Google

gerrowadat · 20-01-2008 9:28pm

ntlbell wrote: »

Well google seems to be like this sanctuary where all them really odd people can be odd together and creates this elf like childish retarded work place but if you're one of "them" it's like going back to school and not being "that guy" so they're all like 8yr old handy boppers who have eaten too much fizz

If it keeps them out of "normal" work places, then god bless google.

lol

gerrowadat · 20-01-2008 9:30pm

TimTim wrote: »

I heard the food was ok, but I did love the free drinks.

Don't mind eth0_, if you wiped her hole for her she'd complain you didn't use 3-ply (or the natty quilted andrex stuff).

CamillaRhodes · 20-01-2008 10:01pm

I worked for Google for a year and a half, in a non-techie department. I was sometimes involved in the recruitment process - yes, ridiculously drawn out, but the fact is they do tend to get good people who are suited to and love their jobs.

I made some wonderful friends in Google, many of whom I'm still great friends with now 2 years later. Meeting my mates was by far the greatest thing about working at Google (the novelty of the free stuff and the bright colours wears thin pretty quickly).

However, the kick up the ar$e which made me start thinking about quitting (not the only reason, but the match to the tinder) was when I was called to my manager's office and asked if I wanted to offer my resignation on the basis of an offhand comment I made to a friend in the pub. What freaked me out was not so much the manager's reaction (I had been dismissive of my future prospects in the job) but the fact that somebody had overheard what I'd said, on a Friday night, after a few beers, and had run into the manager on Monday morning to rat on me. I never found out who it was, though I was able to narrow it down to a few people who would have been within earshot of me. None of them would have had any professional reason to want to sh*t on me - i.e., me quitting or being fired would not do them any favours. So I could only deduce that their reasons for ratting on me were their loyalty to Google, the mothership. I, in my dismissive attitude, was going against the Googley culture, so they had to report me. Freaky freaky freaky.

Guess my point is there are some really great people working for Google, and if that line of work is your cup of tea then you might really enjoy it. But there are also some nasty sinister types like those described in this thread, and a cult-like egotistical attitude amongst some (see that Tom Cruise Scientology video? There'd be Googlers pretty damn similar...

damnyanks · 20-01-2008 11:15pm

Hrmm at first I thought Dublindude was just being daft. After hearing camilla's post it does sound quite mad.

As far as relaly good comp pepole being weird this isnt limited to comp sci.

Generally people who are really into something end up being unbalanced to some extent as that 1 area is a large part of their life.

AARRRGH · 21-01-2008 12:12am

eth0_ wrote: »

Quilted? Peasant! I'm waging a campaign to get pure silk bog roll in the jacks on our floor.

Unrelated but what the hell:

The primary school I went to was mixed until first class, and then the boys were kicked out. It was run by a bunch of nuns.

I remember the toilet paper in the boys toilets was like grease proof paper. It was not toilet paper. However the girls had this lovely soft stuff...

Further evidence to back up my theory the nuns had a weird attitude to males: whenever any crafts like knitting were being done, the boys had to go outside to play football. Same with things like Irish Dancing.

They used to let me wear my cowboy outfit and dickie bow to class though.

What a weird school.

BostonB · 21-01-2008 12:23am

Playing football in a room full of knitting needles wouldn't have worked.

eth0_ · 21-01-2008 12:23am

That's because boys are inherently evil :-)

Dudess · 21-01-2008 10:59am

CamillaRhodes wrote: »

However, the kick up the ar$e which made me start thinking about quitting (not the only reason, but the match to the tinder) was when I was called to my manager's office and asked if I wanted to offer my resignation on the basis of an offhand comment I made to a friend in the pub. What freaked me out was not so much the manager's reaction (I had been dismissive of my future prospects in the job) but the fact that somebody had overheard what I'd said, on a Friday night, after a few beers, and had run into the manager on Monday morning to rat on me. I never found out who it was, though I was able to narrow it down to a few people who would have been within earshot of me. None of them would have had any professional reason to want to sh*t on me - i.e., me quitting or being fired would not do them any favours. So I could only deduce that their reasons for ratting on me were their loyalty to Google, the mothership. I, in my dismissive attitude, was going against the Googley culture, so they had to report me. Freaky freaky freaky.

