True, but after accumulating a large sum of money quickly - before 40s let's say - and using it to buy rental properties for example, will allow you not to work for anyone at all and enjoying your life and having all the time to yourself while also having good money beats any "healthy work environment." So a temporary sacrifice is worth it.
@@violetasuklevska9074 correct, but working for a small salary almost up until you die while your body starts to slowly disintegrate and your health is failing is even worse. At least you'll be able to relax after 40 and enjoy your family and hobbies. We are just conditioned to believe that "best years" are before 40, or before 30 or whatever because it benefits elite to have more of working class so they want you to waste all these years and never get out of the rat race so that they can enjoy their lives and families and free time at the expense of your life.
I'm surprised that Google have such aggressive deadlines, considering them not having any noticeable new products the past few years, in addition to the closure of many of their products
not releasing products doesn't actually mean less work, they might be working on major overhauls and improvements on their existing products or some in-house applications that they use so it helps improve their process.
Most of googles products are Business to business. They have huge amount of services for other businesses that the normal customer would not hear about E.g : google cloud has alot of services, apis to maintain. Then u have flutter framework, golang language, google console , their gmail their maps . They have their own microsoft office alternative they have chrome and its engine to maintain its litterally the reason web exists today. Google translate . Ohh yea android and chromebook operating systems and many many more and imagine all these need maintainance and consistent updates to stay relevant in the tech competing industry
The problem here is bad management. Most managers are bad at Google, this is what is evident here. A coherent strategy would lead to better overall output. Here there is a lot of directionless work.
Lol, all the tech or consulting companies have the same drawbacks but no perks lmao. This video doesn't understand how the software engineering culture is. It's always been more money and no work life balance.
@@varunsharma5582 Starting to think why the fuck did I choose a cs major. Choosing careers is too important of a decision to let a 17/18 year old make and expect them to stick with for their entire life basically.
Every crash/collapse brings with it an equivalent market chance if you are early informed and equipped, I've seen folks amass up to $1m amid economy crisis, and even pull it off easily in favorable conditions. Unequivocally, the collapse is getting somebody somewhere rich.
I do not disagree, there are strategies that could be put in place for solid gains regardless of economy or market condition, but such execution are usually carried out by investment experts with experience since the 08' crash
The issue is people have the "I want to do it myself mentality" but not equipped enough for a crash, hence get burnt. Ideally, advisors are reps for investing jobs, and at first-hand encounter, my portfolio has yielded over 300% since 2020 just after the pandemic to date.
i'm blown away! mind sharing more info please? i am a young adult living in Miami where i've encountered several millionaires, and my goal is to become one as well
NICOLE ANASTASIA PLUMLEE' is the licensed fiduciary I use. Just research the name. You’d find necessary details to work with a correspondence to set up an appointment.
That perks-so-you-never-leave thing has been around a long time. It was a big part of the reason why EA was sued (and lost) during the whole "EA Spouse" debacle in 2003. I called it a gilded cage. I didn't want any of the perks. I just wanted to be able to go home at night and on weekends and have a life. I've hated all employee "perks" ever since. They even gave out rings, like class rings, with company stuff on them instead, to people who stayed the longest. I remember a woman who lived in the apartments right next to the office won, because she was there ridiculous numbers of hours, and people actually wanted the ring, and put in more hours to try to win one. I thought they were all crazy.
I disagree with this. My experience at Google was awesome. It was like being on a cruise ship and in my two years I can only remember having to stay late 2-3 times. I only left because once you work at Google other tech companies want you really bad and will pay more to get you. This is just my own personal experience. Maybe I’m just lucky.
Working at Google and here's my personal experience about these reasons: 1.1. I worked at a office outside of CA, they have only breakfast and lunch, and people just comes in as late as possible right before the breakfast ends, it is hilarious and actually reasonable because no one else is working at that time anyway. The food is not that good though. 1.2. We technically could bring dogs and some does it. They don't want cats to come however, so it really isn't about tricking employees to stay longer. 2. Work pressure differs between teams, some got lucky and has near zero pressure and some needs to wake up at midnight if the website is down for 3 minutes. If you got a good team or manager it is really great. 3. As long as you are hired, it does not take anyone a lot of effort to "just survive" because you already proved, or at least convinced them you are one of the best engineer out there(which actually surprises many engineers how bad other people can be). However you are indeed going to work with or hear stories about some insanely good people who does the work of hundreds of people. IMO it is just something average people needs to suck it up and move on about the fact that some people are really just that good instead of tryharding. 4. I remember average promotion takes 3 years, so yeah if people left with a year or two it's going to be hard. 5. The "worked at google" line on your resume beats ten projects so people gets a lot more chance going to startups and such, so if they get +30k a year then quitting does not seem bad at all. Opening your own startup is not really related to the quit data though, since those people are usually senior engineers and has saved a good fortune already.
Dude, I'm a new grad swe a couple months in and I'm having huge imposter syndrome. I takes me a while to understand what's even going on in the codebase and the pressure it getting to my head. Especially with all the weird internal tools like protos and crap. Does this get better?
I believe for the personal experience presented in this argument, your opinion is valid. I don’t know what it’s like to work at Google. However, if you think that just because you applied to Google and got a job there that makes you a “good” engineer, you’re highly mistaken. Furthermore, “Average engineers” actually make up the largest percent of the industry and the broadest impact. They work on products and projects that are meaningful, come to fruition within the market, and bring a rewarding sense of fulfillment to their peers who strive to meet a common goal. I would argue, this is something employees at Google lack in most areas. Sitting behind your desk at Google and saying you’re one of the best just because you work there doesn’t cut it anymore. I urge you to think about how many people actually know your work and your impact outside of your office. Who’s lives you affect in a positive and significant manner that isn’t driven by quick cash grab or money making venture.
@@jayrollo1352 it’ll get better, I can relate since I’m a software engineer apprentice and it wasn’t until about 7-8 months on the job where I started feeling more confident about what I was doing and I started understanding the code base a lot better and how everything connected and worked together, etc I’m now going in on month 10 and my tasks been getting more complex as well, so don’t worry and just try to take it one day at a time. I also recommend reading through the code base and explaining to yourself what each part does in a way where you can understand it. That’ll help u understand things better and you’ll recognize patterns in the code and you’ll see that the code in other files are wrote with a similar structure even if those code are doing different things, they’ll still be wrote with similar structures and patterns
@@lashondamiller2982 Thanks for that. This past week was super stressful because every changelist I submitted would get so many comments asking me to add other features and then I have to chase those and I don't know what's happening.
Ex-Googler here (Seattle based). I can tell this information is far from being accurate. 1. Dinner is actually very limited, not that good and very few people stay up for dinner. 2. Shuttle back home, most people just chat, chill, take a nap. I rarely see people working on the way back. 3. I have been through 3 different teams. Everyone has families or places to be after work. I can single handedly count the people I have been in contact with who work after hours or reply to emails late at night. 4. You get paid for your on call time. Name one company that does that aside from Google. 5. I used to hit the Gym every other day around lunch time right before I get lunch. And I actually got promoted and was never questioned by what I was doing spending 1.5 hours mid day out of office every other day. Google experience was by far the best experience I had at any company (and I have been through a decent number of the big tech giants). As long as you set the right estimates and expectations and are not a lazy ass who is not willing to work, you will thrive and learn (to some extent). The major drawback in my opinion is the growth opportunity (especially at L5 and beyond). It is hard, very opportunistic and needs so much work that many people just skip such promotions by leaving and going back at a higher level
Don't stay late for dinner, get free breakfast and lunch, leave at 5. Don't use WiFi on shuttle for work, use it for podcasts, TH-cam and other consumables. Working more hours is really a choice here, not a necessity
shut up shill. we all know that 1 year is not long enough experience to be conisidered competitive. its 4 years minimum for most upper management positions. google is an evil megacorp. get over it.
Literally anything is better than a back breaking warehouse job. We don't treat our warehouse workers like humans yet we depend on them every time we get a package.
yeah, at least you're not building a stadium in middle east ,facing a direct sunlight for 14 hours a day, living with 200 other guy in the room that surrounded by everyone defacates and the employer didn't pay you a dime for 3 years and confiscate your passport so you can't go anywhere at least in google, you're working with AC on all day and Free meals everyday. it's stressful, but not third world slavery like stressful.
I'm starting to see that times really are shifting. Myself who was raised by old school parents use to believe that working hard to climb up to one company that pays well and offers good benefits with a decent/good schedule is enough for me to essentially commit my career and life into that company until I retire. Today it seems that work is all about progression and to continuously grow within whatever field you're wanting to be in or may already be in. In the grand scheme of things I suppose this has always been the game plan to anyone that wants to be successful in life but opportunities seem to be far more available today. I don't see anything wrong with doing one year of time with any job to put on your resume. Take your experience and apply it somewhere better. This my perspective.
A good advice is "Look at the requirements of the next position you want (in or outside your company). Try to get them, never stop updates your skill and leverage them"
Oh yeah, that is super outdated advice. Companies have no loyalty to workers anymore; you should constantly be prepared to move to another company if things go south. My parents gave the same advice, but after losing/leaving my job several times (the company having mass layoffs, getting fired for standing against crunch, leaving because promotions happened based on going to lunch with the CEO and not hard work...), I see that is no longer the world we live in.
This has been the case since 2008. You move up within your industry. You move around until you reach the point of director and then stick around for VP and above until there’s no more room to grow.
I had to realize this when I just couldn’t stand the thought of being stuck to a company, so I had no other choice but to be a freelancer in order to be my own boss and choose what I want when I want. It turns out is not oh so freeing as I naively dreamed it would be obviously, but having to constantly study, improve, adapt and learn, made me hard to ignore, and now that I got the pace of it I wouldn’t trade it for the world! Learning how to continuously improve your skills in what you want to do, planning and having discipline is never gonna betray you and is the closest thing to freedom - and eventually comfort and security - that not many companies can truly give you (if any at all). That and knowing how to invest of course, never work harder than your money for goodness sake 🙏🏻💕
I'm a googler in nyc, and it's not as bad as it's made out to be here. the food is pretty good & hours flexible (thanks covid). if you get on a good team you don't need to work too hard to stay on top of expectations. I usually skip one of the meals because it's not worth it to work later if you can go out with friends, etc.
I feel like the reason people quit in just one year is not that Google doesn't provide a good work space, and that their job is not good. The major reason is that people's expectations going into the job is just too high, and when those expectations are not met, people feel massively disappointed.
I worked in Silicon Valley. I worked 80 hours/week and I was salaried. When I calculated how much I made it was closer to $20/hr and I practically lived there. No thanks.
I guessing most of those positions are salary only? I recently got a hourly engineering gig and now realize that I never want to go back to salary if im working more than 8-10 hrs a day.
I worked two full-time software engineering jobs at one time before and it was a no-sleep grind of epic proportions ... Google is a stepping stone, embrace it and run with it and you can go far. Either you'll get a high ranking promotion at Google or learn all the tricks of the software industry to start your own company.
@ray h. I went "corporate" and made a company because the whole software industry seems blind and misguided with AI and machine learning. And I bet my life savings I can show em. 😄🫠
@@fatcat4674 Necessity. Had a baby on the way right after Hurricane Ida wiped out everything and was essentially homeless ... I had to rise to the occasion before that baby showed up. Nowadays, I'm trying to build a business centered around the game industry and AI + cloud tech. I got burnt out with corporate management nonsense and how it harms the creativity/innovation of game developers and being told to do things wrong on purpose (literally). I'm working on an AI toolkit and SDK for game dev, advanced animation and VFX tools and may put an actual game into production soon with the tools (many centered around Unity and the new DOTS/ECS and Jobs/Burst tech stack for insane performance). The two game candidates I could start in real production are: 1) a "4X space odyssey" blending elements of grand strategy, flight sim and adventure RPG or 2) a twist on a classic "sword & sorcery" RPG with a focus on wizards/magic (both use fantasy/sci-fi storylines and world-building I've done myself over the years). We may start production soon because our tools are advanced enough to need to try them "on the battlefield" to fix/improve things and innovate further. So that may actually happen soon.
Google's culture is not as toxic as you make it out to be, especially when you compare it to other high stress paying industries. The politics, long work hours, cutthroat environment will applies across every job. The work life balance is amazing. Here in NY, I've never met anyone who went past 45 hours a week and once or twice on call. Call me bias if you want, coming from Finance and accounting where I put in 16 hour days sitting in a cubicle and where I have to pay for my own food, I'd gladly take Google's work environment anyday. New York's google cafeteria food tastes way better than the lunch that I buy. Yes, the job is stressful, but there is always going to be stress in life one way or another, and I would gladly be stressed working at google.
Developer work is highly intelectual! I can't emphasize this enough. After a few hours burning your brain with complex problem solving, your ability to deal with even smaller amounts of stress decreases a lot. Add to that all the stuff said in the video, it's easy to understand why people in situation feel overwhelmed. So you can't compare with other professions like that. Having said that, stress levels is an elastic metric bar each one of us have. The higher the stress level you've faced in the past, the easier it will be to deal with any stress bellow that. I guess for most, they just had an easier life until they get to Google.
