
What It’s Really Like to Work at Google - kellyhclay
http://www.lockergnome.com/social/2012/01/16/what-its-really-like-to-work-at-google/
======
nostrademons
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.

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.

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.

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 _were_ 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.

~~~
kamaal
_"It's a place where really smart people go to be average,"_

That really might be OK and might work if you are unmarried, without kids and
living alone.

As you grow up to take more responsibilities. It definitely makes more career
and financial sense to..

Be best among the average than to be average among the best.

~~~
jrockway
It's makes financial sense to get someone to pay you your market value. Google
knows how to give people good raises without them having to float themselves
on the open market and threaten to leave. The process is transparent and well-
documented.

Speaking from experience, Google's offer was lower than what I had in mind.
But I couldn't find anyone else that would pay me more. That means I'm
probably making the right amount of money. And the good news is, I know what I
need to do to ensure that I get good raises. That's something that's never
been clear to me at any other company; it was all "you did really well this
year! thanks!" and then "oh sorry, no money for raises or bonuses". Google
does not do that. It's the first place I've worked where I've thought, "wow, I
won't have to quit in two years".

Also, you're not competing against other people, so being average is fine. To
get promoted, you have to be good at your job and continually do good work.
That's it. You don't have to be Guido to get promoted.

~~~
kamaal
Firstly I'm from India, our salary structure differs from you in many ways.

Nice perspective. I definitely agree that Google is probably paying best among
all.

My point was, If I can be the best guy in a team of average everyday software
engineers. It makes my appraisals, appreciations and growth far more easy. At
the same time if I'm average despite my best efforts and then it makes things
a little difficult for me.

One more question to you. Unless there is a next 'Google' aren't you worried
that you are already in the highest paying company(Forgive my ignorance If Im
wrong, or there are companies are that pay more than Google in the US) and
moving onto something else may not get you a better hike than what you have
now?

~~~
jrockway
_My point was, If I can be the best guy in a team of average everyday software
engineers. It makes my appraisals, appreciations and growth far more easy. At
the same time if I'm average despite my best efforts and then it makes things
a little difficult for me._

I don't think this is true; you'll be working on projects that are appropriate
for your level, and improvements you make to these projects are what your
promotions will be based on. If you're new to programming, your first task
might be to rewrite library X to use library Y. If you're a PhD, you might be
asked to make Google's indexing 10% more efficient. If you do a good job at
the tasks you choose, then you get promoted. You don't have to be the smartest
to be well-paid. Google needs average people as much as it needs geniuses.

 _One more question to you. Unless there is a next 'Google' aren't you worried
that you are already in the highest paying company and moving onto something
else may not get you a better hike than what you have now?_

I'm not worried about this. Google has a career path that will last me for as
long as I want to be at Google. If someone offered massively more money, I
might leave. If Google is paying me market salary, then I don't want to leave.
It's the best job I've ever had.

~~~
kamaal
Frankly it looks like dream work environment to every nerd.

Someday I would like to work at a place like that.

------
Aloisius
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.

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.

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.

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.

~~~
paulhauggis
Even if I could make it past the interview stage, I would never want to work
at Google.

No matter how nice the work environment is it still feels like they are
prettying up a cage. They make it feel like you can come and go and blur the
line between life and work..but you are still just an employee. You can't
build a company on the side while working at Google (without their blessing or
cut) and you are still told what to do.

~~~
wavephorm
Google also owns on all software their employees produce on their own time.
That type of cult mentality would be the most troubling thing for me to deal
with.

~~~
nostrademons
Not precisely. They're bound by the same California (or whatever the local
jurisdiction) laws that everyone else is. The laws state that the employer has
no claim to any IP developed by the employee "on their own time, without use
of company resources, and not along the lines of business of the company".

The problem is that third clause - since Google operates in so many
businesses, there is a potential conflict of interest with virtually anything
you might want to do. Google's policy is no different from any other
employer's. It's just that if you work at a financial software company and
want to develop a social network, you are not competing with your employer. If
you work at Facebook and want to develop a trading platform, you are not
competing with your employer (yet; who knows what they got planned?). If you
work at Google and try to develop either of those, you are competing with
official Google products (Google+ and Google Finance, respectively).

There's a procedure in place to clarify whether any IP developed on your own
time conflicts with current or present lines of Google's business. I don't
know the exact numbers, but IIRC they release about 70% of proposals back to
their owners. You can, of course, just take your chances and develop the
software anyway; lack of an official release does not mean Google owns your
software, it just means Google _might_ own your software, and that's up to a
court of law to decide. But who wants to fight Google's legal department? And
most VCs or acquirers won't go near you if there's any legal uncertainty
surrounding your startup.

------
snewman
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.)

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.

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.

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.

------
cletus
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.

None of this rings false although there's not really that much substance to
the piece and certainly nothing new.

I will add two things:

1\. You get as much out of it as you put in; and

2\. As an employee you are empowered.

(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.

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.

