Why Google: Observations from my first 12 weeks

This past week I completed my first 12 weeks at Google. First 12 weeks, first 90 days, first 3 months, use whichever management lingo sounds most impactful, this initial period in my mind is one of the most critical and sets the tone for how you'll continue in your journey irrespective of whether you're in a leadership role or not.

I started with nervousness and anxiety (see previous post), but it's definitely clear I've gone from new journey jitters to a state of clear focus, knowing exactly what my mission is, and on a path to making continued, incremental inroads into that mission!

I figured I'd share my observations from these first 12 weeks of being at Google, since I've been answering that question quite a bit lately as we build out our organization and folks are curious. There's plenty of public material on Quora and tech blog sites on why someone should join Google in general, so think of this as my own personal observations and my perspective on this. Your mileage may vary (or might have been varied in the past).

Note: the thoughts expressed in this article are solely my own and not representative of Google.

12 Observations on "Why Google" as a place to work

<TL-DR version> (<2 minutes read)

1. Google is still a top place to work - quantitatively and qualitatively
2. Focus on employee convenience and productivity is amazing
3. Everyone is super helpful!
4. Google is still evolving, so you learn a lot
5. YOU can make a difference
6. Work culture lends itself to a better life balance
7. Massive, Massive scale!?with wide product domain diversity!!
8. Our moonshot factory is one of the best!
9. Google Cloud is out to prove its mettle
10. Everything internally is data-driven & accessed via search :-)
11. Googleyness makes a difference!
12. Google's investments are for the long term

</TL-DR version> -- Verbose version below (8-10 minute read)

1. Google is still a top place to work - quantitatively and qualitatively

When you read these "top places to work" lists from LinkedIn, Glassdoor or other firms, and see Google consistently ranking at or near the top, and you're one of those just about to start at Google - your usual reaction is (atleast mine was) "that's not real!", "sounds too good to be true", or the more skeptical "that was the past, clearly this doesn't happen anymore".

Employee positivity is hard. in general. and it continues to be more difficult as the organization grows, so these reactions are normal. I was definitely surprised by the general positivity at the workplace despite everything else that happens or is written about, and the general explicit investment from Google in continuing to maintain and grow that positivity.

I deliberately attempted to co-relate my own experience to the specific attributes called out in these lists, and my experience definitely resonated with most of the quantitative and qualitative analysis done in these. One concrete example below:

At the "Noogler" orientation 4-5 years ago, the volumes of people joining were small enough that you could read your name on the list clearly (Larry or Sergey would read out each name), and you could easily secure a spot near the stage at TGIF when Nooglers were welcomed. Now, the lists are a scroll reel of names that scroll faster than the speed of light, so no chance of finding your name, and your likelihood of finding a spot at TGIF near the stage is grim. but that's the reality of the employee scale Google is now working at. The beauty in all of this (still) is that your experience as a new employee is still not diluted. There's enough events & avenues in your first week here to make you feel welcomed and special that you do indeed start off feeling valued. Once you start on the team, you get enough time, help and positivity to support you that your Noogler experience is still quite a start.

2. Focus on employee convenience and productivity is amazing

For me, Google's resolute focus on employee convenience & doing whatever possible to aid in the productivity of the workforce, is just outright outstanding! It's less about the free food, it's more about the fact that it's readily available, pre-plated, you don't have to think too much, you don't have to line up to pay, and my lunch times have gone down from 40-45 minutes to about 20. It's less about the free snacks or barista made coffee, or an in-campus gym, it's more about you can do all of these while managing your time at work, and get back into your productivity zone quickly. Maybe a somewhat evil perception exists of "this is done to keep you here longer", but you'll see my observation on that later (#6).

Even something as simple as paying for employees' in-flight WiFi as a default "perk" is helpful when you're trying to read that document before your next conference, or polish up your proposal before your next business meeting. Also, as an employee (and I heard this from many folks who're here), it makes you feel valued ("my employer cares for my convenience and needs")

Most things you could think of (equipment, food, connectivity, facilities, ways to disconnect and relax, etc) are available at your convenience and made available in a way that helps you get back sooner into your productivity zone.

Coming from Microsoft, I'd say Microsoft's focus was a tad bit better on the family vs the employee in terms of perks/benefits, while Google focuses a lot more on the employee and a little less on the family. If this intrigues you, read perks.guide (yes there's a website that compares benefits/perks across big tech!)