Guess my point is there are some really great people working for Google, and if that line of work is your cup of tea then you might really enjoy it. But there are also some nasty sinister types like those described in this thread, and a cult-like egotistical attitude amongst some (see that Tom Cruise Scientology video? There'd be Googlers pretty damn similar...

That is insane sh1t! I've gotten that vibe from what I've heard about the place though.

ntlbell · 21-01-2008 1:40pm

what do you do on the "nerdy" side there eth0?

gerrowadat · 21-01-2008 4:21pm

Dudess wrote: »

That is insane sh1t! I've gotten that vibe from what I've heard about the place though.

That sounds like pretty nasty stuff to happen anywhere, and I'd be -very- surprised if it's anything more than a once-off example of a manager being a spanner.

I'd certainly double-take at anything like this happening in engineering, can't really speak for sales/finance/hr/the other stuff that happens here.

CamillaRhodes · 21-01-2008 9:04pm

eth0_ wrote: »

who knows what she actually said?

Ok, I'll take the bait... this was back when those of us who had started out in the early days of Google got share options once we'd been there a certain amount of time.

The guy I had just started dating (who I met in Google) was leaving to go traveling. My friend in the pub asked "so what are you gonna do, are you going to follow him?". I replied, being a little lovestruck with my beau, "dude, i'm just sticking around for my share options and then I am OUTTA here!"

That was it, word for word. Not a mention of anything confidential, or anything that could get Google into trouble, just a bit of flippancy about a job. And a reminder that it is ONLY a job - that there might be other priorities in life!

I'd be -very- surprised if it's anything more than a once-off example of a manager being a spanner.

As I said, I didn't actually think the manager was particularly out of line - she had been informed that I was thinking of leaving and was only sticking around for the money, and she confronted me about it. After the initial shock of being asked if I wanted to resign, she actually wasn't too bad about it.

What freaked me out was that one of my colleagues would run telling tales on me, on the basis of something as trivial as this. Why?!?! This is not normal behaviour!!! As I also said, I made some great, great friends in Google - not all Google employees would do something like this. In fact, it's probably only some. But those select few are so damn freaky, and this 'culture' which they try to create does have an emphasis on the first syllable

eth0_ · 21-01-2008 9:22pm

Sorry, that wasn't a dig at you, am just cautious that there are always three sides to every story - what you said, what the snitch said and what really happened :-)

That is pretty sh*tty that the person snitched on you for saying something like that, though.

AARRRGH · 21-01-2008 9:43pm

I'm going to make a wild assumption here and say CamillaRhodes is attractive and the snitch is unattractive.

Am I close?

CamillaRhodes · 23-01-2008 6:17pm

Dublindude, I'm touched

Perhaps my modesty has prevented me thinking of such previously... ego duly boosted and Google's proud reputation duly restored!

markf909 · 23-01-2008 8:56pm

Do new hires not get the stock options after (5?) years anymore?

valen · 27-02-2008 8:54pm

dublindude wrote: »

They also come across as very unhappy, negative people... (this might sound crazy but) if you're like me and can pick up on people's moods/energy quite easily, this can lead to a very depressing work environment.

Wow. You gotta be making this up.

The engineers who work here are some of the most well adjusted people I've ever worked with in engineering. Yeah, there are a few who are closer to Rainman than I'd like, but it's the first time I've been in an engineering dept. where more than half the guys are married. Most of them are mental, in the best possible way. There was a reason that the first year we entered the 'Best Places To Work' competition that we scored highest in Ireland for 'being happy in work' - from an anonymous survey of over 80% of the company.

http://picasaweb.google.com/john.looney/Google would give you an idea of what sort of people there are working here - it's an album I have of random crazy **** that happens. Though I'm sure you assume I've edited out the photos of sad people cutting themselves in the corner.

So, to answer other questions:

Yeah, the interviews are hard. The job is hard too, so it sorta makes sense to make interviews hard. We decline offers from loads of good people because we weren't 100% sure, which is a shame. Most find the interviews are fun too, if you like tests & puzzles.

