At google, you are thrust into a new environment, you are but a naked noogler, and your past a distant memory. Old, young, female, male, fat, skinny, likes sports, hates sports, prefers sushi, blah de dah, shut the hell up, no one gives a shit. It doesn't matter until you have proven yourself.
A lot of problems come from when nooglers expect the world to do their bidding, but have nothing to show for it. At the end of the day, profit matters, lines of code matter, cleaning up and maintaining code matter, how much you help your coworkers matter, these things lead to you creating new features, these things matter and increase profitability, but you wouldn't know which new shit to add if you didn't earn your licks. Do your job, then improve things around you while doing your job, then we talk.
Before I came to google, I was very successful, making kick ass fast, scalable systems, doing the job of many people, bringing glory to my managers but not to me.. Didn't matter though because for years I studied coding from what I would call masters, taking my licks, being humble and learning from anyone and anything. I didn't mention my past to my new team members at google.. Some of them ridiculed me at the first site of any minor bug I introduced, but inside I laughed like an insane hobo. The years of shit code I have refactored, bugs that drove me insane because they had to be fixed and no one else wanted or could tackle them.. I endured, so with a silent knowing I set out to rip apart the hearts of my naysayers with a blood curdling smile.
Now I'm being promoted while those who ridiculed me are not, they in fact respect me and head my advice, usually because when they don't, they get ridiculed when their code is the source of design problems.
What you did before google matters, not in how much you boast about it, but in that it gives you the skills to rise above the rest. Otherwise, you're just a blowhard talking about the olden' days that no one gives a shit about.
In that way, I have found that google is a meritocracy, with people challenging each other, making everyone better, and it's something I never got at a previous employer. Before google, employers just took advantage of me. So, yeah, I would defend google to the death and recommend it to anyone who isn't a whining wimp.
A lot of problems come from when nooglers expect the world to do their bidding, but have nothing to show for it. At the end of the day, profit matters, lines of code matter, cleaning up and maintaining code matter, how much you help your coworkers matter, these things lead to you creating new features, these things matter and increase profitability, but you wouldn't know which new shit to add if you didn't earn your licks. Do your job, then improve things around you while doing your job, then we talk.
Before I came to google, I was very successful, making kick ass fast, scalable systems, doing the job of many people, bringing glory to my managers but not to me.. Didn't matter though because for years I studied coding from what I would call masters, taking my licks, being humble and learning from anyone and anything. I didn't mention my past to my new team members at google.. Some of them ridiculed me at the first site of any minor bug I introduced, but inside I laughed like an insane hobo. The years of shit code I have refactored, bugs that drove me insane because they had to be fixed and no one else wanted or could tackle them.. I endured, so with a silent knowing I set out to rip apart the hearts of my naysayers with a blood curdling smile.
Now I'm being promoted while those who ridiculed me are not, they in fact respect me and head my advice, usually because when they don't, they get ridiculed when their code is the source of design problems.
What you did before google matters, not in how much you boast about it, but in that it gives you the skills to rise above the rest. Otherwise, you're just a blowhard talking about the olden' days that no one gives a shit about.
In that way, I have found that google is a meritocracy, with people challenging each other, making everyone better, and it's something I never got at a previous employer. Before google, employers just took advantage of me. So, yeah, I would defend google to the death and recommend it to anyone who isn't a whining wimp.