Regarding point 1 - It's worth noting that another way perks work against you (if your employer sucks) is to do with how much you are actually seen to be using them. For example, if you have a pool table, table tennis or even a quiet break room, spending any time in those spaces outside of a set break period (e.g lunch) can be noted down and used against you in performance reviews if they want to deny you a promotion, leave, etc etc - citing you taking time to use these "free perk" facilities
The problem with being “really good at your job”’is many managers won’t promote you BECAUSE you’re excelling in your current role and they don’t want to lose a top performer, esp if it’s to a different department.
this is very true. I suffered this a lot with my last employer of 11 yrs and I couldn't find a job. - no promotion - no new tech - no fulfillment Eventually, here I am, redundant after a big buy out and mentally struggling with financial stress. I love programming to bits but the corporate world effed it up in my opinion - I'm happy to be educated if proven wrong. I used to be hyper motivated. I'm not sure what to make of this any more! It's all about money.
I don't know really. What do you people expect at workplace which pays you 10K a month (minimum salary). To just chill and play games :) Of course it's going to be stressful and hard.
Grass is always greener. I worked at a small company for six years, and for 5.5 years I loved it. I made less than half of what I make at my current job and those were the best years of my career. I don't work at Google but I do work at another company like Google. The stress is pretty miserable. I was a top performer everywhere I worked before, but now I work 50 or 60 hours a week to be average. Next to the literal geniuses on my team, I feel dumb every day. I'm not quitting, but I think about it A LOT. The money is great, but the purpose of money is to elevate stress and uncertainty in your life. I replaced my financial stress with work stress. I don't expect anybody to feel sorry for me, and you shouldn't. Just know that it's quite possible to be both well paid and abjectly miserable.
You are correct, the entire point of agile was to increase the rate of code deployment. They just trick people into thinking it benefits devs and QA by breaking up work into "manageable" chunks. Waterfall sucked in its own right, but I didn't see as many people get burned out. Agile went downhill when it became a project management tool instead of a development methodology, and I say this as an analyst/PM.
As a current Software Engineer @ Google that started on 02/28/2022, I can see why Googlers quit! It's hard to past the yearly perk review as a rookie, Junior SWE and if you don't show steady progression within your role, you will continue to barely pass your yearly perk or even fail! The 5 reasons you mention on here are factual but I would add not passing the yearly perk review or getting a "meet expectations", then you will most likely quit, because you will feel the pressure to perform at a much higher level. This takes a tole on your mental and emotional health big time! No amount of money is worth your mental and emotional health and feel like you're going crazy!
Also here's the thing. When you're surrounded by incredible people, they can also lift you up. Make you better at your job. If you feel like you're in the shadow, that means that you're not fully on board with trusting your co-workers. If I know that we're all on the same team working toward the same goal, I want people around me who are the best of the very best. I'd rather be with them in the trenches than others who aren't. In my eyes, it's your attitude and the attitudes of the people around you that can make it amazing or difficult.
I think that google is just trying to stay competitive with other tech companies. It’s probably very difficult for them to allow people to advance in the company when you are always working with amazing talent and hard working people. And regarding the perk dilemma to keep you working. You can drive your own vehicle. Not eat dinner at google and also they offer fully remote positions. I think the problem is employees, especially new ones, see the progress and dedication of other employees and work tirelessly in hopes of matching that same progress. Thus the burnout dilemma.
Yeah I agree with you. The only bs thing I see in video are strict deadlines. I would drop any company trying to overload me with 80 hour workload on 40 hours basis. And yet again the question is whether workload is so high or people are being too competitive.
saw the video and came here to say this. Google is on the frontlines of America’s tech war with China. I LOLed when the video started talking about Google making people stay for 6pm dinner, when the Chinese are expecting 9am-9pm, 6 days a week (996) from their workers
All this “company culture” stuff is super cringe and kind of dehumanizing. Why can’t we just let a job be… a job? It shouldn’t have to rule your life. It shouldn’t be what defines you. It shouldn’t measure your worth to society.
@@biggibbs4678 I would. Humans weren’t meant to be confined to cubicles for 40+ hours a week. If there’s one upside to the pandemic it’s that office workers had a chance to break their daily routine and reevaluate what actually matters to them. Some people left their jobs in lieu of a happier more free life - even if that means less money. Others love the lifestyle that remote work offers without having to sacrifice quality and productivity. Society is slowly adapting which is great. What’s wrong with expressing our opinions? This is how we grow as a society -through the exchange of ideas and information. If workers just thoughtlessly complied then there’d be no innovation.
Dinner at 6pm? I'll eat at home. Wifi on the shuttle? I'll work on my skills to later start my own company. Bring pets to work is ok? I don't have pets. Sometimes people create a cage for themselves. The value to Google, of that additional hour you work with no overtime pay - just to get a 'free' meal - is far in excess of what the meal is worth. I don't understand how supposedly intelligent people can't see this? Companies don't do _ANYTHING_ for 'free'. There's always a catch. My games company offered "free medical insurance" - which was the absolute bare minimum, and requires you to work there for 1 year before you can even claim anything. On top of all that? It's a tax deductible for them - and means they can pay you less too - and therefore, lower tax and 401 contributions. So many in tech act like their companies are "so nice" and "so generous" - but they're frankly too naïve to see the truth. For me, it's a well-paid job. That's it. If my side-hustle takes off, I'll be gone without a second's hesitation.
@@lalithrockz yeah everyone was thinking the same thing I guess hah! He's a laughing stock. In reality if working at Google is a person is most proud of, why did they leave? If you left to start your own thing, forget Google. Your project should be your whole world or why waste everyone's time starting it? I think there's a lot of narcissism in tech...though I'm sure I'm not alone in that perception. Then again, I'm sure some would call me hypocrite...😅
I work in tech and my company has no perks like Google's. Yet, I put in way more time than just 3 extra hours a day. Driving in traffic is very mentally draining, and for those single people, grocery shopping, meal prep and doing dishes are all very time consuming. With Google's perks, you can almost surely have your entire weekend to do leisurely things instead of worrying about grocery shopping, cooking, meal prep and so on. So yes, I'd rather put in a few hours doing work things I enjoy instead of things I don't enjoy. Plus, have you gone shopping for groceries in the Bay Area at 5 or 6pm... or Costco run on weekends? Lines everywhere and wait time everywhere.
I've been facing the same problems without been paid like a Googler, and It's even harder when you're the head of your team, and you feel that if you fail everything fail, been a Google you can lean on your teammates (I'm pretty sure they are brilliant people)
I still think I’d rather work at google then my old jobs. I’d be working 12 hours a day at my old job with no benefits, no meals, doing hard manual labor and hardly a 30 minute break. Working at google to me sounds like an absolute dream
My last employer was like this... He tried to squeeze every last bit out of his employees but there were no catered meals, no high salary, and taking any PTO at all just pissed him off. So glad I quit working for that piece of crap
😂😂 applying any PTO pissed him off remembers me about all previous managers 😂😂 cuz they need to work to make things work again 🤣 they are the lazy ones
The thing is, the people that get selected for google are not your avg joe. They will be dissatisfied if they don't get the respect and treatment they think they deserve. Now people disagreeing with them are the avg or below avg joes that gets treated the same but without the perks and salary and they cannot change jobs cause they know their worth in this competing world. Ex Google employees know they have "google" in their resume and can easily land a comfy job but the avg joe is not at that level. Well in the end it's just a matter of perspectives from both parties. Personally if I had the calibre to get in google, i would also leave for better jobs
i dont think having those perks is a negative thing since they're optional. People complain nowadays about pretty much everything--including positive "OPTIONAL" advantages. If you're cheap enough to stay 2-3 more hours for a free meal, then it's your fault and not the company's. If you want a free shuttle, then you can't complain "it's too slow". Gosh
Huge correction: 1.1 year average tenure doesnt mean 1.1 year average turnover. Google hired massively in the last couple of years, so it would make sense the average googler has not been around very long.
No they did not past couple years. That would literally be the only time they haven't. The Tech layoffs happened in 2022 and you can see their share price. You could literally of said this about any other time period but chose the one time they didnt
I work for google and I’ve been here for 4 months. And I can say for a fact that it is very stress free. I can get away with working 30 hours, but I probably work closer to 40/45 because I want that first promotion ASAP. I’ve talked to other coworkers in different groups and pretty much everyone’s experience is the same. I’ve never witnessed anyone super stressed or anything. Everyone is nice af too. I know the entire company isn’t like that and it probably depends on your group. But I would say most people love it here. Also, google has been known to have a better work life balance than other tech companies. I’ve talked to friends from Amazon and apple specifically and they are the ones that are stressed out. Not sure where this 1.1 years number came from lol
Have you talked to people at Google and asked them how long they've been there, or how long did the previous hire last. This "1.1 years" has existed at Google and other tech companies for years.
The 1.1 years is a misleading figure. The number is how long each the average employee has spent at the company, not how long from them join until quitting. The reason why this is an important distinction is that the 1.1 years figures also includes current employees, and google has been hiring aggressively in the past few years (especially 2021) so now the average employee hasn't been in the company as long
People's reasons for quitting are highly individualized. I bet the majority of people watching and liking this video are people who don't work at Google, like me, and are looking for reasons to comfort themselves for not being able to make it there. The target audience of this video isn't Googlers. It's the people who wished to become Googlers and failed at it or were too scared to even try and are now looking for ways to frame that as an advantage. Just a guess. Maybe I'm wrong.
Sounds about right. IMO, there’s no amount of work that’s more stressful than school. I’ve literally comtemplated suicide on more than 1 occasion, thank God for the friends that I have who kept me sane. After engineering school, I honestly believe that, if I can make it through college, I can make it anywhere. On a different note, money isn’t everything. Prioritize work life balance
@@MHG796 somethings wrong with people these days. U ask them about their dreams & theyre like i wanna work here & there. Who dreams of working at someplace. They cud have dreamed of becoming the richest guy on earth. But no, people literally Dream of Working. Not a lot can think big ig
It is no longer a career for life but a life of careers. Also, move every 4 years with a 20% pay rise and make sure you are always learning something new. Do not just work for money. Apply what you learn and money will follow. Job changes with pay increases also put the "power of compounding" to work for you. This also greatly expands your network of contacts. "Know how" and experience are good and "know who" makes them even better. Good luck.
Highly disagree on the "smartest people in the world." I've worked with lawyers from Ivy Leagues, and trust me, they're not the geniuses the name would have you think. If people can't set boundaries, they're selectively smart. And many of these ideas around pressure are self inflicted. They might be knowledgeable at technical aspects, but immensely underdeveloped emotionally. Like, YAY, you built a life around going to an Ivy League, then working for one of the biggest players in the game. Now, can you use that intelligence and perseverance towards your own fulfillment? No? Oh, too bad.
I'm not surprised at all. Have been worked in Tech for sometime, I can say that every tech company more or less have the same situation. It's best to jump around in the early days of your career then if you still wanna continue working for a tech company choose which one suits your individual preferences. Some people would thrive in google whereas some might not but they may thrive in some other company. It all depends on the person.
I can relate. I work for a well known bank and my job is extremely stressful. I don’t work at the window and I don’t take calls (even those positions are also very stressful). But they constantly give us gifts, promote mental health breaks etc. but the considerable amount of pressure that is put on myself & my coworkers is literally insane
well, the funniest thing is that, we're often get stressed by invisible things like Expectation and Pressure. the stress is all in our head, from the scenario we told ourself
Whoa, so at least your company has mental health care policy. If you are stressed heavily, it's a good thing to get less stressful job with a bit less money, maybe in completely different industry. Stress kills.
I think Google is kind of like Harvard/Stanford. If you’re a good enough quality assurance specialist, graphic designer, software engineer etc you can get in. But once you get that name on your resume you can leverage it for better pay and compensation packages elsewhere. I think the grind wears people out the most
The 1.1 years is a misleading figure. The number is how long each the average employee has spent at the company, not how long from them joining until quitting. The reason why this is an important distinction is that the 1.1 years figures also includes current employees, and google has been hiring aggressively in the past few years (especially 2021) so now the average employee hasn't been in the company as long
For all those reasons am not convinced that working for google is a bad idea. If you get paid to the extent that you can run a startup after leaving, then the job made you grow after all. Also, for you to get into google, the amount of work that you would have done to get there is way greater than what you do there.
The work stress is indeed a major issue for me personally. I'm not exactly bothered about working the extra hours (it's crazy, but I usually do that for no perks, so having perks would be great). I've worked in environments worse than what's described here. I wouldnt be too foolish to think of Google as just a laid back company. There are always demands, but working at Google would prepare individuals for the stress of work ahead. And I think most people can handle their startups after working at Google because of the extreme work ethics they've learned there.
this is me right here… like my head is in such a dark place i may need to go to therapy… and i came from a high pressure networking support prior to google
I wonder how many people who leave Google miss it and regret it? Ten years ago, everyone who left seemed to regret it. These days, a lot less do. Also, I'm certain they hire a lot of people who are most comfortable working around the clock, actually enjoying being productive. Not everyone loves their jobs, but most people at Google seemed to.
Google may be the one of the biggest company you could work at, but size doesn't mean better or more influential work. Sometimes you will have a better quality of life, salary, benefits and impact on society by working on a small company than working with google, specially if you are a top tear engineer or employee
Tons of people working in banking working regularly till midnight and these tech people cry about 6:30pm.