Newbies still get stock options. Though they don't get options likely to be worth as much; it's easy to give away 1000 stock options when the stock is at $80

- perks are good. You can't knock a free ski trip...

Managers can be bad, like anywhere else. But you get to give your manager - and other people's manager feedback (hidden and open) twice a year. People who are dicks to others are noticed, and unlike other places, end up leaving. Why ? They can't do well in an environment that requires them to be nice to people.

CamillaRhodes; damn shame about getting ratted on. Not that money is any reason to stay in a job you are bored with, maybe you were better off out. In engineering, we get told to move job/dept/country after two or three years, to avoid getting bored!

Orla; I'm not surprised that they kept asking questions until you had no more to give...that's how we find out what you know. It's not a checklist..think an innocent kid, asking 'But why mammy ?' - it's a great way to gauge your depth of knowledge.

Aaf; it's not madness to interview a "field tech" 8 times - you have to be sure that they are a good fit. After all, they won't be doing tech support forever - the plan is we'll hire someone into tech support that we know will make an excellent programmer, manager or network admin someday.

I think the hiring process isn't perfect - it's better than it was when I started - but we do try and make it better. If you know someone who had a 'bad experience' with it, let me know so I can pass it on to the recruiters and try make sure it doesn't happen again. Every good person who gets browned off with the recruitment process could mean three good people who won't apply because of what they heard. Bad recruiting just isn't Googley.

John

Mikel · 27-02-2008 11:23pm

it's an album I have of random crazy **** that happens

LOL!!! You couldn't make it up!
We all so crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well done google for keeping so many freaks in one place

AARRRGH · 27-02-2008 11:46pm

valen wrote: »

The engineers who work here are some of the most well adjusted people I've ever worked with in engineering.

The two horribly unpleasant Engineers I know working for Google, how did they slip through the gap so?

Looking at your pictures (unbelievably nerdy btw!) I can see neither of those guys in them... so maybe you're lucky and don't work wth them.

Nothing you say will override the fact that Google hired those two guys. They're very smart though... I guess that was the most important thing.

EDIT: I'm sorry to be ranting on about those two guys

but they're quite mentally ill so they left an impression on me...

Raekwon · 28-02-2008 10:17am

valen wrote: »

http://picasaweb.google.com/john.looney/Google would give you an idea of what sort of people there are working here - it's an album I have of random crazy **** that happens. Though I'm sure you assume I've edited out the photos of sad people cutting themselves in the corner.

It's hardly surprising but judging from your photos it looks like Google is similar to a never ending Star Trek convention full of over weight nerds and wide-eyed freaks.

Btw eating 14 tea cakes in 90 seconds is some seriously crazy **** alright

Mr. Incognito · 28-02-2008 10:53am

Wow. You gotta be making this up.

The engineers who work here are some of the most well adjusted people I've ever worked with in engineering. Yeah, there are a few who are closer to Rainman than I'd like, but it's the first time I've been in an engineering dept. where more than half the guys are married. Most of them are mental, in the best possible way. There was a reason that the first year we entered the 'Best Places To Work' competition that we scored highest in Ireland for 'being happy in work' - from an anonymous survey of over 80% of the company.

http://picasaweb.google.com/john.looney/Google would give you an idea of what sort of people there are working here - it's an album I have of random crazy **** that happens. Though I'm sure you assume I've edited out the photos of sad people cutting themselves in the corner.

So, to answer other questions:

Yeah, the interviews are hard. The job is hard too, so it sorta makes sense to make interviews hard. We decline offers from loads of good people because we weren't 100% sure, which is a shame. Most find the interviews are fun too, if you like tests & puzzles.

Newbies still get stock options. Though they don't get options likely to be worth as much; it's easy to give away 1000 stock options when the stock is at $80 - perks are good. You can't knock a free ski trip...

Managers can be bad, like anywhere else. But you get to give your manager - and other people's manager feedback (hidden and open) twice a year. People who are dicks to others are noticed, and unlike other places, end up leaving. Why ? They can't do well in an environment that requires them to be nice to people.

