
Why Google Employees Quit (2009) - andrelaszlo
http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/18/why-google-employees-quit/
======
gmjosack
I worked at Google from 2010 to 2012, just under two years, as an SRE. Google
was a great company to work for and the people I worked with were all awesome.

I ultimately left Google because I felt bored working there. You admin systems
and fill out resource request through web browsers and work with proprietary
stacks all day. It didn't take long to feel my skills as a Linux professional
start to atrophy. The longer I stayed the more concerned I became about
passing interviews in the rest of the industry as I became a Google engineer.

I often miss the tools I had at Google but it's exciting building those tools
at smaller companies and working with industry best practices.

~~~
mkramlich
ie. they have such an extreme scale that often what's best for them is also
unique to them, so doesn't really work/apply/be-appreciated anywhere else.
They want sharp folks. But because so many, and because folks at top are so
sharp, and because their scale is so gigantic, they want sharp _drones_. Color
inside the lines, just really really really fast and perfect. Getting
something 1% wrong costs them millions more than otherwise. Which is different
than the mindset of the vast majority of other companies where getting
something even 91% right means making millions of dollars more for the
shareholders, than otherwise. The rest is details.

~~~
mkramlich
Google seems perfect for two kinds of programmers/engineers:

1\. you are 20-something, white or Asian, fresh out of college,
Jewish/Stanford/Ivy/otherwise-2nd-gen-pampered-background, male, maybe still
in college or 1st startup AND you are willing to move anywhere they want, do
anything they tell you, you have no spouse, no kids, no ill parents, no local
geo investments, no major illnesses, not multi-careered, you're still
impressed by Shiny/Words, etc.

2\. you are 30/40-ish but now established as a Major Name (Linus, Vint, Guido,
etc.) and/or owner of a company Google wants to buy, and therefore $M+ talks
loudly

if you don't fit (approximately) into one of those two boxes, then Google is a
non-ideal fit for you

META: downvote me all you want HN, I do not care what the GroupMind's Allowed
Opinion algorithm here thinks anymore

~~~
yongjik
Since this guy has no clue, let me clarify as someone who worked at Google
until recently:

Any Google employee who spews something like "Google is perfect if you are
20-something, white or Asian, Jewish/blah blah background male..." will be
(with high probability) asked by his[1] coworkers WTF he is talking about, and
would he please shut up or learn to open his mouth without insulting his
coworkers. If the behavior continues, it may or may not result in disciplinary
action, though the consensus seemed that there aren't enough disciplinary
action. (I guess it depends on who you ask.)

Contrary to popular conception, Google employs a lot of thoughtful people and
they want to make their workplace a better place to live and work.

[1] I'd normally say "their", but it seems "his" here is more coherent with
my... "observation of reality."

~~~
logingone
"Any Google employee who spews something like" \-- I don't see that he was
commenting on what Google employees say.

------
shawnps
This is what I gleaned from the article:

Person 1:

* Pay/benefits

Person 2:

* Benefits

Person 3:

* Hiring process

Person 4:

* Company felt too big.

* Pay

* Company goals were too constrained

Person 5:

* Hiring process

* Benefits

Person 6:

* Hiring process

Person 7:

* Pay (international office)

Person 8:

* Cannot figure out why this person left, but it was after 11 days of working there.

Person 9:

* Pursuing different career path (overall was happy with Google)

Person 10:

* Hiring process

Person 11:

* Management

Person 12:

* Bad work/life balance

* Pay (other people paid less than what they deserved)

* Management

* Hard to get noticed in remote office

Person 13:

* Company was changing too much

* Management

Person 14:

* Hiring process

* Management

* Hard to get promotion

* Bad work/life balance

Person 15:

* Hiring process

Person 16:

* N/A

Person 17:

* Salary/hiring bonus/relocation

* Office benefits being removed

Person 18:

* Felt underutilized

* Management

Person 19:

* Management

* Lack of fun culture in remote office

~~~
perlgeek
Why is the hiring process such a big issue for people already working there?
Do they feel it reflects badly on them? Or that the quality of new co-workers
is bad? Or lack of new co-workers?