3. Everyone is super helpful!

Yes, they told me that everyone was going to be super smart. Yes, they told me most people would be nice. But I did not expect this level of helpfulness. People within the team, you kinda expect it, and most people typically help a team member within the team. BUT, I made cold calls to random people, leaders, partners to ask for help (give me information, do sessions for my team, sit down and help me understand some aspect of their work or something at google in general) and people were more than willing to drop what they were doing and come out to help. Even in cases where they had no direct dependency or relationship to our team or work, and they'd get nothing in return, they would do it still in good citizenship in helping a fellow googler. For a company of this size, this behavior has been amazing to witness!

In my first week itself, I reached out to many leaders, business stakeholders and partners, and they all made time to make sure I got the information I needed. Even subsequently, follow-ups were quick, precise and focused on making forward progress both for me and the collective team.

I also made requests to more seasoned googlers (strangers to me) to come do "Googler 101" sessions for my newly formed and growing team, and folks were more than happy to spend time and help us out!

4. Google is still evolving, so you learn a lot

We're constantly entering new product areas, or innovating in the existing ones, so your overall level of learning on the job (and in the company) is quite high. Especially if you come into some of the more "competitive" areas (where we're doing something path-breaking, or trying to win from behind), you'll find there's so many avenues to learn whether it's about the product, the business, the approach to success, the metrics, or the people.

I'd argue the key is YOUR attitude towards learning. If you're on the lookout, every new interaction you have with people, product or process, can make you learn something new. and given the velocity at which most areas at Google function, it's like attending University at 10x the speed!

I've also heard opinions around feeling overwhelmed or having a strong case of imposter syndrome when here, and I can totally imagine how that can happen. My only two cents would be to not compare your journey to others around you - their story, their time was different. Yours might be different, focus on building and planning out your own journey at your own pace, and you'd be just fine.

The continued focus on life-long learning resonated quite well with my previous learnings (see last post)

5. YOU can make a difference

You've probably heard that Google runs in a fairly "bottoms-up" culture. It definitely still runs in the DNA, even though we have our own paradoxes with it at times. What it means though, is that you can be the owner and approver of your own decisions (and only review with folks around you), and drive them through irrespective of role, level and experience. Yes you'll need to articulate it (and do it well) since everything around here needs to be well thought out, documented and reviewed, but nothing typically stops you from making forward progress as long as you do the above.

Additionally, your impact can be a lot broader than your "defined" role, so you're encouraged to continue to break these proverbial boundaries based on role, level or other attributes. If you have the intent, skill & time to do something and make a difference, go do it!

One concrete example I saw of this was a SWE on my team, challenging an already taken decision, building an alternate design, working with the team on getting feedback and alignment, and driving that change in design and decision through - and this impacts the overall project (way beyond their individual "defined" scope), but they felt strongly that was the right thing to do, and were able to deliver! in relatively quick time. In this particular example, their diligence helped since they considered impact to the project schedule, dependencies and had proposals for most aspects.

This was a good example for me to see someone make a difference, even when you can feel like a cog in the wheel given google's increasing employee workforce. Maybe it's harder to do now than it was before, but it's still definitely possible to do!

6. Work culture lends itself to a better life balance

One thing I was told and heard from Xooglers (ex-googlers) was that I'd enjoy the "no email after business hours" aspect of Google. As with most things I was told, I was skeptical. Fast forward 90 days, and practically zero emails off business hours or on weekends. It's a life changer. Screen time has consistently gone down for me week over week, and I find myself managing time better when actually at work to ensure I keep that culture going.

Also, it's not that people don't work extra hours or over the weekend. When needed, everyone does. You can see docs being written, CLs being created sometimes off core hours, but culturally, everyone tries to not generate triggers to engage others during these off-hours.

Also, the technology logistics make it so much easier to collaborate and work remotely (from another city or from home) so geographically dispersed teams, or teams with flexible work hours work so much better given the tech investment in making it quite seamless.

7. Massive, Massive scale!?with wide product domain diversity!!

Google became synonymous with scale very early on - whether it was the scale of Google search and how Google built it to scale, or the continued list of products we've been adding to the portfolio to continue that innovation and leadership in scale. Today, 8 products at Google have over a billion users - yes you read that right, 8 products with over a BILLION users. I don't know if there are many (or any) other companies who have that scale and that kind of diversity in that scale. Whether it's Search, YouTube, Gmail, Photos, Drive, Android, Chrome or Maps, you're dealing with this massive consumer level scale in these highly used and loved products. The impact you can have on people's lives (task completion, entertainment, daily utility etc) with these is just mind-boggling.

Yes these are mature, already scaled products, but that doesn't mean innovation stops. Maybe it gets a little harder since you need to serve your existing customers and continue to search for your next billion customers but the opportunity continues to exist.

