Update Jan 23 This org has gone bonkers, lay-offs are imminent, expecting 50% reductions. Crazy targets being assigned, 3x the work, shameless managers are asking people now to work on weekends also, do anything to make it happen. They want folks to produce management consulting like strategy pitches, and be a customer support person to agencies solving their unsolvable tech issues over the weekend over WhatsApp with no personal space. The org model just does not fit. This skill set is extremely rare. There’s no time to learn and develop tech skills while being a sales person too. There are no career exit options, into industry since you end up being an overpaid google ad suite person, with little demonstrated expertise of other ad platforms. How’s it like working or applying to Google India GTech Gcare Organisation? #Opinion #Google #GTech #Gcare #googleindia #digitalmarketing #ads #marketing #programmatic #googlerate #google #tech (Talking of Google Ads business, not cloud. Roles like Search Specialist, App Specialist, Video Specialist, Display Specialist, DV360 or Programmatic Specialist gCare Media Operations) TLDR; Not the preferred org to be in per Googlers. You may find a team offering lower salary, slower growth, bad work and culture (in pockets), and no easy exit options. Sources: Own observations, employee friends and employee friends of friends. 1. Many roles are called Strategy and Operations role, be sure to check what it really is. Quick rule of thumb, the last 2-3 lines of the JD under responsibilities are what you’ll actually do. 2. If you’re earning well they may not be able to afford you, unlike other Google orgs. Heard statements like they can match existing fixed compensation by adding stocks, so that means offering a lower base salary. Take it or leave it attitude by the HR. Campus hire salaries are not on the higher side for both undergrad and MBA. 3. Although there’s only one datapoint, base salary of the person who moved to Google 4 years ago is 40% lower than a peer who stayed and did not swich jobs all these years. Both equally talented. Base compensation of existing employees may be slow and significantly market lagging. Even after considering stocks, salary is slightly lower than the market. 4. If you have some good credentials, and brand names, they may hire you, even if you don’t have a lot of digital marketing experience. Have friends who wonder why were they hired in the first place. Gcare work involves supporting well mature clients and non agency hires struggle to match up to their colleagues who have worked for 6-7 years in ads agencies. While expectations are to brew magic (i.e sell) from the get go, with very little support or handholding or what is kindly called in today’s time as allyship. 5. Work pressure is intense in a few teams. Teammates are too tied up with their work to have spare time to collaborate and support each other. An unsaid unhealthy competition exists due to survival fear or scarce promotion. Seems like some of them brought along the toxic agency culture with them. Maybe that is hindering collaboration. Since they were or are not helped by others, they won’t help anyone else. And as with other Google orgs, the Product Managers are often too busy to provide knowledge support of the products they build, in time. They build products, any client specific solutioning advice is out of bounds. So expect figuring everything out on your own. And as with other Google orgs, expect working with sales and account managers, where the credit is shared and the risk is all yours. Account managers are too lazy and offload their work and unrealistic expectations. Some of them lack efficient planning and cause last minute fire drills. So expect the pressure of higher sales targets and associated pitch and research work falling solely on you. Even though you didn’t sign up for a sales job, it ends up being one. 6. Managers are more like people managers, and some lack the expertise or the leadership to unblock employees, create an efficient framework for managing team operations. Their incompetence trickles down in the form of unnecessary pressure due to irrationally set expectations, and a lot of insecure and inefficient decisions, resulting in wasted work.Not all of them are Googly, some rather toxic. Some of the new hire managers who have joined from media or agency overstep work and personal life boundaries. Much of the work is outsourced to India as delivery center, managers lack the spine to pushback resulting in any and every request from abroad markets has to be fulfilled in no time. The organisation isn’t set up right, instead of a pod of people with varying seniority supporting a pool of accounts, it’s many accounts per person. Leadership has no definition of what requests will be supported within what response time. So expect agencies and client teams offloading their work to Gcare and expecting a 1-2 day turnaround (sometimes including firm holidays and weekends). Clients are agencies mostly, bad days expect the same pressure they operate in, even worse whatsapp messages directly from the client on weekends, nights, weekdays anytime. GCare org is treated by Account Managers as if they are a vendor team, exchanges are highly transactional, sometimes lacking a good level of courtesy. 7. Not too flexible with job locations and remote work. Be ready to move to Hyderabad. (Although some flexibility has emerged, but still not as flexible as its tech industry peers). Hybrid work - 3 days in office per week is an implicit expectation. 8. Other orgs in Google don’t have a very favourable opinion of the G Tech org. 9. The way out is not easy. Internal mobility to a different Google org is difficult as many people try for it. Externally one can try in similar customer success, professional service roles in 4-5 reputed product firms in this space in India. Industry brand management and digital marketing roles will entail a 25% - 50% paycut on total compensation, and are few in number anyway. Going to an agency after Google probably sounds like a nightmare. 10. This is not a safe job in a recession. I’ve heard of a forced PIP culture (which is actually a sham, a facade for covert layoffs) due to a myopic focus on short term goals, improper hiring and planning. Long story short - Look, it’s a great brand to say no to, but do your research, ask these hard questions to hiring team. If you’re getting in easy, there’s a catch