~~~
hiou
I think it's because it sets a poor first impression or creates inaccurate
expectations. It may cause a feeling of letdown once you get in the door and
see what you will actually be doing. Once, I had a position where the
interview process had me thinking I was going to be doing much more exciting
things than I actually did. The strange thing about it was that if I had
realized that I was going to be doing that work beforehand I might have been
okay with it. Instead the letdown tainted my experience there from day one and
I never really got on track and left soon after. I wonder if that is what is
going on here.

------
methyl
What I'm wondering about is that they mention long hiring process as a reason
for quitting the job. They finally made it to the end and they quit because of
that?

~~~
learnstats2
It shows disrespect for the employee's time.

That might not cause you to quit immediately, but it might be an indicator for
other problems and you might become more acutely aware of those when you
start.

Also, now you have "I passed the Google hiring process" on your CV.

~~~
BrandonY
Would someone really put "once offered a job by Google, but declined" on their
resume?

Who am I kidding, of course SOMEONE would, but more than one or two people?

~~~
YokoZar
There are a fair amount of companies that, during their hiring process, will
basically say "Oh, you have an offer from Google? Forward it to us, add 10% to
the base, and we'll hire you without further interviewing."

------
unimportant
I used to work as at Google and it was my worst job ever.

It was not for Google directly though, but via a temp agency for a Google
project.

Google rented an office building just for the project with temp agency HR on
site and a few Googlers that were mostly in management and supervising things.

Contracts were structured in a way to avoid having to pay benefits and to be
able to maximize pressure on the the employee with extremely short notice
periods.

The turnover was enormous, almost everyone hated working there and 30-40% of
the employees were reminded weekly by HR that they're on probation and will
get fired if their performance isn't better next week.

Basically a modern day sweatshop.

~~~
eitally
I am sorry you had this experience, but I would argue that this isn't the same
as working for actual Google. This jives with other accounts I've read from
contractors (and I think I read somewhere that about 35% of staff are
contractors at this point, but that seems really, really high).

------
rdtsc
> The relocation and hiring bonus’ stated values were pre-tax! That was a huge
> unexpected blow to the pocketbook.

(Perhaps off-topic) Isn't that the default? Doesn't every company do that --
pay you the bonus and then Uncle Sam (and friends) take a cut depending on the
tax situation?

~~~
unimportant
>Isn't that the default?

I don't know about the US, but in Europe it was always marked as expenses
refunded to me on the payslip, which is tax free.

~~~
saalweachter
For relocation _costs_ , those are deductible from your (Federal) taxes under
certain circumstances (something like, if you move more than X miles to be
closer to a job). If it is just a _bonus_ that is just taxable income.

In the US, if they gave you $1000 straight-up for moving costs, you'd probably
see something like:

    
    
      1.  Company gives you $1000.
      2.  $750 hits your bank account after withholding.
      3.  You spend $1000 to move.
      4.  You file taxes, claim $1000 deduction for moving expenses.
      5.  You receive $250 refund.

------
throwaway530
Has anyone else noticed a trend where people get hired by Google and just
disappear completely? The Factor Language guy vanished after getting a job
there, and now the project looks dead. I can think of some other examples, but
maybe I'm just noticing outliers.

~~~
reikonomusha
Yes I've noticed this too, even with some friends.

------
shakil
This is from 2009. Even if nothing's changed, what's the relevance today?

~~~
paxtonab
The whole point is that everything's changed. These people are griping about
lack of free food in the office, bad pay and lousy benefits. They also
complain that Google is "constrained to thinking in the browser." Too bad they
didn't stick it out to see the self-driving cars, and none of these people
were working on Android.

~~~
jwatte
I know several people who worked on Android, and then left, because the
architects were repeating known failure patterns from the past, yet failing to
recognize it. Those patterns are some of the worst pain points for current
Android developers. (No, not device fragmentation -- that was unavoidable.)