And if these aren't the areas you want to work on, we invest pretty heavily in a number of other areas too - whether they're already large scale or are on their way to become one. I'm sure finding an area that resonates with your interest or experience isn't that hard at Google, and probably is easier to do than at most other places in big tech.

Now you might say big tech isn't your thing and you want to do a moonshot, or join a new, interesting startup. Well, read ahead!

7. Our moonshot factory is one of the best!

You name an area, we're investing (and innovating) in it. If you thought Google X was a moonshot factory, Google's "scaled" the moonshot investment as well. Whether they're Google's strength areas, or new areas of research, the investment in really big, important problems and finding technology driven solutions is a core asset of the culture.

Artificial Intelligence (DeepMind), Self-driving cars (Waymo), Drone delivery (Wing), Life Sciences (Verily), Bio-Tech (Calico), Cyber-security (Chronicle), Fiber (Google Fiber), Internet access (Loon), Wind energy optimization (Makani), Urban Innovation (Sidewalk Labs) or X (Alphabet's moonshot generating factory) are the current moonshots, but these and more will continue to evolve. Even when you're not actively working on these, you get exposed to the awesome work they're doing at regular TGIFs and other sessions. For me, I got to meet some of the folks working on Loon & Verily in my first week here, and it was great to understand some of the big life problems they're trying to solve.

No other company (I don't think) claims to have this robust and this explicit of an investment in long term moonshots and growth in these areas. So if you think contributing to already scaled, mature products is not your thing, but working on new, unsolved territory is your call to action, we got you covered!

9. Google Cloud is out to prove its mettle

This wouldn't be complete without me talking about where I work :-)

Google is investing massively and aggressively in Cloud, and within 5 years of public announcement, we've made it to the Gartner magic quadrant as a leader in IaaS 2 years in a row, which is amazing progress given the space. But we strongly believe we can compete and innovate and help enterprises solve their business problems, and I do think we're investing more in Intelligence as a Service, driving solutions to problems via our experience/expertise in data, analytics, AI/ML and strong foundations in scale.

We're also pushing the tech that has powered Google all this time at massive scale to enable solutions to enterprise business problems, and are striving for pushing product boundaries to solve E2E business problems. Our investment in a multi-cloud, hybrid-cloud, cross-platform approach is an example of that.

We're also one of the fastest growing (and hiring) areas in Google, so if you're interested, we'd welcome the engagement! We have plenty of opportunities ahead of us, and we'd like you to be a part of it.

10. Everything internally is data-driven & accessed via search :-)

It's Google. Data is in the DNA. Search is ubiquitous. Even internally, these 2 apply. Internal Google Search is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal when you're looking for something - whether it's past historical info, current definitions, documents, code etc. Search is amazing!

Also, Google has had strong foundations in data and it runs in the culture. Most decisions are data-driven - you need the ability to articulate and back it with data and facts. Less Opinions, More Data is the norm. Everything is measured!

Additionally, there are stats/metrics on everything! including which food entree's people like in the cafe's or perf/promo stats measured historically over time! and these stats are made available to everyone.

11. Googleyness makes a difference!

Googleyness is a thing! It can mean different things to different people but is a representation of Google's culture and ideals and it makes a difference when you're here. You'll hear things like "Do the right thing" or "Put users first and all else shall follow" and it's incredibly empowering for employees. There's explicit focus on inclusion so as a team, we care about everyone having a voice, and we care more about the team empathy and trust and less about how individually smart you are. There's intent from folks on active listening, valuing feedback and perceptions, as well as being owners and thriving in uncertainty to drive future progress as a team.

It makes a huge difference in my mind when working here. It's one of those things - it's hard to quantify or write about, but you can feel it when you work here!

12. Google's investments are for the long term

"It's a marathon, not a race". This applies both for our products and for our people. Most product investments are for the long term as we look to innovate in a number of areas and do disruptive work. Similarly, employee growth investments and how to keep employees happy is also an investment for the long term - whether it's around finding well being and meaning to your work, or it's around following your passion, the options available here are enormous.

If anything, reading the shareholders letter from the founders gives you a sense of that long term vision from them, from the start, and it continues on. Goal as a company is to solve big, hard problems, and the investments are in accordance to that vision. It will mean we'll have failures, it'll also mean some of those visions will take years to formulate and execute, but the focus and the now big tech nature of Google allows for this to happen!

All this also means you can build, grow and run your career here! There's no dearth of learning, impact and skill you can both apply and learn in your time here!

I've had a lot of fun, and plenty of learning in my first 90 days - very structured and big tech in some areas, and very entrepreneurial and startup-ish in others. Great People, Fast velocity, High Impact & Resource Availability for your needs are some of the key aspects I've enjoyed so far.

Looking forward to the next few months!