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From time on time I’ve received invitations to apply for 3 of the “big five” and honestly, I think that all those high salaries and big perks comes with a very high cost on your life balance. This is not all about money, sometimes it’s preferable to work on a more modest company but with an adequate work / life balance. Probably a more younger people may think I’m nut to not take it, but believe me that they doesn’t pay you that amounts for nothing. Even 1 year under that pressure could be enough to cause struggles on your sanity. Bells and whistles cannot hide the horror stories from many people leaving top companies.
That’s exactly what I’m always saying. They try to make the workplace so great, that employees want to spend their life there. WHO benefits? The company 😀
@@fsfehico fully agree! I also had a time where work was also my hobby, I’ve enjoyed it so much. Spent all my spare time to study and learn. So nothing wrong with that.
That’s not really anything new. Benefits ALWAYS exist to keep employees. There’s no such thing as a for profit organization just treating people well because they feel like it. If companies were selfless they wouldn’t hire you at all.
Hey Aaron, Where are you getting your data from? the avg Tenure at google is much more than 1.1 years? According to LinkedIn Talent Insights which is a pretty reliable data set the average tenure of a U.S google Employee is ~3.5 Years. Would love to know how you verified your data before making such claims. Thank you!
How much money is being remote worth to you? I know people that have accepted jobs making $20k-$30k less in favor of remote work. You can essentially live wherever you want and do not need to bare the cost of living. I turned down a job in NYC making $115k a year for a remote job making $85k. That might sound bad at first, but upon further analysis of rent prices/food prices/loss of time commuting, it more than satisfies my needs.
I think it depends on how you see this. I enjoyed working for Google for 4.5 years. I learned a lot. They will value you if you are creative. As for my deadline, most of those were achievable.
@@Oleg-ge3dn I would ask for an extension if I find the deadline unrealistic. Unlike working in a call center. There were no deadlines, but I got sick more often--sorethroat, pharyngitis, laryngitis. My pay was low way back then. My restroom breaks were limited to just 10 minutes per day. If I were overbreak for 3 times in a month even just a minute, I would have to explain. Not to mention,, most of my supports and leads in callcenter were not approachable. Lastly, my mental health were ignored when I was working in a callcenter... Let's not target Google. There are other companies that are far worse than Google.
@@jayveemorales7044 I would say that's is just bad business in general. A ton of people would not be able to handle that toxic environment. Comparing bad to really bad doesn't mean they aren't bad though. Imagine if vacation time was a human right? Or bathroom breaks for that matter. At least there are some laws in place that mean you have to take a break at some point (though of course there are workarounds). Imagine if meals were a human right? It's in a company's best interest to allow its workers some breaks even if we don't have laws on what they are for. But I feel like there are lots of places we could improve.
I have never seen a company that values creativity and don't believe such a thing could exist for very long. There are 2 kinds of jobs. Bad jobs that shorten your life and pointless jobs that waste your life. Lucky people get the second one.
Worker retention is one of the best indicators of a good workplace. Ivy league schools like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale have very high retention rates (97-99%). For employers it's Airlines, Banks, and Telecom companies.
Perks at the office are just another way to keep you in the office. The best perk a job can offer is competitive pay regardless of the job being remote or not. Money and time are the 2 biggest motivator for staying at a company.
Regarding the perks - for me, excessive work perks/benefits are a red flag. I don't want my workplace to become a second home. I want to come in, do my work, and come out - or even better, work remotely (which I've been doing since 2020) and waste no time commuting.
Everything is not as it seems but i know for sure im taking my breaks. I dont care how far behind something is when its break time its break time. Refresh eat drink(smoke if you do) and get back to work. Take it day by day. Deadlines are not your responsibility, as long as you’re doing your best.
Man….I worked at a cloud startup and it wasn’t a google or anything but it had a lot of similar perks. This was exactly why I left. It consumed my life and eventually I was always at work even when I wasn’t. The second mistake they made was because there was so much work to do I also learned a lot, so when I burned out and started looking for other jobs it was really easy to find a less stressful job lol. I talked to some old employees recently and it’s the same story with everyone.
I've always noticed that, in general, working for someone else doesn't pay off in the long run. Behind any great benefits there will always be an equal dark side.
Most can't go off on their own. If you're working a trade skill or something of that nature yeah. But you simply can't go off and start your own 1 billion dollar investment bank or software company. I imagine you're coming from an industry with little barriers and low investment.
The perks of a big company like Google are nice, but it always feels like a very impersonal work environment. You often work in a team, but the teams feel like college group projects where everyone wants to get stuff done, but no one really knows each other. Plus Google goes through a ton of projects every year with a small fraction of that work going public so few people ever actually see your work. Maybe it's a personal thing, but I like working at the smaller companies where I can really get to know my co-workers and have a more personal connection to the projects and products we are developing. I also learn way more in a small company as my older co-workers often don't mind answering my questions because it helps everyone involved, but at big companies I felt like a bother to people around me for asking anything.
I work in a smaller company and I can say that I work just as hard as I probably would at google, if not more. Like you said though, nearly all of my projects are seen through to the end, at worst they get put off for long periods of time. That's the benefit of being the only full time programmer in the company. But I also don't have benefits for my family. So still one day, I would love to either run my own company, or work at a more established one
• food until 6:30 is cool. If you work until 6:30. You could arrive late in the morning • dogs in office is a nice police to not have them home bark • if you are in a one hour drive and can work wonderful, it does not mean you are forced
I think the average time spent in one job is pretty close to what you quoted for Google at least for developers. It's a field where your compensation pretty much never grows at the rate of your actual value. The fastest way to increase your compensation is to switch.
Many companies overwork their employees like my former company Amazon. Yet, we don't get three meals a day and aren't allowed to bring our dogs to work.
sounds like theyre very soft. I work minimum wage 16hours a day most days, I deal with customers and process in the back, nonstop all day on my feet doing something. No perks. I get a 30 minute break for each 8 hour shift, we dont even have a fridge. For the money they get I could put up with a whole lot. They need to roll up their sleeves and get their feet in the mud and be quiet.
A mate has worked at google for years. He reckons the hardest thing by far was the interview process. When you have so many applicants you need to be able to thin the field somehow.
Same.... I had an ex-colleague who quit his job in accounts and finance, went to the US and did a master in software engineering for 2 years while taking a bunch of courses online and do all those usual leetcode/github stuffs, landed a job in google He is currently extremely happy with google Not because a job in google is that awesome, but, as compared to his previous job in big 4 Hong Kong, the stress+workload is somewhat lesser, but the net pay is about 3-4 times as much
I work at Google (~3 years) and in my experience, reasons #1 and 2 make no sense. I have a hypothesis that both of these points come from people working in Mountain View or other California offices, which I hear have a worse work life balance and are generally much more competitive and less nice to work at. (I've worked in Seattle and Pittsburgh for reference) For #1, the perks are great. Most people just pick 2 meals a day or fewer to stay for, so the work hours are a non-issue. I don't understand the bus point either, I would either just *not* work on the bus or factor my time working on the bus into my 8 hours of work. Plus the family leave, bereavement, work from home, and other policies are great. Those kinds of benefits far outweigh the frilly amenities like massages for me and they're top-tier at Google. As far as #2, I couldn't have a more different experience. I've had a really laid-back experience (still productive ofc) & haven't felt the stress these people describe in the slightest. Again, this feels like a Mountain View / California specific issue. (maybe New York as well, I'm not sure) I can vouch for #3, working with talented people can definitely give you imposter syndrome and make it harder to stand out. For #4, there are definitely internal politics that make things frustrating sometime, but I've only seen it for project-related stuff (prioritization of projects, assigning work to teams, etc) not for promotions. And of course #5 is very individual, can't speak to that.
The tech companies told everybody to join the tech industry for 20-25 years so agreesively, that there’s too many computer techs now. Most people are tech savvy in a sense which makes it easier for google to get away with there 150% level turnover rate.
The same companies that supposedly care about their Silicon Valley employees are also buying up real estate at a huge rate, keeping rent and ownership prices sky-high. This makes earning very good money less freeing. High salaries when combined with high expenses can chain you to your job without raising your quality of life. Yes, you make good money, but you might not feel it.
A lot of these issues aren't specific to Google or even the tech industry as a whole. If you work for a company that is at the top of the industry, more will be expected from you and the higher up the corporate ladder you go, the more stressful your job will be. If you want the company prestige and/ or C-level pay, then understand the consequences.
I always thought Google imbued certain values or mindset into its employees that leads them to leave the company and create startups or join another. Since Google is so highly praised from a job perspective, I thought the people leaving it must have had crazy good ideas while working there in such a environment.
I'm still applying, knowing full well it won't be a fun ride and that my motivation is to learn from and understand the tech giant, and to have a small early short-term boost to my savings (so I can take advantage of compounding interest).
Google sounds like smth I'd use as a stepping stone, like ye put up w hell for a short while and then go out w an awesome looking resume+ start smth on my own.
The non promotion thing is nonsense. Most companies hiring devs don't give out promotions easily. Generally the dev pool is too large to sustain a promotion for everyone. It's just business.
I still want to work with google. Other googler have been there more than 10years and Google is still a great place to be. There's no company on my mind other than google. They have the greatest minds and it will be an honour to work with people like that as a team.
Just for the first point, I think that's really a "depends on your current stage of life" or "personal value" problem. Because to me there's nothing inherently wrong with the surplus of perks, the fault is going into them thinking that you're at Disneyland instead of work. Like ya the perks are super good, but the reason why the model works is because it does get folks to work longer. If you're a young 20-something engineer with no external-to-work responsibilities whose options are that or hang in your small, bay area studio apartment, it may not be a hard decision to stay later and do more work. Harder decision to make if you have an SO or a family to take care of (as an example). I don't think trap is as appropriate of a term as golden Handcuffs are. They are really nice Handcuffs, but Handcuffs nonetheless
It's no surprise that Square Enix only accept Extremely skilled and Experienced employees because they know that their Deadlines are Aggressive depending on their employees' roles.
As someone working in the Tech field, you have a ton of freedoms to work on any project at any given day. Its very close to what a college campus feels like, where you need to take responsibility on planning out your day and work load. People will generally want to take on a lot of work to impress others and themselves, but realizing your limitations is very important especially when asking for help. Its also a role of the dice on what teams you're assigned too, luckily I'm with a really healthy team where we have realistic deadlines, leadership is S tier, communication is amazing, boundaries are set in place, we can pick what days we can work from home\work in the office, and we have a very healthy work life balance. Times are changing and people don't want to kill themselves at work, so companies need to shift or they will fail its just how it is now. You have an older generation work ethic battling with a newer generation way of working, and the older way is dying off. Us Millennials and Gen Z aren't lazy or looking for a hand out, we just see how important a healthy work life balance is as well as getting a better salary for our work, and we aren't going to let things slide anymore, and obviously the older generation of thinking doesn't like that. Its definitely worth getting in the field but you need to be driven and have a gameplan.
honestly, I hate how we sugar coat everything and make it seem like it's the company fault. There's a lot of people in the industry who want everything good for them but they don't have the skills or the mindset to learn the skills needed to keep up with the work. The idea work smarter not harder comes from having experience and being able to analyze a problem more effectively. I think most jr engineers lack these skills.
my Burnout story In one year i managed to learn fullstack web development and more like designing, css frameworks three frontend frameworks and extra programing languages like c and python but guess what happened after that I started to burnout and really i don't know what burnout was. I proceeded to build projects and work hard and at the time I started to exprience terrible panic attacks, agression, fear, worrying, depressed, anger high body temperature so I couldn't finish the projects. those panic attacks caused me to exprience chronic anxiety and hating ny situation I decided to quit coding to return my normal life coding is really stressful and can cause mental health problems it can make your life horrible. people can exprience burnout differently but for me it caused me chronic anxiety and personality disorders like i used to be calm and friendly person but I became agressive and frustrated person. coding burnout can cause mental disorders like depression insomnia chronic anxiety etc.
@@ultiumlabs4899 yes I'm self tought programmer yes I quit it's one of the most harmfull jobs someone can do, it's very stressfull someone who exprienced burnout can understand what the hell I'm talking about
@@ultiumlabs4899 I started an online business. although it's just starting right now and I don't have much exprience but it pays good income without stress and pressure I'll proceed it. are you self tought developer or something ????
@@legitMeastro I have bachelor degree in computer science. Even with that background it still stressful, I even off for 4 years from programming world, now I'm back, starting again my career as programmer. Life is not easy, I realize programming is hard and stressful but I don't have luxury to choose anything I want. So I need to do as best as I can and try my best enjoying the process.
This movie is filled with unnecessary loud noises that make it hard to hear and understand the words. The subject matter is interesting but listening to it is like self-flagellation.
They don't have to be benevolent or malicious. Sometimes it's just a matter of an environment not fitting everyone. some people feel tons of stress from things that others can take in stride and neither is wrong. They're just different
Although I like programming, staring at a computer all day is extremely unhealthy. What’s more important than your health? I’ll gladly take the pay cut for a good work/life balance.
@@ers-br Of course. I’m just trying to emphasize the importance of moderation. You should be able to generate decent income as a developer without having to sacrifice your health. Just have to set strict work/life boundaries. Every developer has this dilemma. It’s easy to over-obsess, it’s easy to burnout.
