Google Employees Confess The Worst Things About Working At Google

[onehandle]

Google is not a startup any more. It's a big, big corporation. "Google was not a start-up environment by the time I left. The same office politics. It was easy to get promoted if you worked on the right projects and projected your work in the right way."

Google is so big you can't have any impact on it. "I worked at Google for 3 years and it was very difficult to leave but there was one major factor that helped me make the decision - the impact I could ever have on the business as an individual was minimal. As noted in many answers below, Google is an incredible machine that prints money thanks to AdWords. Unless you are an amazingly talented engineer who gets to create something new, chances are you're simply a guy/girl with an oil can greasing the cogs of that machine."

Google may understand engineering, but not design. "There is not enough focus on product and visual design. This has led to many aborted/semi-successful products, like Wave, Google Video, Buzz, Dodgeball, Orkut, Knol, and Friend Connect. There is probably too much focus on pure engineering."

Get things in writing. "If you are in the process of gaining employment with Google, negotiate hard, be demanding, and make sure to get EVERYTHING in writing. Google makes lots of vague promises, and seems to not deliver."

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-confess-the-worst-things-about-working-at-google-2013-11

[Auggie]

1. The fun is over when the bean counters take charge

[Link Speed]

3. I was in Atlanta this summer when MicroSoft came to town

10,000 of the most humorless, boring people I have ever encountered. I would starve before I would work with those folks. I am quite sure that the same holds true with Google.

Google used to send tour buses full of their millennial idjits to our tasting room, where they would drink fine wine out of the bottle. They never phoned ahead and we finally got them to stop coming by.

[PeaceNikki]

4. Wow, you interacted with all 10,000 of them!?!? Impressive....

I know people at both and have attended conventions for one and think you're totally wrong.

[Link Speed]

7. Nah, just a thousand or so

Due to late travel arrangements, we were stuck in the Downtown Hilton for two weeks and the place was full of them for a few days. Also, they were maybe 90% male. I suppose I just have nothing in common with tech-types. Heck, we still stomp our cabernet.

[Buddha_of_Wisdom]

5. They really fucked up on everything.. from being an NSA advocate to data mining to Gmail

I still use Gmail because they filter well from my massive spam loads daily...

[Puzzledtraveller]

6. Just another behemoth pulling the wool