Can you tell me more about this? I have interviewed at google 2 times now. The first interview I bombed -- and I knew it. It was my first interview in near 10 years. The second interview I thought I aced. There was not a single answer I could not answer expect one about obscure hardware that nobody uses any more -- which I think was a test on how I handle not knowing something -- I ended up learning something neat.
The process took a long time -- much longer than the first interview or any of my other friends. And every time I talked to the recruiter I could tell something was up. At the end the recruiter confessed there was issues at the hiring committee and a unusual event of a manager getting involved. They seemed to indicate there was a fight about me being accepted. I have a unique skill set and am very qualified to work at google. I have over 15 years working the full stack. I write drivers for Linux, and design big cloud deployments -- I have the history and the background, so I would not be a gamble on any front. So I thought it odd that there would be an issue at this level, it was only later that I figured I was not diverse enough when a intern I helped train -- who happens to be diverse did get into google.
Anyways, with all the politics going on I am wondering if it is even worth responding to a current recurrent request.
My questions for you xxcode are the folllowing --
It sucks, but are there teams I can try and get on that would not suck? Somebody at google has to be doing good things and just be excited about working on the project they are working on.
I have a good job in Texas. It pays me $150k a year. I sometimes get bonuses and have a fairly good thing going with stock (not options, but stock). Is the money good enough at google to make it worth while?
Will living in CA/MV negate any gains in pay and benefits?
Is there any way to work at this company and avoid the entire diversity thing? I just want to write code and build awesome software that people enjoy using. Diversity -- while I care about it -- is not something I want to actively take cycles out of my life to solve -- there are fare more passionate people who are better equipped to think about these issues, I would rather write software.
Please don't think I am a horrible person. We here on this planet once, and writing code what I want to do with my life -- not everybody has to be a warrior for social justice.
I can't speak to most of the following, but I just escaped California for Texas and I'm fairly familiar with the numbers.
Per a recent news article (don't have it handy, but it was on HN so someone will probably post it), moving from SF -> Austin, holding salary constant, is a de-facto raise of $66,000 per year due to lowered cost of living.
And this is in _Austin_ which, I'm led to believe, has a very high cost of living relative to Texas. If you're somewhere else in Texas making $150k, your de-facto raise relative to California is even higher
Meanwhile, working at Google or another name brand company in SF, your total compensation is going to be anywhere from $200k to $300k. Working at a regular tech company in SF, depending on seniority, it's going to be $100k-$180k. Without giving specific numbers, I was making around $150k as a software engi with 6 years experience in SF, and I took about a 10% pay cut when I moved to Texas.
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In short, if you're making $150k/yr in Texas, anywhere, you are doing better in terms of overall life (money after adjusted for stress/QoL), and if you're making $150k/yr in Texas outside of Austin, you are probably making more money in absolute terms than the typical Google employee. Please, do yourself a favour and stay in Texas
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Edit: To add, a major part of why I moved out of California was because the politics was omnipresent and unavoidable. I have so many horror stories, things I would not believe to be true if I didn't witness them first-hand. And this is at regular normal tech companies. Companies that don't have the budget to spend on politics. Companies that risk their existence by spending money on things outside of their core business (read: the software they're building).
If you're like me, and you just want to do the job you're good at, do it right, and make a good wage, then California is not for you. It's not avoidable, it will drive you crazy. Maybe California will sort itself out five, ten years from now, but right now people are silently leaving in droves over it.
Please, for the love of reasonableness and moderation, stay in Texas and help us keep this place focused on the craft, instead of getting distracted by orthogonal social issues
Why don’t you work for google for a bit and experience it first hand. You can probably go back to your present job later if you want.
As senior engineer at google, it is definitely 75%+ politics and project management and 25% technical competence. Depends on a group but perhaps if you are on a mission driven group like Brain etc, it can be better. I don’t know.
I would recommend joining a smaller group at google, and also one which has engineers who haven’t all been around at google for 5+ years.
Overall, it can be fun at times but relatively unfulfilling. Google pays above market though. I think if it paid market, almost 50% of tech staff would leave.
Product managers at google are also very political and if they are not, they get pushed out etc. I had one PM who always passionately argued about the user etc, and was eventually pushed out because he was not internally ‘aligned’. The product he was arguing against got cancelled this Friday after 2 years of work
I wouldn't think of someone as "horrible" for not caring what color other people's skin is. That's a testament to the world we're in. If you don't actively and consciously take skin color into consideration, you're a bad person!
On the other side Google’s getting shamed for not being diverse enough. I’m sure many recruiters and hiring managers’ bonuses are tried to how many diverse candidates are hired.
In other words, this mess could be due to a lack of true leadership. They're reacting to one criticism then the next, without really having a coherent, defensible idea of their own.
I don't think this anecdote is a good way to judge bias. Companies don't always want to hire the most senior and experienced person that interviews, and that's not always a bad thing.
Google already suffers from a lack of junior people (see the post from a few days ago from a Xoogler complaining that the work he was doing was not deemed promo worthy), so it's not necessarily a surprise that the hiring bar for junior engineers would be lower - they're junior engineers.
And this law suit alleges that Google discriminated against non-diverse candidates at the most junior level anyway.
I feel I must respond since I also moved from Dallas to SFO. Equivalent salary will be around 230ish for your 150.
You may still struggle to buy a house because of competition. Just a head's up.
The process took a long time -- much longer than the first interview or any of my other friends. And every time I talked to the recruiter I could tell something was up. At the end the recruiter confessed there was issues at the hiring committee and a unusual event of a manager getting involved. They seemed to indicate there was a fight about me being accepted. I have a unique skill set and am very qualified to work at google. I have over 15 years working the full stack. I write drivers for Linux, and design big cloud deployments -- I have the history and the background, so I would not be a gamble on any front. So I thought it odd that there would be an issue at this level, it was only later that I figured I was not diverse enough when a intern I helped train -- who happens to be diverse did get into google.
Anyways, with all the politics going on I am wondering if it is even worth responding to a current recurrent request.
My questions for you xxcode are the folllowing --
It sucks, but are there teams I can try and get on that would not suck? Somebody at google has to be doing good things and just be excited about working on the project they are working on.
I have a good job in Texas. It pays me $150k a year. I sometimes get bonuses and have a fairly good thing going with stock (not options, but stock). Is the money good enough at google to make it worth while?
Will living in CA/MV negate any gains in pay and benefits?
Is there any way to work at this company and avoid the entire diversity thing? I just want to write code and build awesome software that people enjoy using. Diversity -- while I care about it -- is not something I want to actively take cycles out of my life to solve -- there are fare more passionate people who are better equipped to think about these issues, I would rather write software.
Please don't think I am a horrible person. We here on this planet once, and writing code what I want to do with my life -- not everybody has to be a warrior for social justice.