There is no work pressure, frankly. I'm a software engineer and this business is SOOOO easy. We are so unbelievably lucky (spoiled?), and when I see people complaining about it, it makes me want to laugh and cry and rage at the same time. There are people working in coal mines right now, and we're complaining about spending 9 hours in an air-conditioned office where we spend 5+ of those hours slacking off listening to podcasts, surfing the web, talking about random crap. It's comical how spoiled we are. Not that working in a coal mine is the baseline. Hunting and gathering is the basline; that's the kind of "work" we naturally have to do. It's not even really work, it's just doing what you need to do to survive in any moment. You're "working" 12 or more hours a day, at baseline. In the wilderness, with primitive technology, no medical care, no consumer products, etc. That's what we should compare our jobs to when we want to complain, just to keep things in perspective. The way people talk about tech work is insanely hyperbolic. It's not as exaggerated as the game industry, but it's also not as difficult as the game industry. Both are whined about in absurd disproportion to how difficult and uncomfortable the work really is. CRUNCH is the constant refrain in the game industry, even though crunch in _that_ context just means having to start working the hours stipulated in your contract for a while, rather than doing real work less than 2 hours a day, which is how things normally are. There are studies that show this, in the tech industry and game industry alike, we only work less than 2 hours a day. The rest of time is spent screwing around, basically. In the games industry, they work like regular tech workers, until they get close to the deadline and realize they're not gonna make it. At that point, they aren't "crunching," they're just pressuring employees to do the actual work they signed up for. When you're on "crunch time," you're still doing FAR easier work than most people. Nowadays you're probably working from home. At worst, you're in a nice, air-conditioned office, with a bunch of nice amenities, you have unlimited breaks and nobody is really micromanaging your time, because you're just held accountable for how much you produce. The same is true for regular tech jobs like software engineering, except there generally is no crunch time. You're permanently on the easy schedule, with obligations that amount to like 2 hours a day of work. Less if you're really skilled and smart. That's one of the reasons tech jobs are so much more competitive than game dev jobs; the compensation is better of course, but also it's a very laid back schedule with a lopsided (in the life direction) work/life balance. And that's _still_ a good deal for employers, because we generate them so much money (it's been shown that a really good engineer can generate Google $300 million, far less than he is paid, even if he is paid $500k+ and more in RSUs, which he probably is). They can afford to pay us 6 figures to work 2 hours a day, because the margins on this work are so high, and there are so few people with the skills to do it. Software engineers just have way more bargaining power than most employees, and employers have found that working them harder just makes them quit and jump to another tech company that is willing to pay them the same salary or more to do more laid-back work. The expectation is not that you'll work 8 hours a day, but that you'll deliver a certain amount of deliverables. It turns out that amount of deliverables is pegged at what a decent engineer can produce in about 2 hours a day. They have some worse engineers of course, like diversity hires who do need to work 5+ hours to deliver, and those are the engineers that get laid off, and never crack the $200k mark. So it's a clever arrangement where the really high-value engineers are comfortable and producing at a high volume and making few errors, while the low-value engineers are scraping by, still producing at a high volume, but just working harder and producing more errors. And Google's approach is all about discouraging employees from switching companies, since churn is such a huge problem for every tech company. This is because high-value software engineers are so scarce; every company has a constant shortage of good ones, so is willing to give them a big raise to poach them. So it's a constant game of poaching across the whole industry, it's not just Google, every big tech company has less than 2 years average employment time. It's because if you stay at a tech company longer than 2 years, studies have proven you will have a 50% lower salary than those employees who jump to another company. Because you get raises faster by jumping ship than by waiting around for a promotion. They still give promotions and I don't like jumping ship personally, I like where I'm at, but that is the optimal strategy if you want to save a lot of money, so that's what people do. So they need to make a very concerted effort to stop people from leaving. Especially at Google, because once you have Google on your resume, I think it raises your expected salary by like 25% or more. Like, being able to say "I made it through Google's application and selection process" is a huge vote of confidence that ensures you will be valued much higher by other employers. So people at Google have already got a huge value just by accepting an offer to work at Google. They could quit on day 1 and still get a million dollars out of it, just in cumulative pay raises over the course of their career that come from being a former Googler, and raising the starting point for the rest of their offers. Raising your pay by $15k at a junior level doesn't seem like much if you're already making $150k, but that means the next time you jump or get a promotion, you're probably getting a $20k raise instead of a $10k raise... and extrapolate that to the rest of the career, and compound those payments year by year, it will easily total more than a million if you pulled this off in your 20s or early 30s. So yeah, it's no wonder Google is tripping about how to keep employees, they'd be stupid not to leave. I know this is just about a narrow, extremely privileged slice of the white collar sector, but bear with me, since I'm gonna post a comment below about overwork...
With all that said, I do understand there are industries and countries where overwork is a serious problem. Especially countries that developed from preindustrial economies to booming high-tech global powerhouses almost overnight. In the west, we had hundreds of years to slowly make the transition from feudalism and serfdom to high-tech industry. We spent about 50 years employing people in factories with no rights and no employment contracts, and slowly realizing how cruel and unnecessary it is now that 3% of the population can feed 100% of the population, which has made us a bit more laid-back. We got to slowly realize that we could afford to not work so hard and that it needn't be such a mad rush to wealth for everybody. We also started with a more laid-back medieval economy in the first place. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church enforced 150+ holidays in any given year, with numerous fasting days and feast days when it was not just allowed to skip work, but _illegal_ to work. Of course, people still did chores and things to contribute to their survival on holidays, but it was a much more laid back lifestyle. That slowly changed in protestant nations, and such restrictions were relaxed globally as countries imitated and tried to compete with protestant nations. That is indeed called the "protestant work ethic," and it can be seriously toxic, but even protestant nations retained a memory of the Catholic holy calendar, which was at the center of public life in Europe and every single European individual's life for hundreds of years. So the memory of that lifestyle inspired moral outrage after industrialization, when former peasants went from working just 150 days a year to working _every day_ for 12 hours with practically no breaks. And that outrage is where most of our labor laws come from. Nations like South Korea didn't have a cultural memory of such a relaxed public schedule, so when they rapidly industrialized, their preindustrial work ethic translated directly into the industrial economy and created a culture of overwork. Especially with such intense pressure to catch up to the west, which had a massive head start as the epicenter of modern science, technology, and industrialization. The few voices of reason could not overpower the social forces, as the human costs did not outweigh the apparent societal benefits. So I do understand that in some places, people are literally dying of overwork, collapsing from a combination of stress, insomnia, and poor fitness, if not deleting themselves outright. But that's not the situation with American tech companies. Although these are multinational companies, they obey American labor laws since they are headquartered in America. If a South Korean is hired to work remotely at Google, they have the same obligations as American employees. That alone makes it a much better job in most cases than working for a Korean firm, but of course it's much more competitive to work at a big tech company. I also think a large part of the reason employees are dying deaths of overwork and despair is not simply the work obligations, but the lack of anything fulfilling in life. Married men live much longer than single men, even when you control for all the variables you'd expect to mediate such an effect, like wives forcing husbands to go to the doctor, married men making more money, having overall better genetic fitness, etc. At least part of the effect is mediated by the psychological and, I daresay, spiritual benefits of having a family. That kind of love and purpose can heal a lot of stress, and thereby increase the amount of stress you can survive. And that's just one aspect. Going to religious services weekly also extends your lifespan, when you control for income and other factors. Having at least a couple friends enhances your longevity and your ability to cope with stress, having a genuine community that you belong to, etc. So I think the overwork phenomenon is not just about a lack of labor laws, toxic corporate culture and noncompliance, but it's also about our newly materialistic, consumeristic cultures, which deprive people of family, community, meaning, and purpose. We disenchant life itself, sucking all the magic out of it (both in the figurative sense of love and meaning, but also in the literal sense of belief in the supernatural), and it turns out people aren't able to cope with stress very well without magic. I'm not able to do much, beyond sharing my ideas with other people, but insofar as I would like to see some change in society, my focus is on the loss of magic. I think we can and should improve work/life balance for everyone, ideally returning to a medieval schedule of making genuine _holy_ days of half the days in the year, and giving people more freedom in the hours they work. But on the way there, we can make life so much more satisfying and less stressful for everyone if we can just bring back the magic: restoring young people's ability to start families, to live in tight communities and to actually know their own neighbors, to partake in public celebration of the things that _unite_ us rather than of controversial things that divide us, to be rooted and anchored to traditional culture rather than unmoored and drifting in an ocean of nihilism and hedonism, to seek after the divine if they can, to restore some semblance of enchantment to the world and a sense of the spiritual nature of things. Our ancestors saw meaning and symbolism in everything. We deconstruct the meaning out of everything, so it's no wonder we're so depressed. Our ancestors could barely survive the winter, and yet they were less depressed than we are. Self-deletion was almost unheard of. I think in large part because they lived in tight communities, they had families, and they knew they existed for a reason, the world existed for a reason, and every natural phenomenon they encountered _meant_ something, from the animals to the weather to the lives and deaths of their people. And as smug and confident in our scientism as we are, we still can't say they were wrong. We don't know the weather has no meaning. Just because it appears to have regular patterns that we call natural laws, doesn't mean it isn't laden with agency and purpose. Whether it was preordained from the beginning of the universe or not, it can still be magical. We need to recapture that sense, among other things, if we want the species to continue and to be able to cope with life in a high-tech, post-postmodern age.
I learned the hard way that chasing money is a fool’s race. A healthy work environment that you can actually stand to be in is priceless!!
True, but after accumulating a large sum of money quickly - before 40s let's say - and using it to buy rental properties for example, will allow you not to work for anyone at all and enjoying your life and having all the time to yourself while also having good money beats any "healthy work environment." So a temporary sacrifice is worth it.
Is all about chasing the money temporarily then wen you have enough retire and make your own business or passive income
So you make 10$ an hour now? Hehe
@@manulscode40 is half your life, your best years happen before 40. It is hardly a temporary sacrifice.
@@violetasuklevska9074 correct, but working for a small salary almost up until you die while your body starts to slowly disintegrate and your health is failing is even worse. At least you'll be able to relax after 40 and enjoy your family and hobbies. We are just conditioned to believe that "best years" are before 40, or before 30 or whatever because it benefits elite to have more of working class so they want you to waste all these years and never get out of the rat race so that they can enjoy their lives and families and free time at the expense of your life.
I'm surprised that Google have such aggressive deadlines, considering them not having any noticeable new products the past few years, in addition to the closure of many of their products
not releasing products doesn't actually mean less work, they might be working on major overhauls and improvements on their existing products or some in-house applications that they use so it helps improve their process.
@@wenzjayy yes, for example TH-cam is always changing a little, they are always offering "be a bets tester for this feature" for premium TH-cam users
@@wenzjayy spot on 👍
Most of googles products are Business to business. They have huge amount of services for other businesses that the normal customer would not hear about
E.g : google cloud has alot of services, apis to maintain. Then u have flutter framework, golang language, google console , their gmail their maps . They have their own microsoft office alternative they have chrome and its engine to maintain its litterally the reason web exists today. Google translate . Ohh yea android and chromebook operating systems and many many more and imagine all these need maintainance and consistent updates to stay relevant in the tech competing industry
The problem here is bad management. Most managers are bad at Google, this is what is evident here. A coherent strategy would lead to better overall output. Here there is a lot of directionless work.
Now imagine being stressed out at a company that has nowhere near the amount of perks and benefits lol
@@Hi-zx9sl Asian companies discriminate if you take time off too lol
Lol, all the tech or consulting companies have the same drawbacks but no perks lmao.
This video doesn't understand how the software engineering culture is. It's always been more money and no work life balance.
this :(
😂such is what we ordinary people call work life
@@varunsharma5582 Starting to think why the fuck did I choose a cs major. Choosing careers is too important of a decision to let a 17/18 year old make and expect them to stick with for their entire life basically.
Every crash/collapse brings with it an equivalent market chance if you are early informed and equipped, I've seen folks amass up to $1m amid economy crisis, and even pull it off easily in favorable conditions. Unequivocally, the collapse is getting somebody somewhere rich.
I do not disagree, there are strategies that could be put in place for solid gains regardless of economy or market condition, but such execution are usually carried out by investment experts with experience since the 08' crash
The issue is people have the "I want to do it myself mentality" but not equipped enough for a crash, hence get burnt. Ideally, advisors are reps for investing jobs, and at first-hand encounter, my portfolio has yielded over 300% since 2020 just after the pandemic to date.
i'm blown away! mind sharing more info please? i am a young adult living in Miami where i've encountered several millionaires, and my goal is to become one as well
NICOLE ANASTASIA PLUMLEE' is the licensed fiduciary I use. Just research the name. You’d find necessary details to work with a correspondence to set up an appointment.
I just curiously searched her up, and I have sent her an email. I hope she gets back to me soon. Thank you
That perks-so-you-never-leave thing has been around a long time. It was a big part of the reason why EA was sued (and lost) during the whole "EA Spouse" debacle in 2003. I called it a gilded cage. I didn't want any of the perks. I just wanted to be able to go home at night and on weekends and have a life. I've hated all employee "perks" ever since. They even gave out rings, like class rings, with company stuff on them instead, to people who stayed the longest. I remember a woman who lived in the apartments right next to the office won, because she was there ridiculous numbers of hours, and people actually wanted the ring, and put in more hours to try to win one. I thought they were all crazy.
Its like Napoleon who held up medals and joked that men were willing to die for trinkets.
😂🤦♂️😂😭😭 willing to abandon their life for some ring, not even money
I disagree with this. My experience at Google was awesome. It was like being on a cruise ship and in my two years I can only remember having to stay late 2-3 times. I only left because once you work at Google other tech companies want you really bad and will pay more to get you. This is just my own personal experience. Maybe I’m just lucky.