~~~
rhaps0dy
Please, as peonicles says, do share what these failure patterns are. I am
kinda curious, as I thought the Android API is pretty good, and makes you make
applications that don't block GUI by default.

------
xenadu02
Curiously some these people were hired during the no-poaching conspiracy to
suppress programmer wages. I wonder if that had something to do with the
salaries?

~~~
ilyanep
Other people can correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that Google
now has a reputation for having quite compelling salaries, so maybe?

~~~
reagency
2009 short-tenure Xooglers were that window where new hires joined post- IPO-
stock-pop and so had an underwhelming equity compensation, especially
relatively to slightly more senior coworkers.

------
batou
So bureaucracy, cost cutting, management being dicks, no appreciation for
family, inefficiency, boredom and detachment from the rest of the industry.

Sounds exactly like the last 4 non-Google jobs I've had, including the current
one.

I suspect that any sufficiently large group of humans self-organises into this
state of affairs.

------
onedev
I propose a much simpler explanation: they get bored.

------
majke
previous:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=439298](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=439298)

------
fapjacks
I turned down an offer to work at the Googleplex last year because there was a
very creepy groupthink/hivemind atmosphere when I did my round of 6+
interviews there. Also combined with my favorite question to ask interviewers:
"If you could make one change and it wouldn't be vetoed, what change would you
make?" And _every one_ of my interviewers said some variation of "I wish my
work challenged me" with one guy very poignantly saying it as "All the low-
hanging fruit has been solved, and only certain engineers get to work on the
really tough problems" and then I couldn't wait to get the fuck outta there.

------
confiscate
well to be fair google is a pretty big company.

there's always going to be some percentage of folks who quit or are not
perfectly happy for various reasons

if google makes it a better place to work than other companies i think that's
a pretty good achievement in and of itself

------
orless
I had two interviews with Google in 2011 (senior dev position in corporate
engineering), got rejected after the on-site interview in Munich, Germany. I'm
not sure why, I think I did really good back then.

Their recruiters keep calling 1-2 times a year since then, but nowadays I
can't even imagine applying. It's a huge preparation effort with unclear
chances and benefits. Just can't afford it.

------
pacquiao882
A few colleagues that have worked at Google over the years have expressed that
depending on which office, project or position you are in, the experience was
greatly impacted for better or worse. Everything from boredom, perceived
growth and office politics seems to vary greatly even if offices were merely a
couple towns over within the same state.

------
sidcool
Sometimes I feel that human beings are tough to please. Once they get what
they want, soon it loses its shine. Perhaps it's OK, may be that's what keeps
us going. But does that impact our happiness levels? Not sure.

------
codecamper
Just install adblock plus and we will no longer have all these google
problems.

------
ninjakeyboard
All you need to do to thrive at google is love 5 star gourmet food. It's not
uncommon to see in-house smoked bacon for breakfast, and then have quail for
lunch. And then wild boar sausage rolls for a late afternoon snack.

There is this thing: the google 25. Yeah it's worse than freshman year -
you're gonna get fat bro.

It is an interesting culture that's for sure.

~~~
throwaway1mctg4
Are you still at Google? Their current food is okay, but I'd never be tempted
to describe it as "5 star gourmet", and rarely see food like you describe.

~~~
kmicklas
I think it depends on the office. The food in NYC is amazing and many Googlers
tell me the MTV food is not nearly as good.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Like everything else about Mountain View, the food at Google's Mountain View
office sucks. That office is also in a swamp, and the "city" of Mountain View
offers nothing of any interest to anybody, unless colossal, endless traffic
jams catch your fancy. I have no idea why anyone wants to live or work in
Mountain View, for Google or otherwise.

~~~
ridiculous_fish
The food at Google's MTV office is excellent. Mountain View is not SF or NYC,
but it's no wasteland either. Castro Street is fun. But the traffic is real
and horrible.

