Why I Left Google
This is the best "Why I Left Google" article I've read, and I really don't have any criticism for it.  Everything he says is true on some level, but things that look bad don't look as bad with some context.  So I hope to provide that in case you are thinking of working for Google but are pushed in the "nah, maybe not" direction because of articles like these.<p>First off, you have to remember that Google is a big company.  It's one of the world's most profitable, and there are quite a few employees.  This is not a startup.  This is not a world free of politics.  This is not a world where the execs will listen to all of your concerns.  (With that in mind, it is very easy to get their ear and voice your concerns.  It's just that they might not drop everything to do things the way you think they should be done.)  This is a publicly traded company with lots of stuff to do and processes that scale to a large number of employees.<p>But, that's not a horrible thing.  If you've worked at other big companies (or bigger companies), this place is like a dream world.  You know what other people are doing.  You can see their code.  You can see their processes running in production.  You can have internal mailing lists where you might accidentally say something that looks bad during discovery.  Every change you make to the codebase gets another developer saying, "yes, this looks good" before you commit.  Everywhere I've worked before, anything like these would have been immediately shut down.  Code reviews slow progress.  Mailing lists are a legal minefield.  Sharing code doesn't allow the correct cost center to pay for its development.  That's how it is.  If you are unhappy with Google's corporate policies, try working for Bank of America.  You will not complain as much :)<p>On the other hand, if you are the "I want to work by myself and be a product manager, engineer, sysadmin, and CEO", then the big-company culture is not for you.  I write code and talk about writing code.  That's it, someone else does everything else.  I like that, but if you don't, you won't like the big company lifestyle.<p>(So, with that in mind, I don't think Google is a good place for your first job out of school.  You will be annoyed with the M&M restocking policies, quit out of protest, and realize how horrible the real world is.  IMHO.)<p>Now on to some specific points:<p>Programming-related:<p><i>Pathological love for Java and anything resembling Java.</i><p>This is a network effect.  In any project I've started, I've been able to use any language I've wanted to.  Plenty of projects are using Haskell, my personal favorite app programming language.  The reason why I choose Python or Java at Google is because I want a large pool of people to get feedback from on code reviews, design reviews, at "could you take a look at this" time, and so on.  Everyone knows Java, and so I can be more productive at Google if I use Java.  I don't spend much time typing in code.  I do spend a lot of time working with other people.  I think Java is objectively a terrible programming language and I hate it conceptually, but the great internal community and great internal libraries make it quite usable.  (Read my HN history.  I am not kind about Java.  But at Google, the limitations I complain about are not as relevant as they are when you are "out on your own".  I don't foresee any personal projects in Java any time soon, however.  It's too verbose for apps that don't need to be fast or scale.  And it's not really <i>fun</i> like Perl is.)<p>If you absolutely cannot work with Java, then there are plenty of C++ projects to work on and your skills will be valued highly.  Go is probably quite acceptable, too, given the right project.<p><i>Most engineers were not comfortable with {functional, concatenative, combinatory, logic, meta} programming.</i><p>Even though it's Google, programmers are at various different levels in their programming careers.  I personally like programming languages and their differences in style, but other people are more practical and just want to sit down and churn out features for their project.  They don't want to switch to Haskell because it's better at X than Java.  They just want to make something new.  So, if you want to be different, you need to be prepared to go out on your own.  And if you're new to Google, you might not be ready to do that for two or three years, because there is so much other stuff to do.  You're going to be thrown on a team and expected to contribute.  Establish rapport and then try to change the world.  Don't do it on your first day.  (Again, if that's a problem, big company life might not be for you.  This is a team effort, after all.)<p><i>Reviews preferred local simplicity over global simplicity; abstraction was discouraged.</i><p>The first half is true, simply because reviews are line-based rather than repository-based.  But there is a <i>design review</i> stage of projects when you discuss high-level design.  I was not used to writing design docs before writing code before working at Google, but now that I'm used to it, I like it a lot.  It's saved me a lot of time, I think.<p>Code reviews depend on your teams' conventions.  My team is super strict and nit-picky, but others will almost rubber-stamp changelists.  Different personalities, different results.  If you want harsher code reviews, review other code more harshly, I would say.<p>Abstraction is not discouraged.<p><i>Productivity was graded without much regard to the amount of technological debt accrued. (Though to be fair, this is a hard problem.)</i><p>I don't know much about this.  I work with lots of people that are at the level I would like to be at in a few years, and I don't foresee any problems for myself.  My bosses give me the impression that I choose good objectives and key results, and I pretty much meet all my key results.  But it's only my second quarter at Google, so who knows.<p>As for the corporate culture points, I basically agree with everything he says.  I don't think Google+ is the finest Google product the world has ever seen.  That's my opinion and since I don't work on the project, nobody really cares what I think.  I can live with that and even think it's reasonable.  But if you want to associate everything a company of 30,000 does with your personal thoughts and beliefs, you might be disappointed.<p>I know I sound like a total pushover when I say "that's just how the world is and you should adapt yourself", but honestly, I just want to receive large quantities of money in exchange for playing with computers, and Google gives that to me.  And really awesome food.  And wonderful coworkers.  So I can't complain much, especially after the other places I've worked.<p>YMMV.  Why not try Google out for a year or two and see for yourself?  You might like it, you might not, but you'll definitely learn something.<p>(And if you want to apply but don't have a contact at Google, I'm happy to be one.  Tell me about yourself and I will try to get you in touch with the right people.  jrockway AT google.com :)