The exception that makes the rule. You were very lucky.
What company have you joined now ?
@D Dichev thanks. You’re a wonderful person and not racist at all. Have a great day!
@D Dichev Did you really just say this??? LMFAO
@@ziqaustin any tips for ceng student like me ?
Working at Google and here's my personal experience about these reasons:
1.1. I worked at a office outside of CA, they have only breakfast and lunch, and people just comes in as late as possible right before the breakfast ends, it is hilarious and actually reasonable because no one else is working at that time anyway. The food is not that good though.
1.2. We technically could bring dogs and some does it. They don't want cats to come however, so it really isn't about tricking employees to stay longer.
2. Work pressure differs between teams, some got lucky and has near zero pressure and some needs to wake up at midnight if the website is down for 3 minutes. If you got a good team or manager it is really great.
3. As long as you are hired, it does not take anyone a lot of effort to "just survive" because you already proved, or at least convinced them you are one of the best engineer out there(which actually surprises many engineers how bad other people can be). However you are indeed going to work with or hear stories about some insanely good people who does the work of hundreds of people. IMO it is just something average people needs to suck it up and move on about the fact that some people are really just that good instead of tryharding.
4. I remember average promotion takes 3 years, so yeah if people left with a year or two it's going to be hard.
5. The "worked at google" line on your resume beats ten projects so people gets a lot more chance going to startups and such, so if they get +30k a year then quitting does not seem bad at all. Opening your own startup is not really related to the quit data though, since those people are usually senior engineers and has saved a good fortune already.
Dude, I'm a new grad swe a couple months in and I'm having huge imposter syndrome. I takes me a while to understand what's even going on in the codebase and the pressure it getting to my head. Especially with all the weird internal tools like protos and crap. Does this get better?
I believe for the personal experience presented in this argument, your opinion is valid. I don’t know what it’s like to work at Google. However, if you think that just because you applied to Google and got a job there that makes you a “good” engineer, you’re highly mistaken. Furthermore, “Average engineers” actually make up the largest percent of the industry and the broadest impact. They work on products and projects that are meaningful, come to fruition within the market, and bring a rewarding sense of fulfillment to their peers who strive to meet a common goal. I would argue, this is something employees at Google lack in most areas. Sitting behind your desk at Google and saying you’re one of the best just because you work there doesn’t cut it anymore. I urge you to think about how many people actually know your work and your impact outside of your office. Who’s lives you affect in a positive and significant manner that isn’t driven by quick cash grab or money making venture.
@@jayrollo1352 it’ll get better, I can relate since I’m a software engineer apprentice and it wasn’t until about 7-8 months on the job where I started feeling more confident about what I was doing and I started understanding the code base a lot better and how everything connected and worked together, etc I’m now going in on month 10 and my tasks been getting more complex as well, so don’t worry and just try to take it one day at a time.
I also recommend reading through the code base and explaining to yourself what each part does in a way where you can understand it. That’ll help u understand things better and you’ll recognize patterns in the code and you’ll see that the code in other files are wrote with a similar structure even if those code are doing different things, they’ll still be wrote with similar structures and patterns
This comment looked more reasonable than the whole video.
@@lashondamiller2982 Thanks for that. This past week was super stressful because every changelist I submitted would get so many comments asking me to add other features and then I have to chase those and I don't know what's happening.
Ex-Googler here (Seattle based). I can tell this information is far from being accurate.
1. Dinner is actually very limited, not that good and very few people stay up for dinner.
2. Shuttle back home, most people just chat, chill, take a nap. I rarely see people working on the way back.
3. I have been through 3 different teams. Everyone has families or places to be after work. I can single handedly count the people I have been in contact with who work after hours or reply to emails late at night.
4. You get paid for your on call time. Name one company that does that aside from Google.
5. I used to hit the Gym every other day around lunch time right before I get lunch. And I actually got promoted and was never questioned by what I was doing spending 1.5 hours mid day out of office every other day.
Google experience was by far the best experience I had at any company (and I have been through a decent number of the big tech giants). As long as you set the right estimates and expectations and are not a lazy ass who is not willing to work, you will thrive and learn (to some extent).
The major drawback in my opinion is the growth opportunity (especially at L5 and beyond). It is hard, very opportunistic and needs so much work that many people just skip such promotions by leaving and going back at a higher level
This all makes sense.
I also worked at Google, this was my experience as well
4. naming any other company that pays for oncall? uhmmm most of them, in Europe at least?
@@mikello007 europe is doomed. Name another.
Can you tell us why did you leave?
Don't stay late for dinner, get free breakfast and lunch, leave at 5. Don't use WiFi on shuttle for work, use it for podcasts, TH-cam and other consumables. Working more hours is really a choice here, not a necessity
What city did you work for G at?
Depends on the role
@@Kyeussdefinitely depends on your team and role
@@AcaiTiger lol
You're fired.
Worked as an intern last summer and my experience was pure joy. Starting full time next summer. Hope to be the same.
Have you started yet? How is it if you have?
How has it going now? Good, I hope!
Sadly he wasn’t a senior dev so it was retracted
@@astericks53nuuu
Update? Pls don't be ignorant 🤧
My year at Google was fantastic (unfortunately my contract was not extended) - having Google on your resume definitely helps open doors.
@Thawne my thoughts exactly. i guess the worst you can do is apply regardless and the worst you can get is a rejection.
How to become like you?
Nederlander bij Google? Hoe heb je dat gedaan?
@@scar-xk1cy Slim zijn
shut up shill. we all know that 1 year is not long enough experience to be conisidered competitive. its 4 years minimum for most upper management positions. google is an evil megacorp. get over it.
As a cs student, Imposter syndrome at google seems much better than my backbreaking warehouse position
I got hernia in the warehouse, meanwhile studying. Now I’m in Apple with hernia 😂 and still they haven’t paid me for my hernia lol
Literally anything is better than a back breaking warehouse job.
We don't treat our warehouse workers like humans yet we depend on them every time we get a package.
yeah, at least you're not building a stadium in middle east
,facing a direct sunlight for 14 hours a day, living with 200 other guy in the room that surrounded by everyone defacates
and the employer didn't pay you a dime for 3 years and confiscate your passport so you can't go anywhere
at least in google, you're working with AC on all day and Free meals everyday.
it's stressful, but not third world slavery like stressful.
@@jensenraylight8011 thanks didn't think about it like that :/
Sus
I'm starting to see that times really are shifting. Myself who was raised by old school parents use to believe that working hard to climb up to one company that pays well and offers good benefits with a decent/good schedule is enough for me to essentially commit my career and life into that company until I retire. Today it seems that work is all about progression and to continuously grow within whatever field you're wanting to be in or may already be in. In the grand scheme of things I suppose this has always been the game plan to anyone that wants to be successful in life but opportunities seem to be far more available today. I don't see anything wrong with doing one year of time with any job to put on your resume. Take your experience and apply it somewhere better. This my perspective.
A good advice is "Look at the requirements of the next position you want (in or outside your company). Try to get them, never stop updates your skill and leverage them"
Oh yeah, that is super outdated advice. Companies have no loyalty to workers anymore; you should constantly be prepared to move to another company if things go south. My parents gave the same advice, but after losing/leaving my job several times (the company having mass layoffs, getting fired for standing against crunch, leaving because promotions happened based on going to lunch with the CEO and not hard work...), I see that is no longer the world we live in.
This has been the case since 2008. You move up within your industry. You move around until you reach the point of director and then stick around for VP and above until there’s no more room to grow.
@@Jose04537 Agreed
I had to realize this when I just couldn’t stand the thought of being stuck to a company, so I had no other choice but to be a freelancer in order to be my own boss and choose what I want when I want. It turns out is not oh so freeing as I naively dreamed it would be obviously, but having to constantly study, improve, adapt and learn, made me hard to ignore, and now that I got the pace of it I wouldn’t trade it for the world!
Learning how to continuously improve your skills in what you want to do, planning and having discipline is never gonna betray you and is the closest thing to freedom - and eventually comfort and security - that not many companies can truly give you (if any at all). That and knowing how to invest of course, never work harder than your money for goodness sake 🙏🏻💕
I'm a googler in nyc, and it's not as bad as it's made out to be here. the food is pretty good & hours flexible (thanks covid). if you get on a good team you don't need to work too hard to stay on top of expectations. I usually skip one of the meals because it's not worth it to work later if you can go out with friends, etc.
I feel like the reason people quit in just one year is not that Google doesn't provide a good work space, and that their job is not good. The major reason is that people's expectations going into the job is just too high, and when those expectations are not met, people feel massively disappointed.
I worked in Silicon Valley. I worked 80 hours/week and I was salaried. When I calculated how much I made it was closer to $20/hr and I practically lived there. No thanks.
High five 🙌
Stop the cap
I guessing most of those positions are salary only? I recently got a hourly engineering gig and now realize that I never want to go back to salary if im working more than 8-10 hrs a day.
So you where only making 84000$ a year? Assuming 40h being paid? That is so low for Silicon Valley
sorry it took you longer than everyone else to finish your project
I worked two full-time software engineering jobs at one time before and it was a no-sleep grind of epic proportions ... Google is a stepping stone, embrace it and run with it and you can go far. Either you'll get a high ranking promotion at Google or learn all the tricks of the software industry to start your own company.
This is the shortest, best comment ever
@ray h. I went "corporate" and made a company because the whole software industry seems blind and misguided with AI and machine learning. And I bet my life savings I can show em. 😄🫠
Factsssss
how did you manage to do that? and what are you doing today?
@@fatcat4674 Necessity. Had a baby on the way right after Hurricane Ida wiped out everything and was essentially homeless ... I had to rise to the occasion before that baby showed up.
Nowadays, I'm trying to build a business centered around the game industry and AI + cloud tech. I got burnt out with corporate management nonsense and how it harms the creativity/innovation of game developers and being told to do things wrong on purpose (literally). I'm working on an AI toolkit and SDK for game dev, advanced animation and VFX tools and may put an actual game into production soon with the tools (many centered around Unity and the new DOTS/ECS and Jobs/Burst tech stack for insane performance). The two game candidates I could start in real production are: 1) a "4X space odyssey" blending elements of grand strategy, flight sim and adventure RPG or 2) a twist on a classic "sword & sorcery" RPG with a focus on wizards/magic (both use fantasy/sci-fi storylines and world-building I've done myself over the years). We may start production soon because our tools are advanced enough to need to try them "on the battlefield" to fix/improve things and innovate further. So that may actually happen soon.
Google's culture is not as toxic as you make it out to be, especially when you compare it to other high stress paying industries. The politics, long work hours, cutthroat environment will applies across every job. The work life balance is amazing. Here in NY, I've never met anyone who went past 45 hours a week and once or twice on call. Call me bias if you want, coming from Finance and accounting where I put in 16 hour days sitting in a cubicle and where I have to pay for my own food, I'd gladly take Google's work environment anyday. New York's google cafeteria food tastes way better than the lunch that I buy. Yes, the job is stressful, but there is always going to be stress in life one way or another, and I would gladly be stressed working at google.
As a developer, you can find better work environment. I'd never trade high stress for money if it's not my own business
Yep not wrong. Also those conditions are the dreams of nearly everybody in India ^^
@@nandomax3 Same here. I mean if we put that effort to our business we can do well.
You works as a developer or as finance accounting?
Developer work is highly intelectual! I can't emphasize this enough. After a few hours burning your brain with complex problem solving, your ability to deal with even smaller amounts of stress decreases a lot.
Add to that all the stuff said in the video, it's easy to understand why people in situation feel overwhelmed. So you can't compare with other professions like that.
Having said that, stress levels is an elastic metric bar each one of us have. The higher the stress level you've faced in the past, the easier it will be to deal with any stress bellow that.
I guess for most, they just had an easier life until they get to Google.
Regarding point 1 - It's worth noting that another way perks work against you (if your employer sucks) is to do with how much you are actually seen to be using them. For example, if you have a pool table, table tennis or even a quiet break room, spending any time in those spaces outside of a set break period (e.g lunch) can be noted down and used against you in performance reviews if they want to deny you a promotion, leave, etc etc - citing you taking time to use these "free perk" facilities
The problem with being “really good at your job”’is many managers won’t promote you BECAUSE you’re excelling in your current role and they don’t want to lose a top performer, esp if it’s to a different department.
this is very true. I suffered this a lot with my last employer of 11 yrs and I couldn't find a job. - no promotion - no new tech - no fulfillment Eventually, here I am, redundant after a big buy out and mentally struggling with financial stress. I love programming to bits but the corporate world effed it up in my opinion - I'm happy to be educated if proven wrong. I used to be hyper motivated. I'm not sure what to make of this any more! It's all about money.
I don't know really. What do you people expect at workplace which pays you 10K a month (minimum salary). To just chill and play games :) Of course it's going to be stressful and hard.
30k
You got this go do it....
Grass is always greener. I worked at a small company for six years, and for 5.5 years I loved it. I made less than half of what I make at my current job and those were the best years of my career. I don't work at Google but I do work at another company like Google. The stress is pretty miserable. I was a top performer everywhere I worked before, but now I work 50 or 60 hours a week to be average. Next to the literal geniuses on my team, I feel dumb every day. I'm not quitting, but I think about it A LOT. The money is great, but the purpose of money is to elevate stress and uncertainty in your life. I replaced my financial stress with work stress. I don't expect anybody to feel sorry for me, and you shouldn't. Just know that it's quite possible to be both well paid and abjectly miserable.
very true, if the job was easy and stress-free, they probably won't be paying that much.
