I worked at Google over 2 stints - pretty successfully (L3->L5 in 2.5 years). My general frustration was always that I wanted to do 'more' and have greater influence over product direction. I also worked for Amazon, briefly.

Pros: If you join the right team at the beginning, you can be on a rocketship and have 'exciting engaging work' (subjective)

Cons: It's not all 'talented developers solving hard problems'. As you level up, there's a ton of politics and excessive, unnecessary complexity caused by throwing as many eager, highly-paid engineers on problems with incentives optimizing for individual production.

Most successful Google projects are directly tied to 1 or more promotions for the key contributors of the project. Google's internal economy runs on perf - there's a lot of fixation of position and authority, particularly as you get L5+. L3->L5, you can largely ignore politics / crank out working systems and be successful.

If you are an early engineer on a team (even as an L3), it's not too hard to become and expert (especially if you front-load by working excessive hours early in your career).

Flip-side, you can be extremely talented (in one way or another) and be put on a team and projects that emotionally drain you and make you question your purpose in life.

I've talked to a lot of Googlers who are just as frustrated with their almost 'lavish' 6-figure silicon valley jobs and end up quitting. The causes are mixed - mostly politics, unnecessary complex, or the nature of the work (often monotonous or frustrating - mostly due to the nature of google3), commutes (less of an issue now), wanting more e2e ownership, more 'work satisfaction'.

If you want to do the most engaging work of your life where you learn the most - you're generally probably better off with newer teams/projects/systems - e.g. at a startup. A few years on almost any system and you'll be an expert - as long as the system lasts that long.

If you're looking for a comfortable, high-paying tech job - FAANG can be nice, but you need to make sure you enter onto the right team with the right expectations all around.

p.s.: shameless plug: I'm now building (early stage) a 'web3 game server' on Solana: solanagameserver.com. #tardigrades

user:	thewhitelynx
created:	July 25, 2018
karma:	1