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.

~~~
noduerme
Sounds like a great place to work. I got out of web dev for companies in San
Francisco around the time I saw a client bill and realized they were charging
5-6x my hourly for my work to clients. Still, what you do for a company like
Google would be a lot harder to quantify (or explain to a client), and it's
probably a lot more personally gratifying.

I'm probably an asshole to say this, but I'm reasonably sure I could've gotten
a job with Google in 2001-2; and at that point I didn't want to work in that
kind of office. I went back to LA and drove a taxi for a year and a half, and
wrote a novel, to clear my head.

The thing that makes me flinch about it is the competitive nature of the job,
even if your job _shouldn't_ have to be competitive. The open offices, the
personal time, all of these things make you run _faster_ rather than being
allowed to slow down and think. And if you get to thinking about who you're
running for...who knows? As insulated as you are from the clients -- which is
great -- you also almost never get to see the direct result of your own work.
So what emerges is this endless Senior Year of High School, where everyone's
waiting to be recommended or get their acceptance letters, while partially
slacking off while looking like they're on their best behavior. I'm not sure
that's a way I'd be willing to spend my life.

I make about 1/5th what you do, probably, for about the same level of work and
commitment to my own startup. But I don't envy your job.

~~~
gameshot911
>I went back to LA and drove a taxi for a year and a half, and wrote a novel,
to clear my head.

How did that work out for you? Was it a good use of your time? Given how
things worked out, do you think you would make the same choice again?

>The open offices, the personal time, all of these things make you run faster
rather than being allowed to slow down and think. And if you get to thinking
about who you're running for...who knows?

I've noticed the same thing. It's not just offices that make it difficult to
close down and think, the entire world seems to pull us forward. Every moment
pulls you to the next, there's always something to be anticipated and worked
towards. How much time is spent thinking about what needs to be done for the
day, what email to respond to first, whether to eat pork or chicken for
dinner, what to listen to, etc., and not just living in actual present. Even
our senses serve as stimuli to motivate us to act. Given how strongly and
persistently these forces act to divert our awareness from the present, I
think there is a lot to be gained by attempting to understand why this is so.

~~~
noduerme
>How did that work out for you? Was it a good use of your time?

Well, I wrote this novel, right, about the 2004 presidential election; where I
posited that Bush declares a fake terrorist attack, and DHS uses it as a
reason to start herding liberals into concentration camps, and only this rock
band on tour somehow escapes it, and they end up going and blowing up Bush and
Cheney.

Would I take it back? Fuck no. But pretty soon after I finished it I had
hundreds of hits from DHS, DoD, bases in Iraq, etc., and white unmarked Crown
Vics were driving by my bungalow in the middle of the night. After they broke
in and stole our laptops and papers and the LAPD couldn't figure out why they
didn't take my money or my shotgun, we lived at Motel 6 for a month and fled
to Argentina. Tried to stay out of the US since then. Spent a year in
Australia, a year or two in southeast asia, and then Europe. Started a Bitcoin
casino in my free time. Gave myself to drinking, smoking, drugs, snails and
foie gras.

I would never, ever take back my decision to drive a taxi in LA, or write that
book. It was the most eye-opening experience of my life. When I went to San
Fran after high school in '97, I had $1800 in savings and moved into the Hotel
Nazareth, Jones & Geary, where the hookers next door and the crackheads on the
street screaming kept me up all night. There was no phone. I walked to the
Hilton every day in my fucking only suit, and used the payphones to call every
single ad agency and design firm in the city. Went for an interview with Bear
Magazine, which was terrifying (they offered me $33k, more than I make now,
ironically) -- twelve giant hairy guys turning around to welcome you while you
try to be interested in whether they're using Quark or Pagemaker. Took a job
for $22k to spare my psychiatry bill, working for a bunch of douchebags doing
web bubbgle 1.0 on Green Street.

Anyway, would I change in my time under the russian mob driving for bell cab?
No way in hell. It was an exploration of the soul. I learned things about the
human condition, the human soul, that can only be put into a novel, where no
one believes them.

~~~
ced
That's a fascinating story.

 _But pretty soon after I finished it I had hundreds of hits from DHS, DoD,
bases in Iraq, etc., and white unmarked Crown Vics were driving by my bungalow
in the middle of the night_

I'm surprised that writing a fictional novel can get you that kind of
treatment. Do you think that it was perceived as a plan to be carried out?

 _It was the most eye-opening experience of my life._

In what way? And what are you doing now?

~~~
noduerme
The book's still online. It's a farce. It was never meant to be taken
seriously. No one in their right mind would consider it a legitimate threat.
Although that didn't stop DHS from considering it one. I wrote it based on a
few kids I knew in a band who didn't give a crap about politics, and what
would happen to them if Bush got re-elected and declared a state of emergency
while they were all high and on tour. I wrote it in a about three weeks.

It's called American Apocalypse. <http://www.joshstrike.com/amap/> In some
weird way I think it's kind of a precursor to Cory Doctro's novel Little
Brother, which I love; he swears he never read mine; and AA was written a
pretty critical 4-5 years earlier. But there are still some striking
similarities.

Now...I'm basically a freelance coder like everyone else. Lived overseas for
the last seven years. Write, play music, travel to countries where it's cheap;
live in a suitcase; drink and smoke a lot. American Apocalypse was the last
novel I wrote. There were five others. There wasn't much point. Better to just
stfu and make web, like a friend of mine says.

------
neild
Speaking as a fairly recent Google hire: No, this is not what it's really like
to work at Google.

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.