CamillaRhodes; damn shame about getting ratted on. Not that money is any reason to stay in a job you are bored with, maybe you were better off out. In engineering, we get told to move job/dept/country after two or three years, to avoid getting bored!

Orla; I'm not surprised that they kept asking questions until you had no more to give...that's how we find out what you know. It's not a checklist..think an innocent kid, asking 'But why mammy ?' - it's a great way to gauge your depth of knowledge.

Aaf; it's not madness to interview a "field tech" 8 times - you have to be sure that they are a good fit. After all, they won't be doing tech support forever - the plan is we'll hire someone into tech support that we know will make an excellent programmer, manager or network admin someday.

I think the hiring process isn't perfect - it's better than it was when I started - but we do try and make it better. If you know someone who had a 'bad experience' with it, let me know so I can pass it on to the recruiters and try make sure it doesn't happen again. Every good person who gets browned off with the recruitment process could mean three good people who won't apply because of what they heard. Bad recruiting just isn't Googley.

John

John- It started out with some salient points and then you got washed away with your own oblivious and dare I say obnoxious bias towards google. The icing was squeezing a "googley" quote in at the end.

Google is a company, they're trying to make it a lifestyle, but you're still busting your balls for someone else. That's capitalism brainwashing for you.

Enjoy your cult.

newestUser · 28-02-2008 11:39am

SetantaL wrote: »

John- It started out with some salient points and then you got washed away with your own oblivious and dare I say obnoxious bias towards google. The icing was squeezing a "googley" quote in at the end.

Google is a company, they're trying to make it a lifestyle, but you're still busting your balls for someone else. That's capitalism brainwashing for you.

Enjoy your cult.

Harsh. John's making some very fair points. Despite my antipathy towards working in Google (as is evident from my earlier posts on this thread) John has done a very good job of defending the interview process in Google. I also think that he's doing people a big favour by posting up the link to the pics. There's many disparate flavours of geek/nerd under the sun, so when people hear 'Google is full of geeks and nerds' they jump to conclusions about working in Google which may be innaccurate. If you've had a flick through those pictures, you would be under no illusion as to what kind of people are working as engineers in Google. Pictures being worth more than words, John's saved people a lot of time and effort in attempting to give an accurate image of what Google culture is like.

It's all very Douglas Coupland/Microserfs/JPod though, isn't it?

AARRRGH · 28-02-2008 12:25pm

newestUser wrote: »

It's all very Douglas Coupland/Microserfs/JPod though, isn't it?

I thought the point of Microserfs was that corporations like Google are bad for the soul?

newestUser · 28-02-2008 12:30pm

No, the point of Microserfs (IMO) was that large techie corporations 'infantilise' their employees. At the beginning, the nerds work in Microsoft, they're a motley band of nerds/geeks stuck in various ruts and going nowhere in their personal lives, they leave to form their own company, and discover a lot about life, love, relationships, spirituality, etc. along the way. It's a great book, and scarily close to the bone.

valen · 28-02-2008 12:50pm

SetantaL wrote: »

John- It started out with some salient points and then you got washed away with your own oblivious and dare I say obnoxious bias towards google. The icing was squeezing a "googley" quote in at the end.

Google is a company, they're trying to make it a lifestyle, but you're still busting your balls for someone else. That's capitalism brainwashing for you.

Enjoy your cult.

A cult is a religion you don't like. And I believe what we are doing is wonderful, and I love the way we do it. So yeah, it's a cult. In the best possible sense.

A lifestyle is the wrong choice of words, certainly. My life hasn't changed style since I joined. My work life has; I do a job my mother can understand. I don't do 24 hour oncall. I get a day off if I'm oncall for a few hours during the weekend. I get paid every month. I don't have to deal with irate and pissed off customers. I don't have a sick feeling in my belly every monday morning. I can go away for two weeks and know my back is covered. I get that warm fuzzy feeling you get from keeping X50,000 machines on the go so that hundreds of millions of people can find donkey porn if they need it.

