I've had that feeling as well, absolutely agree that people can feel that way at Google. Personally the feeling of ennui was much more at my previous jobs, and I expect will exist anywhere I go. I do see however people incredibly engaged. I think there's a ton of luck in terms of what team/product you're placed in.
Probably. But I feel like there's something in Google's current culture that leads to this. I've mostly had these conversations with people from the search and cloud PAs. Could be different in other orgs. Maybe I just got extremely lucky with my pre-Goog jobs that were ultra satisfying and challenging in a good way, I just had a blast coming to work every day and doing the work.
Another ex-Googler here. I never had a job that was ultra satisfying and challenging in a good way. The only way I got that was from my own projects / businesses. Maybe I got unlucky job-wise. Or maybe I'm an entrepreneur at heart, I think fundamentally I cannot be fully satisfied working on someone else's project.
Either way, at this point I think I've seen enough. I think I should minimize time working and maximize pay. Working remotely for G was pretty great. The work sucked but there was so little of it. If it weren't for mandatory RTO I'd still be there. I'm gonna see how FB compares.
