
Ask HN: Why not to work at Google? - toss_away_acct
I think it's mostly self explanatory. For a software Engineer role.<p>It would be hard to resist because of their selectivity (Under 1% resume/hire rate), gaining read access to their code base, resume boost and talented colleagues. Any one of these things on their own, with the exception of the first one, are huge.<p>There are so many blog posts on applying to Google, almost none on why not to.
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staunch
Basically, they just suck less than most other big tech companies. That's all.
And that's a pretty low bar in my opinion.

1) They have tens of thousands of programmers. They're not all The Best of The
Best at this point. Sure, the average is high, but there's plenty of dopes and
assholes too.

2) It's a big company and their productivity is pretty low. They have more
programmers and money than almost all startups combined, yet their output of
amazing products is quite small.

3) There's bureaucratic bullshit. Sure, less than the average, but far more
than a small company. You have to work roughly business hours, sit in a cube,
report regularly to a boss, have meetings, etc.

4) Their technology stack may be cool, but you really have no choice. You have
to use the tools they chose 10 years ago if you want to release anything.
Java, C++, and Perforce? No thanks.

5) Their projects are failures unless they're huge. There's not much room for
controversial projects or anything that starts off small. YouTube or Twitter
couldn't have happened inside Google.

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zacharycohn
Have you worked at a big company before? Do you prefer that over working with
a start up? I think that might be one of the biggest things to think about.

