Awesome perks and work environment, frustrations around career path - Online Operations Strategist Google Employee Review

4.0
Jul 2, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Bright interesting coworkers; the opportunity to take on lots of responsibility and potentially be responsible for large numbers of users or dollars very quickly; free food; health benefits. There are incredible outside speakers who come (Obama, Hillary Clinton). You'll probably only be able to see them on video unless you devote hours of your workday to waiting in line to see them in person, but it's still live and pretty darn cool! I work in Online Sales and Operations, where pretty much everyone gets a weekly one-on-one meeting with their manager. That is one upside to working in the sales organization as opposed to some other areas of the company. Many engineers have limited facetime with their manager.

Cons

Total compensation is good, but your base salary will be low. You'll make up for it in bonus and the cost of not having to buy breakfast and lunch. You won't get the bonus if you're on leave (i.e., medical leave, maternity leave, etc) so you'll end up getting a lower slice of your total compensation than you might at some companies that provide a higher base salary. There is huge variation among managers in the sales organization. Some have no experience managing people, some have experience but still aren't good managers, and some are great. People who think up innovative new ideas are recognized and compensated better than people who do all the work to implement those ideas. Depending on where you are on the "thinking up crazy new ideas" scale, you this may be a downside for you. Expectations aren't clearly set in the online sales organization--you can discuss with your manager ad naseum what the expectations are, what projects to complete, etc. but you can never be assured of a particular reward (performance rating, bonus, promotion) for completing everything you discuss. Basically your manager can't promise you anything. This is un-motivating for me personally; you may or may not be motivated by this structure. Engineering is king at Google--you may develop an inferiority complex if you are not in engineering. They won't even give the same headphones to non-engineers as they will to engineers. I tried requesting them and was denied! Online Sales and Operations is not very flexible about work-life stuff, such as telecommuting a couple of days a month, arriving late in the morning, etc. It is fine to do it every now and again if you ask permission from your manager in advance and have a valid reason like an appointment. Engineering offers much more flexibility in this area.

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5.0
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Pros

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Cons

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4.0
Jun 21, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1) Food, food, food. 15+ cafes on main campus (MTV) alone. Mini-kitchens, snacks, drinks, free breakfast/lunch/dinner, all day, errr'day. 2) Benefits/perks. Free 24:7 gym access (on MTV campus). Free (self service) laundry (washer/dryer) available. Bowling alley. Volley ball pit. Custom-built and exclusive employee use only outdoor sport park (MTV). Free health/fitness assessments. Dog-friendly. Etc. etc. etc. 3) Compensation. In ~2010 or 2011, Google updated its compensation packages so that they were more competitive. 4) For the size of the organization (30K+), it has remained relatively innovative, nimble, and fast-paced and open with communication but, that is definitely changing (for the worse). 5) With so many departments, focus areas, and products, *in theory*, you should have plenty of opportunity to grow your career (horizontally or vertically). In practice, not true. 6) You get to work with some of the brightest, most innovative and hard-working/diligent minds in the industry. There's a "con" to that, too (see below).

Cons

1) Work/life balance. What balance? All those perks and benefits are an illusion. They keep you at work and they help you to be more productive. I've never met anybody at Google who actually time off on weekends or on vacations. You may not hear management say, "You have to work on weekends/vacations" but, they set the culture by doing so - and it inevitably trickles down. I don't know if Google inadvertently hires the work-a-holics or if they create work-a-holics in us. Regardless, I have seen way too many of the following: marriages fall apart, colleagues choosing work and projects over family, colleagues getting physically sick and ill because of stress, colleagues crying while at work because of the stress, colleagues shooting out emails at midnight, 1am, 2am, 3am. It is absolutely ridiculous and something needs to change. 2) Poor management. I think the issue is that, a majority of people love Google because they get to work on interesting technical problems - and these are the people that see little value in learning how to develop emotional intelligence. Perhaps they enjoy technical problems because people are too "difficult." People are promoted into management positions - not because they actually know how to lead/manage, but because they happen to be smart or because there is no other path to grow into. So there is a layer of intelligent individuals who are horrible managers and leaders. Yet, there is no value system to actually do anything about that because "emotional intelligence" or "adaptive leadership" are not taken seriously. 3) Jerks. Sure, there are a lot of brilliant people - but, sadly, there are also a lot of jerks (and, many times, they are one and the same). Years ago, that wasn't the case. I don't know if the pool of candidates is getting smaller, or maybe all the folks with great personalities cashed out and left, or maybe people are getting burned out and it's wearing on their personality and patience. I've heard stories of managers straight-up cussing out their employees and intimidating/scaring their employees into compliance. 4) It's a giant company now and, inevitably, it has become slower moving and is now layered with process and bureaucracy. So many political battles, empire building, territory grabbing. Google says, "Don't be evil." But, that practice doesn't seem to be put into place when it comes to internal practices. :(

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