previous boss. Both have families. Both work hard the entire time they are at Google. Both go home at a reasonable hour.<p>I'd say the same of pretty much all my teammates. The place is nearly empty by 7pm but none of them were slacking during the day.<p>I also agree with another googler's post here. Google, more than any other company I've worked with, tries to make sure nothing gets in your way. Need another monitor, hard drive, more ram, higher desk, cable, mouse, keyboard. They just give it to you asap. Need another machine, ask your boss. I've never been denied, machine shows up asap.<p>Compare this to my previous job where our build server was out of space and it took 6 EFFING MONTHS FOR THEM TO A APPROVE A $100 hard drive! WTF!!!<p>The perks are nice and also help you get more done in less time so you can go have your life. Not having to drive to a gym = 10-20 minutes of your life back. Being able to see a doctor on campus if you want means 20-40 minutes of your life back. Eating lunch on campus also probably means, on average, 30 mins a day of your life back although you are welcome to take a long lunch. I'd say at least twice a week some of my coworkers and I walk to a different building for lunch for the walk.<p>Other perks include a gazillion talks. (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleTechTalks/videos" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleTechTalks/videos</a>). That's obviously not the entire list but I've personally not worked at a company before where I could go attend anything other than team meetings.<p>I've worked far more hours at every previous job. Usually because of bad management. I'm not trying to say Google is perfect but most of the people trying to find issues seem to be grasping at straws and making stuff up.
The experience of people I know at Google seems to vary incredibly based on direct supervisor (like any company) and the specific project you're doing. There are people I know who have gotten stuck on high-revenue but to-them uninteresting teams, couldn't easily shift to other parts of google, so they left.<p>If you could get the right team (and had a cool direct supervisor, or had enough status to force this), it seems like a pretty awesome place to work. If you want to have a huge impact, working for a company like Google or Facebook, in the right capacity, pretty much guarantees it. Not having to worry if checks will clear, if kitchens will be stocked, etc. is a nice benefit on top of that.<p>(If I could get the job of "make Android the most secure mobile OS, using some of the stuff from ChromeOS, and utterly crush all other mobile platforms in the Enterprise, I'd be really tempted; or the same thing for an EC2-killer from Google, also built around security.)
Google still and probably will always appeal to me as a team I'd join to solve hard problems. Even if they invent some of those problems themselves. I'm all for seeing your family but I think you can strike a balance. Google can put in a single room several great thinkers and engineers where 100 years from now people will look back and marvel.
It's one thing to say there's no set hours, it's another thing entirely to be in a place where you're surrounded by workaholics and your performance is measured on what you produce -- think about it: if you don't burn yourself at both ends, you'll be on the low end of productivity.
The article suggests (ok, it does more than suggest) that one receives promotions at Google based on how hard one works or how many hours one puts in. Is that really the case? Shouldn't it be based on how effectively you work, i.e. your contribution to the company?
One very positive thing about Google is that it is like the Jupiter of the software solar system, sweeping up many of the most self absorbed, "look at me" people in the industry. That's not meant to be derogatory or a sweeping statement (some people relish in their self absorption), but it's nice that many of these people are in one spot.