~~~
raldi
Seconded.

~~~
zellyn
Thirded.

------
shazow
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.

I've heard all too many stories of people "working" insane hours at Google
only to find out that they're merely _working_ normal hours and spending the
rest of their time _living_ at Google. And it's great to have the option to do
that.

(Disclaimer: I've been working/living at Google for 2.5 months now.)

~~~
ChuckMcM
During my time there I remember on guy who was at the office a lot, at dinner
time his family would come to Google and eat dinner with him at Charlie's.
Sometimes on weekends they would eat lunch with him too.

Just before I left, Google started trying to enforce the 1 guest a month
'rule' where you had to sign in with both who you were visiting, and whether
or not you were going to eat a meal. If you were, your guest badge would say
'guest (meal)'. I guess the idea was that one could algorithmically filter out
folks who were abusing the option. The security guys would hassle the folks
who didn't have '(meal)' on their guest badges.

I saw a _lot_ of people who were visiting "Larry Page, guest (meal)" and I
thought that was pretty funny. I also noticed that this guy who used to spend
time with his family at meal times now didn't. I felt badly for him. I could
not decide if he had been abusing Google before by abusing his 'guest'
privilege or if Google was abusing him now by not allowing him this option for
some family time. A little of both I guess.

~~~
nostrademons
He does have the option of going home for dinner, just like at any other
company. Most of my teammates with families do that.

~~~
jrockway
I haven't noticed any limit on guests at Google NYC, either. I was never under
the impression that Google didn't want you to have guests.

(I did read something suggesting that you should feel bad for eating more than
$3 worth of microkitchen stuff per day. I don't think I hit the $3 threshold,
but if I did, I wouldn't feel bad.)

------
tytso
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.

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.

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.

------
psn
I work there. Its been four and a lot years. I don't work in mountain view,
though.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

------
nagrom
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 _that_ 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.

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?

~~~
fasouto
"""but the canteen at DESY is dire""" mmmm... restaurant 3? :)

I've been working at CERN and I think is not comparable. Your salary doesn't
depend on the hours you spend on the project, AFAIK there are no bonuses. Also
some buildings (like 33) close at 7 during weekdays and if you want a coffee,
a snack or to take a shower you need to ask for special permision to enter.
You're not encouraged to do extra hours(although I did...a lot)

~~~
nagrom
I actually worked on the St Genis side and ate at resto 3 a lot...I agree it's
bad, but it's still much, much better than the DESY canteen. There are no
words...when I lived in Hamburg, I used to eat PausenBrot from the vending
machines rather than visit the canteen. And CERN's resto 2 in the summer is
lovely, I think! I always put on weight at CERN.

CERN staff members may not be encouraged to do extra hours, but all students
and post-docs (and a lot of faculty!) that I know must work 60+ hours a week.
(Do you know anyone in physics that works 35-40 hours a week?) Partly because
they like the job and partly because the competition is so fierce. At DESY, we
worked 10am-10pm most days and people were on their computers at home. You're
right that your compensation does not depend upon hours worked, but a lot of
the time your reputation and the number of publications do - without
reputation and publications, you don't get your next grant.

------
emmapersky
> The software engineer I spoke with...

One is not a valid sample. Other than a single persons perspective, everything
else is speculation.

Disclaimer: I work for Google.

------
slewis
This is article is very light on evidence, citing one engineer the author
spoke with.

Having worked there I'd say the article is unfairly one-sided. There are
plenty of Googlers who maintain a normal work-life balance.

------
notJim
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.

Surely our lives should involve more than that.

~~~
hn_reader
Perhaps the guy feels his work is important and derives personal satisfaction
from it. That might make him happier in the long run and a better husband and
father.

~~~
wavephorm
Or maybe this guy has become convinced that devoting his most productive years
to help a corporation earn more profit is more rewarding than building a
business where he owns 100% of his work.

------
unfocused
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.

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.

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" :)

------
joezydeco
Wow, was the Jonestown reference really necessary? That was a low-class move
to pull at the end.

------
greggman
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.

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.

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.

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!!!

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.

Other perks include a gazillion talks.
(<http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleTechTalks/videos>). 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.

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.

------
rdl
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.

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.

(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.)

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jjm
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.

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lrobb
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.

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WalterBright
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?

~~~
jrockway
Of course. Is there any real job where you get promoted regardless of the
quality of your work? (I guess postal clerks get promoted every 10 years or
whatever. But you know what I mean.)

Google is like every company I've ever worked for, except that instead of the
promise of promotions, people actually do get promoted.

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codeonfire
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.