If you are really just being abusive toward me for being happy, sharing it & not having my own company, that's kinda freaky and sad. I hope it's just that you applied to Google and weren't found to be a good match, so are taking it out on me. That at least seems rational.

john

AARRRGH · 28-02-2008 12:55pm

valen wrote: »

I hope it's just that you applied to Google and weren't found to be a good match, so are taking it out on me.

People who work for Google always use this line.

I can only speak for myself, but I have no interest in working in a place like Google, and I have never applied for a job there.

Google is just a company like any other company. There are loads of great IT jobs out there. There is nothing special about working for Google, apart from the cult like "you're one of us" thing which seems to appeal to a lot of nerds.

valen · 28-02-2008 1:10pm

dublindude wrote: »

People who work for Google always use this line.

Do that many people attack Google employees so personally online for little reason ? That seems hard to believe.

Google is just a company like any other company. There are loads of great IT jobs out there. There is nothing special about working for Google, apart from the cult like "you're one of us" thing which seems to appeal to a lot of nerds.

Well, there are actually loads of special things I've seen nowhere else, and its certainly not like any other company, unless you meant that they file tax returns and try and make a profit from shareholders (hardly a holistic view). And there are better places to work, that's for sure. But not many. And certainly not many in this country. I assume that's why we won the "Great Place To Work" award in our size category last year. Feckin' begrudgery.

John

newestUser · 28-02-2008 1:27pm

Lads, let's not kick off a lengthy and personalised slagging match. Everyone's views on Google are known at this point. Some people love Google, some don't. It's all relative. Let's not get emotional. :rolleyes:

AARRRGH · 28-02-2008 1:28pm

valen wrote: »

Do that many people attack Google employees so personally online for little reason ? That seems hard to believe.

Google is high profile, hence the attention.

valen wrote: »

Well, there are actually loads of special things I've seen nowhere else, and its certainly not like any other company, unless you meant that they file tax returns and try and make a profit from shareholders (hardly a holistic view).

Can you list some of the special things and give some reasons why Google is not like any other company?

(Note: Pictures of people with swords doesn't qualify as special.)

valen wrote: »

And there are better places to work, that's for sure. But not many. And certainly not many in this country.

You've obviously never worked for a startup or a small company.

valen wrote: »

Feckin' begrudgery.

LOL.

I've never said Google products are poor, or that you personally are a bad person. I'm just saying I know two horrid people who work there, so the place cannot possibly be as great as the Google zombies claim.

The Machine · 28-02-2008 1:44pm

It's really interesting to hear peoples opinions on Google.

I'm considering applying for a job in Google at the moment. I'd consider myself technically good but not into any of the nerdie stuff that was going on in those photo's! :eek: Basically if the job was good I think I could put up with the co-workers.

But do Google offer salaries higher than most other IT companies? The one person I've talked to on this said she felt they paid quite poorly.. Is this correct?

Mr. Incognito · 28-02-2008 1:49pm

If you are really just being abusive toward me for being happy, sharing it & not having my own company, that's kinda freaky and sad. I hope it's just that you applied to Google and weren't found to be a good match, so are taking it out on me. That at least seems rational.

Don't work in IT. Tax and Legal actually.

Nothing against you personally. Glad you're happy in your job. Nothing against Google either.

I do have a problem with the modern Corporation lifestyle that tries to combine work and social lives together. My job is just a job. It doesn't define who I am. I have seen it replicated in a hell of a lot of firms in this new "Inclusive" in vogue HR publicity notion that seems to be on the up, but what it really translates to is how can we make you work harder and make us more money- and the simple answer is by deluding yourself that work and your social life are the same, that you shoud socialise in work and that work should be your life. When I go home, I leave work behind me.

It is a personal beef of mine and I'm sorry if it appeared anti-google per se. It's anti-bull**** really and this "google" family idea is bull****. When you can no longer contribute to the family see what happens.

AARRRGH · 28-02-2008 1:53pm

I agree SetantaL. Unfortunately I think a lot of people are looking for a "family" to belong to.

Another thing, normally when people give out about a company, people who work there don't take it personally...

valen · 28-02-2008 1:55pm

Can you list some of the special things and give some reasons why Google is not like any other company?