Stress isn't even necessarily correlated with salary. There are low stress high salary jobs, and high stress low salary jobs.
I'm convinced that the whole agile thing is really just a way to pressure devs with aggressive deadlines.
i alwys thought why does a product or market need so much updates so aggresively
I mean sure but I think it's mostly to shield the company from customer changes and party pooping bugs
You are correct, the entire point of agile was to increase the rate of code deployment. They just trick people into thinking it benefits devs and QA by breaking up work into "manageable" chunks. Waterfall sucked in its own right, but I didn't see as many people get burned out. Agile went downhill when it became a project management tool instead of a development methodology, and I say this as an analyst/PM.
@@wschaffr1 could you elaborate please on your last point if you have time?
@@wschaffr1 If the company respects your work hours agile doesn't have to burn you out.
As a current Software Engineer @ Google that started on 02/28/2022, I can see why Googlers quit! It's hard to past the yearly perk review as a rookie, Junior SWE and if you don't show steady progression within your role, you will continue to barely pass your yearly perk or even fail! The 5 reasons you mention on here are factual but I would add not passing the yearly perk review or getting a "meet expectations", then you will most likely quit, because you will feel the pressure to perform at a much higher level. This takes a tole on your mental and emotional health big time! No amount of money is worth your mental and emotional health and feel like you're going crazy!
Probably not such a good idea to leave so much information in a Google product...
Can you write more about the yearly perk review for expectations or rookie stuff? - thanks 👁️ 👁️
Hey, you started on my birthday!
That is correct. YOU NEED TO COMPETE WITH THE MOST TALENTED PEOPLE.
As a Google shareholder I want to thank you for working so hard and making me so rich
Also here's the thing. When you're surrounded by incredible people, they can also lift you up. Make you better at your job. If you feel like you're in the shadow, that means that you're not fully on board with trusting your co-workers. If I know that we're all on the same team working toward the same goal, I want people around me who are the best of the very best. I'd rather be with them in the trenches than others who aren't. In my eyes, it's your attitude and the attitudes of the people around you that can make it amazing or difficult.
I worked for Google mumbai as IT admin and I agree with perk trap. Google provides free food and IT accessories and travel but not salary
I think that google is just trying to stay competitive with other tech companies. It’s probably very difficult for them to allow people to advance in the company when you are always working with amazing talent and hard working people. And regarding the perk dilemma to keep you working. You can drive your own vehicle. Not eat dinner at google and also they offer fully remote positions. I think the problem is employees, especially new ones, see the progress and dedication of other employees and work tirelessly in hopes of matching that same progress. Thus the burnout dilemma.
Yeah I agree with you. The only bs thing I see in video are strict deadlines. I would drop any company trying to overload me with 80 hour workload on 40 hours basis. And yet again the question is whether workload is so high or people are being too competitive.
lol. debunked.
saw the video and came here to say this. Google is on the frontlines of America’s tech war with China. I LOLed when the video started talking about Google making people stay for 6pm dinner, when the Chinese are expecting 9am-9pm, 6 days a week (996) from their workers
All this “company culture” stuff is super cringe and kind of dehumanizing. Why can’t we just let a job be… a job? It shouldn’t have to rule your life. It shouldn’t be what defines you. It shouldn’t measure your worth to society.
I couldn't agree more
So like any other boring office? You'd probably complain about that to
@@biggibbs4678 I would. Humans weren’t meant to be confined to cubicles for 40+ hours a week. If there’s one upside to the pandemic it’s that office workers had a chance to break their daily routine and reevaluate what actually matters to them. Some people left their jobs in lieu of a happier more free life - even if that means less money. Others love the lifestyle that remote work offers without having to sacrifice quality and productivity. Society is slowly adapting which is great. What’s wrong with expressing our opinions? This is how we grow as a society -through the exchange of ideas and information. If workers just thoughtlessly complied then there’d be no innovation.
Dinner at 6pm? I'll eat at home.
Wifi on the shuttle? I'll work on my skills to later start my own company.
Bring pets to work is ok? I don't have pets.
Sometimes people create a cage for themselves. The value to Google, of that additional hour you work with no overtime pay - just to get a 'free' meal - is far in excess of what the meal is worth.
I don't understand how supposedly intelligent people can't see this? Companies don't do _ANYTHING_ for 'free'. There's always a catch. My games company offered "free medical insurance" - which was the absolute bare minimum, and requires you to work there for 1 year before you can even claim anything. On top of all that? It's a tax deductible for them - and means they can pay you less too - and therefore, lower tax and 401 contributions.
So many in tech act like their companies are "so nice" and "so generous" - but they're frankly too naïve to see the truth.
For me, it's a well-paid job. That's it. If my side-hustle takes off, I'll be gone without a second's hesitation.
Hence the hordes of 1 year ex Googlers now on TH-cam
And they are so proud of it. Almost all their videos has ex googler ex facebook or whatever in their titles. Cringey.
@@genechristiansomoza4931 techlead
@@lalithrockz yeah everyone was thinking the same thing I guess hah!
He's a laughing stock.
In reality if working at Google is a person is most proud of, why did they leave?
If you left to start your own thing, forget Google. Your project should be your whole world or why waste everyone's time starting it?
I think there's a lot of narcissism in tech...though I'm sure I'm not alone in that perception.
Then again, I'm sure some would call me hypocrite...😅
What is so special free wifi. Most phones have unlimited internet and can tether free
I work in tech and my company has no perks like Google's. Yet, I put in way more time than just 3 extra hours a day. Driving in traffic is very mentally draining, and for those single people, grocery shopping, meal prep and doing dishes are all very time consuming. With Google's perks, you can almost surely have your entire weekend to do leisurely things instead of worrying about grocery shopping, cooking, meal prep and so on. So yes, I'd rather put in a few hours doing work things I enjoy instead of things I don't enjoy. Plus, have you gone shopping for groceries in the Bay Area at 5 or 6pm... or Costco run on weekends? Lines everywhere and wait time everywhere.
I've been facing the same problems without been paid like a Googler, and It's even harder when you're the head of your team, and you feel that if you fail everything fail, been a Google you can lean on your teammates (I'm pretty sure they are brilliant people)
I still think I’d rather work at google then my old jobs. I’d be working 12 hours a day at my old job with no benefits, no meals, doing hard manual labor and hardly a 30 minute break. Working at google to me sounds like an absolute dream
Same would rather work at Google
Why you be able to program that good??
Mental Stress is much heavier than physical stress / work, because it ruins your WHOLE private life
@@cyberryderfx7577What a ridiculously pretentious claim 😂
@@cyberryderfx7577 Says who
My last employer was like this... He tried to squeeze every last bit out of his employees but there were no catered meals, no high salary, and taking any PTO at all just pissed him off. So glad I quit working for that piece of crap
😂😂 applying any PTO pissed him off remembers me about all previous managers 😂😂 cuz they need to work to make things work again 🤣 they are the lazy ones
The thing is, the people that get selected for google are not your avg joe. They will be dissatisfied if they don't get the respect and treatment they think they deserve. Now people disagreeing with them are the avg or below avg joes that gets treated the same but without the perks and salary and they cannot change jobs cause they know their worth in this competing world. Ex Google employees know they have "google" in their resume and can easily land a comfy job but the avg joe is not at that level. Well in the end it's just a matter of perspectives from both parties. Personally if I had the calibre to get in google, i would also leave for better jobs
i dont think having those perks is a negative thing since they're optional. People complain nowadays about pretty much everything--including positive "OPTIONAL" advantages. If you're cheap enough to stay 2-3 more hours for a free meal, then it's your fault and not the company's. If you want a free shuttle, then you can't complain "it's too slow". Gosh
Huge correction: 1.1 year average tenure doesnt mean 1.1 year average turnover. Google hired massively in the last couple of years, so it would make sense the average googler has not been around very long.
No they did not past couple years. That would literally be the only time they haven't. The Tech layoffs happened in 2022 and you can see their share price. You could literally of said this about any other time period but chose the one time they didnt
I would never compromise on my personal/family time for more perks/money. It always takes a toll on your health and mental well being.
Wise thinking!
The irony is you have so many intelligent ppl at these big tech companies, but they dont think about what truly matters.
@@sczr1186 this is exactly why were in the position were in. the tech bros at the top really dont value what the average person values at all.
I work for google and I’ve been here for 4 months. And I can say for a fact that it is very stress free. I can get away with working 30 hours, but I probably work closer to 40/45 because I want that first promotion ASAP. I’ve talked to other coworkers in different groups and pretty much everyone’s experience is the same. I’ve never witnessed anyone super stressed or anything. Everyone is nice af too. I know the entire company isn’t like that and it probably depends on your group. But I would say most people love it here. Also, google has been known to have a better work life balance than other tech companies. I’ve talked to friends from Amazon and apple specifically and they are the ones that are stressed out. Not sure where this 1.1 years number came from lol
Have you talked to people at Google and asked them how long they've been there, or how long did the previous hire last. This "1.1 years" has existed at Google and other tech companies for years.
Exactly, anyone knows that working at Google is definitely infinitely better than Amazon or Apple.
The 1.1 years is a misleading figure. The number is how long each the average employee has spent at the company, not how long from them join until quitting. The reason why this is an important distinction is that the 1.1 years figures also includes current employees, and google has been hiring aggressively in the past few years (especially 2021) so now the average employee hasn't been in the company as long
LMAO 4 months, your still in training rookie ... but soon enough your gonna start feeling the heat.
I hear google got massive layoffs last month or so...did you or any of your coworkers got affected by this?
People's reasons for quitting are highly individualized.
I bet the majority of people watching and liking this video are people who don't work at Google, like me, and are looking for reasons to comfort themselves for not being able to make it there.
The target audience of this video isn't Googlers. It's the people who wished to become Googlers and failed at it or were too scared to even try and are now looking for ways to frame that as an advantage.
Just a guess. Maybe I'm wrong.
I think you summed it up
Sounds about right. IMO, there’s no amount of work that’s more stressful than school. I’ve literally comtemplated suicide on more than 1 occasion, thank God for the friends that I have who kept me sane.
After engineering school, I honestly believe that, if I can make it through college, I can make it anywhere.
On a different note, money isn’t everything. Prioritize work life balance
correct
Lmao never dreamed or wanted to work in google.
I have a life tho
@@MHG796 somethings wrong with people these days. U ask them about their dreams & theyre like i wanna work here & there. Who dreams of working at someplace. They cud have dreamed of becoming the richest guy on earth. But no, people literally Dream of Working.
Not a lot can think big ig
It is no longer a career for life but a life of careers. Also, move every 4 years with a 20% pay rise and make sure you are always learning something new. Do not just work for money. Apply what you learn and money will follow. Job changes with pay increases also put the "power of compounding" to work for you. This also greatly expands your network of contacts. "Know how" and experience are good and "know who" makes them even better. Good luck.
This has aged fairly well except the part about x googler's being in demand. For some reason tech workers in general are not in demand at the moment.
Highly disagree on the "smartest people in the world." I've worked with lawyers from Ivy Leagues, and trust me, they're not the geniuses the name would have you think.
If people can't set boundaries, they're selectively smart. And many of these ideas around pressure are self inflicted. They might be knowledgeable at technical aspects, but immensely underdeveloped emotionally. Like, YAY, you built a life around going to an Ivy League, then working for one of the biggest players in the game. Now, can you use that intelligence and perseverance towards your own fulfillment? No? Oh, too bad.
This. Life isn't all about money and success. Being at peace is also important.
Nice insight man very true
They are the most talented people in the world.
@@no.7general218 Not really
@@no.7general218 no, they are not. Working hard is a trained skill, not a talent. Avoid this confusion.
I'm not surprised at all. Have been worked in Tech for sometime, I can say that every tech company more or less have the same situation. It's best to jump around in the early days of your career then if you still wanna continue working for a tech company choose which one suits your individual preferences. Some people would thrive in google whereas some might not but they may thrive in some other company. It all depends on the person.
I can relate. I work for a well known bank and my job is extremely stressful. I don’t work at the window and I don’t take calls (even those positions are also very stressful). But they constantly give us gifts, promote mental health breaks etc. but the considerable amount of pressure that is put on myself & my coworkers is literally insane
well, the funniest thing is that, we're often get stressed by invisible things like Expectation and Pressure.
the stress is all in our head, from the scenario we told ourself
@@jensenraylight8011 not always, a lot of time is someone else pressing you
@@jensenraylight8011 Tell that to your manager.
Whoa, so at least your company has mental health care policy. If you are stressed heavily, it's a good thing to get less stressful job with a bit less money, maybe in completely different industry. Stress kills.
