How's Google compared to Facebook

Jul 21, 2019 85 Comments

For those who left Facebook and went to Google: how's life at Google? Is it better?

@Facebook @Google

comments

Want to comment? LOG IN or SIGN UP
TOP 85 Comments
  • Google
    Rockfish

    Go to company page Google

    Rockfish
    Slower, which is good and bad. I'm happier at Google though.
    Jul 21, 2019 20
    • Google / Eng
      L A R R Y

      Go to company page Google Eng

      L A R R Y
      Oracle: that's 200k TC. I autosell my RSUs so I just count TC as current salary + annual bonus + cash value of shares vesting this year

      Google: yeah, I autosell and put most of it into Vanguard index funds: approx equal mix of S&P 500, mid-cap value, mid-cap growth, small-cap, emerging markets.

      Have some other investments but (aside from house) they are small enough to be rounding error.
      Jul 28, 2019
    • Google
      IIFTM

      Go to company page Google

      IIFTM
      I regret my statement above. Really it’s too hard to generalize. There are people here that work very hard and have very high impact, and others here that just run maintenance. It’s too big of a company to generalize. I’m guessing we can say similar things about fb.
      Jul 28, 2019
  • Facebook / Eng
    slrzoyeb

    Go to company page Facebook Eng

    PRE
    Microsoft
    slrzoyeb
    I feel folks are much more scientific at G. I am considering to join but my fear I’ll always be the dumbest person in the room.
    Jul 21, 2019 19
  • Google
    simplton

    Go to company page Google

    simplton
    I like Google better than FB. The quality of engineering at Google is much better than at FB. I have the freedom and time to think more and make better decisions while writing design docs here at G. While at FB, even though I was encouraged to write design docs, code completion and delivery was given more importance than design and hence people who push changes/ fixes faster got promoted faster. That made me almost stop writing design docs and stop following best practices.

    For almost 3 years, I was racing against others in my team and became a hacky programmer without caring for other people who might read my code. It soon became clear to me that even though I was e5, l4 at Google were much better engineers than me and hence I switched an year back as l4. I'm very happy atm.
    Jul 22, 2019 5
    • Google
      Yjtf03

      Go to company page Google

      Yjtf03
      Just wanted to say that this is a wonderful example of being humble. Hope you continue being happy at Google for long time.
      Jul 22, 2019
    • Amazon / Eng
      batou

      Go to company page Amazon Eng

      batou
      hi simplton. this is a great story. I’m wondering if the hacky culture is team dependent or not. If so, what kind of teams/products/area are less hacky than others?
      Jul 23, 2019
  • Tesla
    aFPj26

    Go to company page Tesla

    aFPj26
    Can't speak on behalf of Facebook but my WLB improved significantly after joining Google/Alphabet from Tesla. Definitely got the imposter syndrome!
    Jul 22, 2019 1
  • Intel / Eng
    mr_pleb

    Go to company page Intel Eng

    mr_pleb
    Google really sounds like the most awesome place for an engineer. By engineer I mean person who engineers, not hacking or code monkeying.

    How much leet to get there ?
    Jul 22, 2019 3