(Note: Pictures of people with swords doesn't qualify as special.)

Heh. You must work in a pretty cool place then. Making lists is easy...I was on the team that made up our 'best places to work' submission this year. So here goes:

Culture of 'fix what you see is broken'. If we see that hiring is broken, we can fix it. Recruiters don't get all uppity, they say sorry & make it better. We moaned to management last year that loads of small things were broken. They threw out a survey, got 75 odd things that really pissed people off, and management promised to fix it all. The head of engineering sent out an email every week with progress on them till they were all fixed. Not easy things, hard ****. Like 'Compiling stuff is slow' or 'engineers don't feel they get enough praise for what they do'. I *love* that the answer to 'compiling stuff is slow' is to form an engineering productivity group from people who care - they cut compile times to 10% of the original times inside of three months.

Strong culture of "If you screw up, learn from it, tell people about it & make sure it doesn't happen someone else". Due to a series of bugs/unfortunate events/bad luck I took out about 40,000 machines one afternoon, affecting a load of services. I got to write up the post mortem & file the bugs that we uncovered. I got to make sure it was all sorted & couldn't happen again. An offhand comments from a manager of "if it costs us less than 50 million, we don't need to put it in as a line item on the balance sheet" helped a lot.

We are doing stuff that's never been done before. One day I chose to help build the automated machine fixer that's now almost bordering on skynet complexity. Never seen anything like it. Engineers decide what's needed, and do it. Management facilitate, they don't get in the way.

If it's needed, you can get it. I've worked in places where I've had to argue for money to buy a box of DLT tapes because management didn't know the value of backups. Here, I could expense a lego millenium falcon because my team had just grown a lot, and I wanted to have them build something fun that'd make us feel a little closer, quicker. Scale that up...when the ads guys say they want a few datacenters nearer asia to reduce latency there, they get it.

The 'performance' system is amazing. You can tell it was designed by engineers, to reward people who do well. They take input from your manager & co workers, then encourage you to get 'reviews' - basically references - from people on other teams who know how awesome you are. It's all bundled together and they try work out who is at which grade. You get a job ladder that tells you which hoops to jump, and can ask for any training you want to hit those hoops from python classes to an MBA. It's all very very transparent. (Note, this is engineering oriented...sales works differently, always does in every company)

This is a sample...if you have any specific questions, do let me know. Or PM me.

You've obviously never worked for a startup or a small company.

It's my time first large company, actually. I've been in four startups, three of which went bust. So I know the pain of working really hard with an amazing team of exhilarated people, only to have your creation destroyed. I know the feeling of "Sorry guys, we can't make wages this month, maybe next month". I know the feeling of working 48 hour shifts because no one else can do the job. I know the feeling of helping to build an amazing company, only to realise that it stays with the guys who have the money, not the guys who do the work.

So, while it was amazing, and kinda miss it, I'm too old for that sorta **** now. Though I'm sure I'll try it again in a few years, when the amnesia kicks in. Everyone dynamic tends to oscillate from savouring the breath of learning and impact you get in a small company to the depth of learning and support you get in a large company.

John

valen · 28-02-2008 2:07pm

The Machine wrote: »

But do Google offer salaries higher than most other IT companies? The one person I've talked to on this said she felt they paid quite poorly.. Is this correct?

The focus isn't really on salary. They aim to pay around average, but hire better than average.

But, there are a few additions that they don't tend to mention (they aren't very interested in people that make a big deal out of salaries):

Annual Bonus of 10-50% of your salary, depending on you & company performance
2k 'christmas present'
Free bike or voucher
Free onsite gym (+classes) and 200 off external gym/hobby
One or two hundred a month for 'transport allowance'
Stock options (worth random amounts of money)
Random bonuses (not unusual to get 500-2000 for a good project)
Peer bonuses (a co-worker can give people 200 for being nice, twice a year)
Free food (worth about a tenner a day, or 30 a day if you eat a lot)
On-call people get a phone & broadband paid for
Free conference trip once a year
Trips to other offices as justified
Free trips to conferences if you help out the recruiters
Charity matching 100% of what you give registered charities
6k/year for college fees
Free internal training if you can get 10+ people who want a course
Onsite massage parlour
Health insurance/dental/optician benefit
50 euro per 'desk move' decoration budget
Ski Trip

I'm sure there are other things too.