I think Google is kind of like Harvard/Stanford. If you’re a good enough quality assurance specialist, graphic designer, software engineer etc you can get in. But once you get that name on your resume you can leverage it for better pay and compensation packages elsewhere. I think the grind wears people out the most
The 1.1 years is a misleading figure. The number is how long each the average employee has spent at the company, not how long from them joining until quitting. The reason why this is an important distinction is that the 1.1 years figures also includes current employees, and google has been hiring aggressively in the past few years (especially 2021) so now the average employee hasn't been in the company as long
Great point
For all those reasons am not convinced that working for google is a bad idea. If you get paid to the extent that you can run a startup after leaving, then the job made you grow after all. Also, for you to get into google, the amount of work that you would have done to get there is way greater than what you do there.
its a golden ticket for doing just about anything. If the project I'm working on doesn't pan out I'm gonna shoot my shot at google
Indian companies are mess but Pay good sometimes depending on the position will be stressful or relaxed
@@Hi-zx9sl 😂
I agree my brother what else do people expect if you are gonna work at a company with a high salary rate. More and more work lol
The work stress is indeed a major issue for me personally. I'm not exactly bothered about working the extra hours (it's crazy, but I usually do that for no perks, so having perks would be great). I've worked in environments worse than what's described here. I wouldnt be too foolish to think of Google as just a laid back company. There are always demands, but working at Google would prepare individuals for the stress of work ahead. And I think most people can handle their startups after working at Google because of the extreme work ethics they've learned there.
this is me right here… like my head is in such a dark place i may need to go to therapy… and i came from a high pressure networking support prior to google
I wonder how many people who leave Google miss it and regret it? Ten years ago, everyone who left seemed to regret it. These days, a lot less do.
Also, I'm certain they hire a lot of people who are most comfortable working around the clock, actually enjoying being productive. Not everyone loves their jobs, but most people at Google seemed to.
Google may be the one of the biggest company you could work at, but size doesn't mean better or more influential work. Sometimes you will have a better quality of life, salary, benefits and impact on society by working on a small company than working with google, specially if you are a top tear engineer or employee
Tons of people working in banking working regularly till midnight and these tech people cry about 6:30pm.
From time on time I’ve received invitations to apply for 3 of the “big five” and honestly, I think that all those high salaries and big perks comes with a very high cost on your life balance. This is not all about money, sometimes it’s preferable to work on a more modest company but with an adequate work / life balance. Probably a more younger people may think I’m nut to not take it, but believe me that they doesn’t pay you that amounts for nothing. Even 1 year under that pressure could be enough to cause struggles on your sanity. Bells and whistles cannot hide the horror stories from many people leaving top companies.
That’s exactly what I’m always saying. They try to make the workplace so great, that employees want to spend their life there. WHO benefits? The company 😀
Employees too, its a win-win situation.
If you’re a workaholic or career focused person then its perfect at google
@@fsfehico fully agree! I also had a time where work was also my hobby, I’ve enjoyed it so much. Spent all my spare time to study and learn. So nothing wrong with that.
That’s not really anything new. Benefits ALWAYS exist to keep employees. There’s no such thing as a for profit organization just treating people well because they feel like it. If companies were selfless they wouldn’t hire you at all.
@@semicolon101 but if you're not a workaholic you can become one by playing Astroneer :))
Hey Aaron, Where are you getting your data from? the avg Tenure at google is much more than 1.1 years? According to LinkedIn Talent Insights which is a pretty reliable data set the average tenure of a U.S google Employee is ~3.5 Years. Would love to know how you verified your data before making such claims. Thank you!
How much money is being remote worth to you? I know people that have accepted jobs making $20k-$30k less in favor of remote work. You can essentially live wherever you want and do not need to bare the cost of living. I turned down a job in NYC making $115k a year for a remote job making $85k. That might sound bad at first, but upon further analysis of rent prices/food prices/loss of time commuting, it more than satisfies my needs.
Sounds like a skill and priority management issue. You don't HAVE to stay for that extra meal. You don't HAVE to use every commute for work load.
I think it depends on how you see this. I enjoyed working for Google for 4.5 years. I learned a lot. They will value you if you are creative. As for my deadline, most of those were achievable.
Most of deadlines are achievable. The question is - at what cost? How often did you overtime?
@@Oleg-ge3dn I would ask for an extension if I find the deadline unrealistic. Unlike working in a call center. There were no deadlines, but I got sick more often--sorethroat, pharyngitis, laryngitis. My pay was low way back then. My restroom breaks were limited to just 10 minutes per day. If I were overbreak for 3 times in a month even just a minute, I would have to explain. Not to mention,, most of my supports and leads in callcenter were not approachable. Lastly, my mental health were ignored when I was working in a callcenter... Let's not target Google. There are other companies that are far worse than Google.
@@jayveemorales7044 I would say that's is just bad business in general. A ton of people would not be able to handle that toxic environment. Comparing bad to really bad doesn't mean they aren't bad though. Imagine if vacation time was a human right? Or bathroom breaks for that matter. At least there are some laws in place that mean you have to take a break at some point (though of course there are workarounds). Imagine if meals were a human right? It's in a company's best interest to allow its workers some breaks even if we don't have laws on what they are for. But I feel like there are lots of places we could improve.
I have never seen a company that values creativity and don't believe such a thing could exist for very long.
There are 2 kinds of jobs. Bad jobs that shorten your life and pointless jobs that waste your life. Lucky people get the second one.
Worker retention is one of the best indicators of a good workplace. Ivy league schools like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale have very high retention rates (97-99%). For employers it's Airlines, Banks, and Telecom companies.
U probably know this already but this dude is spamming and scamming, not u cake batter the dude who wants to go to whatsapp.
Perks at the office are just another way to keep you in the office. The best perk a job can offer is competitive pay regardless of the job being remote or not. Money and time are the 2 biggest motivator for staying at a company.
I'm currently unemployed. I'll take any Google job in a heart beat.
2:58 The difference between cage and perks is that you can escape perks. You leave earlier on your own and then buy dinner on your own.
Regarding the perks - for me, excessive work perks/benefits are a red flag. I don't want my workplace to become a second home. I want to come in, do my work, and come out - or even better, work remotely (which I've been doing since 2020) and waste no time commuting.
Everything is not as it seems but i know for sure im taking my breaks. I dont care how far behind something is when its break time its break time. Refresh eat drink(smoke if you do) and get back to work. Take it day by day. Deadlines are not your responsibility, as long as you’re doing your best.
Man….I worked at a cloud startup and it wasn’t a google or anything but it had a lot of similar perks. This was exactly why I left. It consumed my life and eventually I was always at work even when I wasn’t. The second mistake they made was because there was so much work to do I also learned a lot, so when I burned out and started looking for other jobs it was really easy to find a less stressful job lol. I talked to some old employees recently and it’s the same story with everyone.
Which one was it? I'm in cloud too
@@nicotinedealer7653 Startup was local to Hawaii. You've definitely never heard of it.
@@meijiishin5650 oh okay, I hope my projects also count when I look for a new job.
I've always noticed that, in general, working for someone else doesn't pay off in the long run.
Behind any great benefits there will always be an equal dark side.
Most can't go off on their own. If you're working a trade skill or something of that nature yeah. But you simply can't go off and start your own 1 billion dollar investment bank or software company. I imagine you're coming from an industry with little barriers and low investment.
Theres no better perk than remote work. If you know, you know.
The perks of a big company like Google are nice, but it always feels like a very impersonal work environment. You often work in a team, but the teams feel like college group projects where everyone wants to get stuff done, but no one really knows each other. Plus Google goes through a ton of projects every year with a small fraction of that work going public so few people ever actually see your work. Maybe it's a personal thing, but I like working at the smaller companies where I can really get to know my co-workers and have a more personal connection to the projects and products we are developing. I also learn way more in a small company as my older co-workers often don't mind answering my questions because it helps everyone involved, but at big companies I felt like a bother to people around me for asking anything.
same… Some of these comments have been really tugging at my heartstrings… its feeling cathartic
I work in a smaller company and I can say that I work just as hard as I probably would at google, if not more. Like you said though, nearly all of my projects are seen through to the end, at worst they get put off for long periods of time. That's the benefit of being the only full time programmer in the company. But I also don't have benefits for my family. So still one day, I would love to either run my own company, or work at a more established one
• food until 6:30 is cool. If you work until 6:30. You could arrive late in the morning
• dogs in office is a nice police to not have them home bark
• if you are in a one hour drive and can work wonderful, it does not mean you are forced
I think the average time spent in one job is pretty close to what you quoted for Google at least for developers. It's a field where your compensation pretty much never grows at the rate of your actual value. The fastest way to increase your compensation is to switch.
W comment
Many companies overwork their employees like my former company Amazon. Yet, we don't get three meals a day and aren't allowed to bring our dogs to work.
sounds like theyre very soft. I work minimum wage 16hours a day most days, I deal with customers and process in the back, nonstop all day on my feet doing something. No perks. I get a 30 minute break for each 8 hour shift, we dont even have a fridge. For the money they get I could put up with a whole lot. They need to roll up their sleeves and get their feet in the mud and be quiet.
The real tell is how management reacts if you don't use the perks.
Or if you do use them. They have a pool table and if you use it, they get upset that you're playing during work time.
A mate has worked at google for years. He reckons the hardest thing by far was the interview process. When you have so many applicants you need to be able to thin the field somehow.
Same....
I had an ex-colleague who quit his job in accounts and finance, went to the US and did a master in software engineering for 2 years while taking a bunch of courses online and do all those usual leetcode/github stuffs, landed a job in google
He is currently extremely happy with google
Not because a job in google is that awesome, but, as compared to his previous job in big 4 Hong Kong, the stress+workload is somewhat lesser, but the net pay is about 3-4 times as much
I work at Google (~3 years) and in my experience, reasons #1 and 2 make no sense. I have a hypothesis that both of these points come from people working in Mountain View or other California offices, which I hear have a worse work life balance and are generally much more competitive and less nice to work at. (I've worked in Seattle and Pittsburgh for reference)
For #1, the perks are great. Most people just pick 2 meals a day or fewer to stay for, so the work hours are a non-issue. I don't understand the bus point either, I would either just *not* work on the bus or factor my time working on the bus into my 8 hours of work. Plus the family leave, bereavement, work from home, and other policies are great. Those kinds of benefits far outweigh the frilly amenities like massages for me and they're top-tier at Google.
As far as #2, I couldn't have a more different experience. I've had a really laid-back experience (still productive ofc) & haven't felt the stress these people describe in the slightest. Again, this feels like a Mountain View / California specific issue. (maybe New York as well, I'm not sure)
I can vouch for #3, working with talented people can definitely give you imposter syndrome and make it harder to stand out. For #4, there are definitely internal politics that make things frustrating sometime, but I've only seen it for project-related stuff (prioritization of projects, assigning work to teams, etc) not for promotions. And of course #5 is very individual, can't speak to that.
are you in the pittsburg office?
The tech companies told everybody to join the tech industry for 20-25 years so agreesively, that there’s too many computer techs now. Most people are tech savvy in a sense which makes it easier for google to get away with there 150% level turnover rate.
The same companies that supposedly care about their Silicon Valley employees are also buying up real estate at a huge rate, keeping rent and ownership prices sky-high. This makes earning very good money less freeing. High salaries when combined with high expenses can chain you to your job without raising your quality of life. Yes, you make good money, but you might not feel it.
A lot of these issues aren't specific to Google or even the tech industry as a whole. If you work for a company that is at the top of the industry, more will be expected from you and the higher up the corporate ladder you go, the more stressful your job will be. If you want the company prestige and/ or C-level pay, then understand the consequences.
I always thought Google imbued certain values or mindset into its employees that leads them to leave the company and create startups or join another. Since Google is so highly praised from a job perspective, I thought the people leaving it must have had crazy good ideas while working there in such a environment.
It's just a burnout.
I think that the employees who find the stress/pressure too much were probably the wrong hires in the first place.
I worked as a software developer and it was the most mentally exhausting job i ever had.
Currently at google. Im enjoying the company and the culture here. This content really is far from how it really is
Actually coding is very stressful and tedious to learn depending on the language… but it pays off
I'm still applying, knowing full well it won't be a fun ride and that my motivation is to learn from and understand the tech giant, and to have a small early short-term boost to my savings (so I can take advantage of compounding interest).
Google sounds like smth I'd use as a stepping stone, like ye put up w hell for a short while and then go out w an awesome looking resume+ start smth on my own.
But if you work in the shuttle. Would you not feel like throwing up after reading in a moving car?
The non promotion thing is nonsense. Most companies hiring devs don't give out promotions easily. Generally the dev pool is too large to sustain a promotion for everyone. It's just business.
I still want to work with google. Other googler have been there more than 10years and Google is still a great place to be. There's no company on my mind other than google. They have the greatest minds and it will be an honour to work with people like that as a team.
Get a fancy degree
Just for the first point, I think that's really a "depends on your current stage of life" or "personal value" problem. Because to me there's nothing inherently wrong with the surplus of perks, the fault is going into them thinking that you're at Disneyland instead of work. Like ya the perks are super good, but the reason why the model works is because it does get folks to work longer. If you're a young 20-something engineer with no external-to-work responsibilities whose options are that or hang in your small, bay area studio apartment, it may not be a hard decision to stay later and do more work. Harder decision to make if you have an SO or a family to take care of (as an example). I don't think trap is as appropriate of a term as golden Handcuffs are. They are really nice Handcuffs, but Handcuffs nonetheless
It's no surprise that Square Enix only accept Extremely skilled and Experienced employees because they know that their Deadlines are Aggressive depending on their employees' roles.
And their games still fking MEH.
@@pabanoid probably a result of that deadline mindset.
