Google reviews

Finance is a 2nd class function (at best) and in general has very limited power within the organization. This can make it difficult to make a difference or even be heard outside of the org. Often, those who succeed in finance are those that can please their business partners in Engineering/Product which can cause incredible conflicts of interest (sure, that acquisition looks fabulous and it's only $100M! I can make an analysis that makes it look great ) - even if not explicit the pressure to please powerful VPs in Eng is intense. This is compounded by the hyper-reliance on 360 feedback and networking which means it can be hard to make a change or stand up if something seems wrong. Finance is primarily full of investment bankers & consultants, with little folks with actual Corp Finance experience. This causes an amazing amount of inefficiency as folks don't understand how to do basic things like create a budget and expect people to stick to it (seriously - within weeks of budget creation no one knows if budget applies anymore or if we're moving to a monthly forecast view instead). At first, I tried very hard to get more Corp Finance folks in the org but now I actually think IBankers do best as folks with actual CF experience tend to be so shocked by the Google processes (or lack thereof) they simply cannot hang. Work/life balance is dreadful - since the employee base is generally young and former bankers, most folks don't seem to be upset by late nights stretching past midnight but for those with families (or even those that just enjoy their lives outside of work) this can be painful. Especially since most of the time is spent on projects that go nowhere. Google elects not to use ERP or other established software in favor of developing their own solutions. Then they don't staff these solutions with adequate Eng resources. Result is an incredible lack of data availability with the expectation that finance be "scrappy" to find ways to tease out or completely guess at the data. Upside is that without a data source no one's likely to know if you're completely off base - but this can be unsettling for folks who really want to use reliable info to make business decisions. There are constant reorgs and reprioritizations at Google - particularly if you don't support the Search / Ads business. Forget about focusing on anything that will take more than 1 Q to achieve. This is a social/extroverted environment which means that those who are good at networking have an edge over those who don't, even if the folks who don't are doing a superior job. I've taken advantage of it myself but it's not fair.

If you join as a Noogler, you will enjoy the perks, free food, massage, infinite offsites, inter-grouplets, events, socials and meeting brilliant people and all that. But the moment you start thinking of promotion or career role change, you will start observing this: -- Extreme preference is given for manager feedback during performance review cycles. Some managers have no clue about the products they are managing, In such cases, employees who are more vocal and are manager suck-ups get preferential treatment during the review cycles. But engineers who make more contributions, are recognized by peers but who are not in “good books” of their direct management or a level above, get penalized. Google should fix this, and fix it NOW, before it continues scaling rapidly thereby scaling this problem with it. So many of its managers are managers just because they happened to be there when Google was 500 people company. -- You will also observe that there is very little or no chance of career path advancement. This is different from a start-up. If you are ambitious and you haven’t discovered what your technical passions are, best advice is to not join Google. Google makes staying and getting stuck in your job very easy. All those perks are hard to leave behind. There is a fat possibility that you are stuck doing a tiny project that has no impact, no direction and you keep working hard day after day just to realize that the project is doomed to be deleted or has no future. Best bet is to get working on projects such as infrastructure, search or ads. -- You have to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to changing projects. This used to be easier in early days. Now managers decide your fate. Manager can essentially lock you down for 18 months before “releasing” you to a different project. Google should never take its employee morale for granted, yes, even if it is the most sought after company. There are many brilliant engineers leaving Google, and these are also people with lot of unvested options. Stock isn’t a carrot anymore.