John

The Machine · 28-02-2008 2:16pm

Cheers for the info John! It looks like a pretty decent package.

If you could see what my current payslip is like, I can guarantee you that I'm not in it for the money!

But in the end of the day you do have to have enough to pay the bills....

AARRRGH · 28-02-2008 2:16pm

John, in fairness that sounds pretty good. The place I work is similar, although a little less formal / less organised, and perhaps with better money.

simply · 02-07-2008 9:10pm

A good article on the subject: http://blogs.zdnet.com/careers/?p=108&tag=nl.e019

02-07-2008 9:19pm

I went for a job in this place last year and another guy that i know went for the same job. Now without blowing my own horn i have got the job in every interview that i went for. This was both Internal and external. I have fantastic experience ranging over 10 years.

My mate has been fired twice for basically not turning up for work. Getting stoned all the time. Forgetting important things. He has been to collage were he has a degree in food science or somthing of that nature.

Anyway we both applied and he got called for an interview and got the job.
I got a letter saying i wasnt suitable.

I was later told i have to have a collage degree of some sort.

My mate , well he is no longer there HAH

damnyanks · 02-07-2008 10:07pm

Lazy people dont get found out in interviews.

Petrolium Hat · 03-07-2008 10:46am

valen wrote: »

Heh. You must work in a pretty cool place then. Making lists is easy...I was on the team that made up our 'best places to work' submission this year. So here goes:

Culture of 'fix what you see is broken'. If we see that hiring is broken, we can fix it. Recruiters don't get all uppity, they say sorry & make it better. We moaned to management last year that loads of small things were broken. They threw out a survey, got 75 odd things that really pissed people off, and management promised to fix it all. The head of engineering sent out an email every week with progress on them till they were all fixed. Not easy things, hard ****. Like 'Compiling stuff is slow' or 'engineers don't feel they get enough praise for what they do'. I *love* that the answer to 'compiling stuff is slow' is to form an engineering productivity group from people who care - they cut compile times to 10% of the original times inside of three months.

Strong culture of "If you screw up, learn from it, tell people about it & make sure it doesn't happen someone else". Due to a series of bugs/unfortunate events/bad luck I took out about 40,000 machines one afternoon, affecting a load of services. I got to write up the post mortem & file the bugs that we uncovered. I got to make sure it was all sorted & couldn't happen again. An offhand comments from a manager of "if it costs us less than 50 million, we don't need to put it in as a line item on the balance sheet" helped a lot.

We are doing stuff that's never been done before. One day I chose to help build the automated machine fixer that's now almost bordering on skynet complexity. Never seen anything like it. Engineers decide what's needed, and do it. Management facilitate, they don't get in the way.

If it's needed, you can get it. I've worked in places where I've had to argue for money to buy a box of DLT tapes because management didn't know the value of backups. Here, I could expense a lego millenium falcon because my team had just grown a lot, and I wanted to have them build something fun that'd make us feel a little closer, quicker. Scale that up...when the ads guys say they want a few datacenters nearer asia to reduce latency there, they get it.

The 'performance' system is amazing. You can tell it was designed by engineers, to reward people who do well. They take input from your manager & co workers, then encourage you to get 'reviews' - basically references - from people on other teams who know how awesome you are. It's all bundled together and they try work out who is at which grade. You get a job ladder that tells you which hoops to jump, and can ask for any training you want to hit those hoops from python classes to an MBA. It's all very very transparent. (Note, this is engineering oriented...sales works differently, always does in every company)

This is a sample...if you have any specific questions, do let me know. Or PM me.

It's my time first large company, actually. I've been in four startups, three of which went bust. So I know the pain of working really hard with an amazing team of exhilarated people, only to have your creation destroyed. I know the feeling of "Sorry guys, we can't make wages this month, maybe next month". I know the feeling of working 48 hour shifts because no one else can do the job. I know the feeling of helping to build an amazing company, only to realise that it stays with the guys who have the money, not the guys who do the work.

