

Ask HN: Is this a bad time to join Google? - proogler

Seems like every week there's a new blog post about someone's reasons for leaving Google.  People say Google has gotten sluggish, political, bureaucratic, etc.  There's a potential availability bias here, because happy people staying where they are tend not to write blog posts about it.  Nevertheless, there's some kind of exodus from Google, and going in the opposite direction of all those smart, entrepreneurial folks feels a little weird.  In addition to the actual experience of working at Google, I'm also curious about people's future perceptions.  That is, will people who join Google in 2011 be seen as people who got in when the bar was lower?<p>I'd like to hear people's thoughts on whether this is a good time to join Google or not.  Not just Googlers and Xooglers; I'm interested in everyone's opinions.  Thanks!
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angryasian
Of course, you'll work with incredibly smart engineers and hopefully have a
great experience. Believe me when I say the grass is not always greener on the
other side. On HN you'll hear about everyone saying you should work at a
startup but believe me 9 out of 10 startups suck to work at. Low pay, working
with less than good practices ( compared to google ) , over worked, more than
likely the startup will fail, and you won't even have Google on your resume
for the future. I would suggest taking the job, build some experience , learn
as much as possible, and if you still have the startup itch after a few years
go for it.

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amund
It is always a good time to join Google, and even more now when Larry Page is
in charge. He is in the same league as Steve Jobs wrt being forward-looking,
but less known due to lower public profile.

All companies with more than 1 person have or get issues - also Google - but
the willingness and ability to measure and fix issues is probably much higher
within Google than most sizable companies.

note: I am a xoogler and worked there for 4 years.

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proogler
Thanks for your thoughts. How long ago did you leave? What did you leave to
do? (Please be as vague as you feel you need to in order to preserve your
anonymity.)

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amund
I worked there from September 2005-September 2009. I co-founded a startup.

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yaroslavvb
I've joined Google 4 months ago, and so far it is the most enjoyable job I've
had, including grad school. I've worked at 3 start-ups before, and after
working at Google, I think promise of future riches is the only reason to
prefer a start-up. If you are proactive, you get full freedom to choose
problems you work on, a ton of computational resources and many very smart and
supportive people around you. I had an opportunity to join Google earlier as a
"general pool" SWE, and I turned it down because I thought I might get stuck
maintaining some boring piece of code. But if I knew what I know now, I
would've taken it and would probably be in the same position as now -- SWE's
have ability to reallocate themselves, and if you find a better team, your old
manager isn't going to fight to keep you

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rachelbythebay
So if not SWE, what did you become? SWT? Or did they snag you for SRE?

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yaroslavvb
Also as SWE, but for a specific position, as opposed to general pool new hire
that gets assigned after starting

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rachelbythebay
It's a big place. Not all of it will be good, and not all of it will be bad. I
guess the question is: are you feeling lucky?

Sorry, sorry. But seriously, if entrepreneurial folks seem to be bailing (and
that is my own observation), will that bother you? Maybe you just want to
maintain a bunch of systems which were built by someone else. Some people
clearly find that sort of thing fulfilling. There are buildings chock-full of
them.

Have you ever worked in a big company before? You might want to go just to
learn what it's like. You can learn a lot about what really makes people tick,
including yourself.

