[presootto]

Very much this. There's a huge difference between what people think working for Google is like, and what it is actually like.

If you get hired you will end up working on boring maintenance/refactoring tasks, or some non-fancy infrastructure crap.

Google is like a big frat house. The amount of unprofessional behavior got so out of control that Urs Hölzle himself had to write a 'No jerks' manifesto to teach Googlers how to behave in a work environment. Yes, it's that bad.

Engineers no longer make decisions, it's all done by PMs who only care about meeting their OKR's.

Is it woth working for Google? Absolutely. Is it better then most companies? I don't think so. You'll learn a lot, meet some amazing people and then you can move on and work for a company where arrogance and an overgrown sense of entitlement are not so widespread.

Disclaimer: I used to work for the arrogant Google jerks. I still do, but I used to, too.

[DannyBee]

"If you get hired you will end up working on boring maintenance/refactoring tasks, or some non-fancy infrastructure crap. "

So uh, you think everyone should be working on shiny stuff?

"Google is like a big frat house. The amount of unprofessional behavior got so out of control that Urs Hölzle himself had to write a 'No jerks' manifesto to teach Googlers how to behave in a work environment. Yes, it's that bad."

This was written about a particular situation where a large number of googlers were badmouthing their colleagues in one particular part of the company whose decisions they disagreed with voiciferously. Given what the vast majority of HN has written about those decisions, i'm not sure this was a solvable problem outside of someone up above saying "calm down".

"Engineers no longer make decisions, it's all done by PMs who only care about meeting their OKR's."

If you abdicated your authority to make decisions to product managers, in 99% of cases, you have no one to blame but yourself.

There is certainly an overgrown sense of entitlement. However, I strongly disagree with your conclusions.

[minwcnt5]

"Google is like a big frat house. The amount of unprofessional behavior got so out of control that Urs Hölzle himself had to write a 'No jerks' manifesto to teach Googlers how to behave in a work environment. Yes, it's that bad."

I would think that says more about the openness of the culture and their simultaneous high standards for conduct than the company's professionalism.

There are plenty of companies that are open, but turn a blind eye to or even encourage excessive machoism. And there are plenty of companies that extremely stuffy where not being politically correct will quickly get you in trouble with HR, rather than being given a chance to self-correct.

"Engineers no longer make decisions, it's all done by PMs who only care about meeting their OKR's."

This is absolutely false in my experience. The people at the top of the food chain are mostly engineers, and engineers not only don't report to PMs, but they vastly outnumber them. I'd say that if any engineer feels left out of the decision making process they probably aren't doing enough to involve themselves. If anything it's the PMs who have to put more effort into persuading engineers than the other way around.

[autokad]

was the hiring process as dismal as talked about in the article?

[michaelochurch]

I heard a rumor that I was a direct inspiration for Urs's "no asshole rule". Can you confirm or deny?

The truth is: maybe I was a bit brash but time has proven me right. Had I been listened to on that product, it would have succeeded.

Anyway, your account of Google is spot-on. They hire a lot of brilliant people and have no idea what to do with them, which turns these underemployed smart people into "jerks" because of the need to prove themselves.