So, while it was amazing, and kinda miss it, I'm too old for that sorta **** now. Though I'm sure I'll try it again in a few years, when the amnesia kicks in. Everyone dynamic tends to oscillate from savouring the breath of learning and impact you get in a small company to the depth of learning and support you get in a large company.

John

Lol, that sounds like Willy Wonka discovered linux collaboration and decided to set up a company. Class.

One thing I would say is I've applied for 2 jobs there in the last year and haven't even got a reponse. Degree and 5 + years working in IT, big, small, public and private sector, thought I'd at least get a PFO email. I can imagine they get a gazillion applications a day, still an automated PFO if an application hasn't got a repsonse in like 3 months wouldn't hurt. Spread the love or at least spread the "1269 people applied and we barely noticed your CV, sorry".

Vim Fuego · 04-07-2008 10:19am

I worked for Google for over 2 years in a non-tech department.

My opinion is that it's a nice place to work if you're an engineer. If you're in a more salesy/client facing job like I was, you have to put up with some of the worst bull**** ever with the upside of meeting some truly wonderful people.

Firstly, the perks are nice but I've always thought of them as good PR for recruitment and when you're actually working there every day, you don't really care and would in fact, like a better salary instead of average canteen slop and free sweets.

The salary for non-tech is bog standard. The bonuses are nice but should be part of your salary in the first place. It claims to be a meritocracy but that is simply untrue. I've seen brilliant people slave away for years for no reward but then certain wasters that are seen in certain social circles get promoted every quarter (one of these types is also the niece of higher-up Dublin exec).

Management on the sub-executive levels is shockingly poor. I had a manager who had no business education (in fact, studied ancient Greek), had never worked anywhere else and I can tell you, it showed. All you got from that person was the company-line week-in and week-out.

The atmosphere, I feel, took a turn for the worst when the office went into expansion-overdrive and they acquired a second building. When I first started, people were mostly friendly but nowadays (I left very recently), there's queue-skipping, people acting violently to get a free f**king tent (Googlers, search your misc-ie for that instance), career backstabbers (as an earlier poster mentioned) and some of the worst f**king-over of staff I have ever seen when it has come to bonuses and promotions.

And if you ever show any form of dissent or say that you're unhappy with how they do things, you may as well quit right then because they will make your working day a living hell and probably put you on a 'performance plan'.

Anyone applying for Google in a non-technical role can expect the following:

- You will be measured and compared against your peers on a daily basis.
- You will be expected to get involved in 'non-core job' activities that mean absolutely nothing, and then punished when it takes away from your 'core job'.
- Cultish behaviour. It isn't a cult, not everyone is a Google-freak but there are quite a few. These people are the Google-equivalent of evangelists and are the type to rat people out, blindly following all the crap handed down. Don't even try to get in an argument with them, it's pointless.
- You will fill in more spreadsheets relating to the amount of work you're supposed to do than doing any actual work.
- Got an idea? Go f**k yourself is often the message as product managers are mostly based in London and won't respond to your ideas/emails, especially if you have ideas for the Irish market.
- Career Development: You will reach a point within 2 years where you realise that your title might change but your job never will. You could change department but a lot of them are smaller, have more pressure and get screwed over worse than the big AdWords and AdSense teams.

Overall, it's very institutional and full of unnecessary pressure. Don't even get me started on the disparities between different offices (Euro workers get a raw deal compared to the US people doing the same job.....I don't even want to know what they pay the Indians in Hyderabad).

There are great people there of course but I think the lifespan of a non-tech role is 2 to 2 and a half years. A great many of my peers are also trickling out of the place on a weekly basis now purely from just being sick to death of the many, many ridiculous policies and management decisions.

I'm very glad I got to work there. I'm very glad I don't work there any more.

Best of luck to all those who want to give it a go, just make sure you set a number of months aside for the recruitment process.

damnyanks · 06-07-2008 7:28am

Just sounds like your average large company

Especially KPI's

Google

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