I worked in a law firm like this. Food wasn’t free though lol. I stayed 2 years. I learned a lot and don’t regret it but I’m happier since I left.
As someone working in the Tech field, you have a ton of freedoms to work on any project at any given day. Its very close to what a college campus feels like, where you need to take responsibility on planning out your day and work load. People will generally want to take on a lot of work to impress others and themselves, but realizing your limitations is very important especially when asking for help. Its also a role of the dice on what teams you're assigned too, luckily I'm with a really healthy team where we have realistic deadlines, leadership is S tier, communication is amazing, boundaries are set in place, we can pick what days we can work from home\work in the office, and we have a very healthy work life balance. Times are changing and people don't want to kill themselves at work, so companies need to shift or they will fail its just how it is now. You have an older generation work ethic battling with a newer generation way of working, and the older way is dying off. Us Millennials and Gen Z aren't lazy or looking for a hand out, we just see how important a healthy work life balance is as well as getting a better salary for our work, and we aren't going to let things slide anymore, and obviously the older generation of thinking doesn't like that. Its definitely worth getting in the field but you need to be driven and have a gameplan.
Soft men make hard times.
Actually 1.1 years at Google sounds like just enough for a perfect resume
honestly, I hate how we sugar coat everything and make it seem like it's the company fault. There's a lot of people in the industry who want everything good for them but they don't have the skills or the mindset to learn the skills needed to keep up with the work. The idea work smarter not harder comes from having experience and being able to analyze a problem more effectively. I think most jr engineers lack these skills.
my Burnout story
In one year i managed to learn fullstack web development and more like designing, css frameworks three frontend frameworks and extra programing languages like c and python but guess what happened after that I started to burnout and really i don't know what burnout was. I proceeded to build projects and work hard and at the time I started to exprience terrible panic attacks, agression, fear, worrying, depressed, anger high body temperature so I couldn't finish the projects. those panic attacks caused me to exprience chronic anxiety and hating ny situation I decided to quit coding to return my normal life
coding is really stressful and can cause mental health problems it can make your life horrible. people can exprience burnout differently but for me it caused me chronic anxiety and personality disorders like i used to be calm and friendly person but I became agressive and frustrated person.
coding burnout can cause mental disorders like depression insomnia chronic anxiety etc.
Are you self tought programmer? And now you are leaving from programming world?
@@ultiumlabs4899 yes I'm self tought programmer
yes I quit it's one of the most harmfull jobs someone can do, it's very stressfull
someone who exprienced burnout can understand what the hell I'm talking about
@@legitMeastro i know what you feel. Been there. What do you do right know?
@@ultiumlabs4899 I started an online business. although it's just starting right now and I don't have much exprience but it pays good income without stress and pressure I'll proceed it.
are you self tought developer or something ????
@@legitMeastro I have bachelor degree in computer science. Even with that background it still stressful, I even off for 4 years from programming world, now I'm back, starting again my career as programmer. Life is not easy, I realize programming is hard and stressful but I don't have luxury to choose anything I want. So I need to do as best as I can and try my best enjoying the process.
This movie is filled with unnecessary loud noises that make it hard to hear and understand the words. The subject matter is interesting but listening to it is like self-flagellation.
Coding is like solving a math problem. It's very hard if you try to do it fast
Damn I'm really to take the challenge! I'm scheduled to have an Google interview next month. Bring it on!!
how's it going now?
They don't have to be benevolent or malicious. Sometimes it's just a matter of an environment not fitting everyone. some people feel tons of stress from things that others can take in stride and neither is wrong. They're just different
Although I like programming, staring at a computer all day is extremely unhealthy. What’s more important than your health? I’ll gladly take the pay cut for a good work/life balance.
For you to be productive, you'll need to be looking into some kind of screen... :(
@@ers-br Of course. I’m just trying to emphasize the importance of moderation. You should be able to generate decent income as a developer without having to sacrifice your health. Just have to set strict work/life boundaries. Every developer has this dilemma. It’s easy to over-obsess, it’s easy to burnout.
I'm all for work life balance and managing stress. But do people really expect to get $300k+ in total compensation and not work long stressful hours?
There is no work pressure, frankly. I'm a software engineer and this business is SOOOO easy. We are so unbelievably lucky (spoiled?), and when I see people complaining about it, it makes me want to laugh and cry and rage at the same time. There are people working in coal mines right now, and we're complaining about spending 9 hours in an air-conditioned office where we spend 5+ of those hours slacking off listening to podcasts, surfing the web, talking about random crap. It's comical how spoiled we are. Not that working in a coal mine is the baseline. Hunting and gathering is the basline; that's the kind of "work" we naturally have to do. It's not even really work, it's just doing what you need to do to survive in any moment. You're "working" 12 or more hours a day, at baseline. In the wilderness, with primitive technology, no medical care, no consumer products, etc. That's what we should compare our jobs to when we want to complain, just to keep things in perspective. The way people talk about tech work is insanely hyperbolic. It's not as exaggerated as the game industry, but it's also not as difficult as the game industry. Both are whined about in absurd disproportion to how difficult and uncomfortable the work really is. CRUNCH is the constant refrain in the game industry, even though crunch in _that_ context just means having to start working the hours stipulated in your contract for a while, rather than doing real work less than 2 hours a day, which is how things normally are. There are studies that show this, in the tech industry and game industry alike, we only work less than 2 hours a day. The rest of time is spent screwing around, basically.
In the games industry, they work like regular tech workers, until they get close to the deadline and realize they're not gonna make it. At that point, they aren't "crunching," they're just pressuring employees to do the actual work they signed up for. When you're on "crunch time," you're still doing FAR easier work than most people. Nowadays you're probably working from home. At worst, you're in a nice, air-conditioned office, with a bunch of nice amenities, you have unlimited breaks and nobody is really micromanaging your time, because you're just held accountable for how much you produce. The same is true for regular tech jobs like software engineering, except there generally is no crunch time. You're permanently on the easy schedule, with obligations that amount to like 2 hours a day of work. Less if you're really skilled and smart. That's one of the reasons tech jobs are so much more competitive than game dev jobs; the compensation is better of course, but also it's a very laid back schedule with a lopsided (in the life direction) work/life balance.
And that's _still_ a good deal for employers, because we generate them so much money (it's been shown that a really good engineer can generate Google $300 million, far less than he is paid, even if he is paid $500k+ and more in RSUs, which he probably is). They can afford to pay us 6 figures to work 2 hours a day, because the margins on this work are so high, and there are so few people with the skills to do it. Software engineers just have way more bargaining power than most employees, and employers have found that working them harder just makes them quit and jump to another tech company that is willing to pay them the same salary or more to do more laid-back work. The expectation is not that you'll work 8 hours a day, but that you'll deliver a certain amount of deliverables. It turns out that amount of deliverables is pegged at what a decent engineer can produce in about 2 hours a day. They have some worse engineers of course, like diversity hires who do need to work 5+ hours to deliver, and those are the engineers that get laid off, and never crack the $200k mark.
So it's a clever arrangement where the really high-value engineers are comfortable and producing at a high volume and making few errors, while the low-value engineers are scraping by, still producing at a high volume, but just working harder and producing more errors. And Google's approach is all about discouraging employees from switching companies, since churn is such a huge problem for every tech company. This is because high-value software engineers are so scarce; every company has a constant shortage of good ones, so is willing to give them a big raise to poach them. So it's a constant game of poaching across the whole industry, it's not just Google, every big tech company has less than 2 years average employment time. It's because if you stay at a tech company longer than 2 years, studies have proven you will have a 50% lower salary than those employees who jump to another company. Because you get raises faster by jumping ship than by waiting around for a promotion. They still give promotions and I don't like jumping ship personally, I like where I'm at, but that is the optimal strategy if you want to save a lot of money, so that's what people do.
So they need to make a very concerted effort to stop people from leaving. Especially at Google, because once you have Google on your resume, I think it raises your expected salary by like 25% or more. Like, being able to say "I made it through Google's application and selection process" is a huge vote of confidence that ensures you will be valued much higher by other employers. So people at Google have already got a huge value just by accepting an offer to work at Google. They could quit on day 1 and still get a million dollars out of it, just in cumulative pay raises over the course of their career that come from being a former Googler, and raising the starting point for the rest of their offers. Raising your pay by $15k at a junior level doesn't seem like much if you're already making $150k, but that means the next time you jump or get a promotion, you're probably getting a $20k raise instead of a $10k raise... and extrapolate that to the rest of the career, and compound those payments year by year, it will easily total more than a million if you pulled this off in your 20s or early 30s. So yeah, it's no wonder Google is tripping about how to keep employees, they'd be stupid not to leave.
I know this is just about a narrow, extremely privileged slice of the white collar sector, but bear with me, since I'm gonna post a comment below about overwork...
With all that said, I do understand there are industries and countries where overwork is a serious problem. Especially countries that developed from preindustrial economies to booming high-tech global powerhouses almost overnight. In the west, we had hundreds of years to slowly make the transition from feudalism and serfdom to high-tech industry. We spent about 50 years employing people in factories with no rights and no employment contracts, and slowly realizing how cruel and unnecessary it is now that 3% of the population can feed 100% of the population, which has made us a bit more laid-back. We got to slowly realize that we could afford to not work so hard and that it needn't be such a mad rush to wealth for everybody. We also started with a more laid-back medieval economy in the first place. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church enforced 150+ holidays in any given year, with numerous fasting days and feast days when it was not just allowed to skip work, but _illegal_ to work. Of course, people still did chores and things to contribute to their survival on holidays, but it was a much more laid back lifestyle. That slowly changed in protestant nations, and such restrictions were relaxed globally as countries imitated and tried to compete with protestant nations. That is indeed called the "protestant work ethic," and it can be seriously toxic, but even protestant nations retained a memory of the Catholic holy calendar, which was at the center of public life in Europe and every single European individual's life for hundreds of years. So the memory of that lifestyle inspired moral outrage after industrialization, when former peasants went from working just 150 days a year to working _every day_ for 12 hours with practically no breaks. And that outrage is where most of our labor laws come from.
Nations like South Korea didn't have a cultural memory of such a relaxed public schedule, so when they rapidly industrialized, their preindustrial work ethic translated directly into the industrial economy and created a culture of overwork. Especially with such intense pressure to catch up to the west, which had a massive head start as the epicenter of modern science, technology, and industrialization. The few voices of reason could not overpower the social forces, as the human costs did not outweigh the apparent societal benefits. So I do understand that in some places, people are literally dying of overwork, collapsing from a combination of stress, insomnia, and poor fitness, if not deleting themselves outright. But that's not the situation with American tech companies. Although these are multinational companies, they obey American labor laws since they are headquartered in America. If a South Korean is hired to work remotely at Google, they have the same obligations as American employees. That alone makes it a much better job in most cases than working for a Korean firm, but of course it's much more competitive to work at a big tech company.
I also think a large part of the reason employees are dying deaths of overwork and despair is not simply the work obligations, but the lack of anything fulfilling in life. Married men live much longer than single men, even when you control for all the variables you'd expect to mediate such an effect, like wives forcing husbands to go to the doctor, married men making more money, having overall better genetic fitness, etc. At least part of the effect is mediated by the psychological and, I daresay, spiritual benefits of having a family. That kind of love and purpose can heal a lot of stress, and thereby increase the amount of stress you can survive.
And that's just one aspect. Going to religious services weekly also extends your lifespan, when you control for income and other factors. Having at least a couple friends enhances your longevity and your ability to cope with stress, having a genuine community that you belong to, etc. So I think the overwork phenomenon is not just about a lack of labor laws, toxic corporate culture and noncompliance, but it's also about our newly materialistic, consumeristic cultures, which deprive people of family, community, meaning, and purpose. We disenchant life itself, sucking all the magic out of it (both in the figurative sense of love and meaning, but also in the literal sense of belief in the supernatural), and it turns out people aren't able to cope with stress very well without magic. I'm not able to do much, beyond sharing my ideas with other people, but insofar as I would like to see some change in society, my focus is on the loss of magic.
I think we can and should improve work/life balance for everyone, ideally returning to a medieval schedule of making genuine _holy_ days of half the days in the year, and giving people more freedom in the hours they work. But on the way there, we can make life so much more satisfying and less stressful for everyone if we can just bring back the magic: restoring young people's ability to start families, to live in tight communities and to actually know their own neighbors, to partake in public celebration of the things that _unite_ us rather than of controversial things that divide us, to be rooted and anchored to traditional culture rather than unmoored and drifting in an ocean of nihilism and hedonism, to seek after the divine if they can, to restore some semblance of enchantment to the world and a sense of the spiritual nature of things.
Our ancestors saw meaning and symbolism in everything. We deconstruct the meaning out of everything, so it's no wonder we're so depressed. Our ancestors could barely survive the winter, and yet they were less depressed than we are. Self-deletion was almost unheard of. I think in large part because they lived in tight communities, they had families, and they knew they existed for a reason, the world existed for a reason, and every natural phenomenon they encountered _meant_ something, from the animals to the weather to the lives and deaths of their people. And as smug and confident in our scientism as we are, we still can't say they were wrong. We don't know the weather has no meaning. Just because it appears to have regular patterns that we call natural laws, doesn't mean it isn't laden with agency and purpose. Whether it was preordained from the beginning of the universe or not, it can still be magical. We need to recapture that sense, among other things, if we want the species to continue and to be able to cope with life in a high-tech, post-postmodern age.