Google TSE(Technical Solutions Engineer) review
I see more and more TSE-related posts here. As a previous TSE who did the internal transfer to SRE, I want to share my review about TSE org. YOE 4 TC 250K. First, here are some backgrounds about TSE org: About 2 years ago when I joined TSE, at that time, each TSE only took 1-2 cases every day and only 4 days a week on queue. Now, a TSE should take at least 8 cases every day and 5 days on queue. Before, TSE only need to give customers meaningful responses and you could update p1 cases every 2 hours. Now, you must update p1s every hour even there is nothing to say. Before, TSE had a process to deal with abusive negative feedbacks. Now, any negative feedback means you are in big trouble even just because customers think you were not smelling during the video call. You got the backgrounds. Then let’s talk about transfer. Usually, there are two ways to do the internal transfer: interview and artifacts. There is nothing special for interview transfer (three coding rounds and difficulty is the same as an external candidate). It was two rounds. For artifacts (evidence base transfer), you have two ways as well: do works for aiming teams or rotation. Please note, TSE org will NOT give you 20% spare time. I did transfer through the first way because as I said TSE was having a lot of spare time so that we did not need official 20% approval. But now, 8 cases per day means you have ZERO time to do extra work. The rotation usually needs your manager's approval and it’s hard to get. The only one I know doesn’t need mgr approval is SRE mission control, but mission control needs an interview. Also, coding did for TSE org can not be considered as artifacts of SWE ladder. Now let’s talk about daily work. TSE has tight deadline (no excuse): P1 needs to respond to customers every 1 hour, P2 is 2 hours and P3/4 is 8 hours. For cases that you can not solve (one TSE needs support at least two products so that it’s common that TSE can not find the root cause of the complex issue), you need to create eng bug. However, SWE/SRE has 24 hours to respond to your P1 bug and a whole week to respond to your P2 bug. While you are waiting for a response from SWE/SRE, you can only keep telling customers you are still investigating. What if customers give you negative feedback because of the waiting? Sorry, it’s all your fault. Also, TSE org has tons of tools to monitor your work such as WLM, SF violation alert, third-party QA. If you miss too many deadlines, you are in trouble as well. Another nightmare is customers’ employees. We know some companies do not treat well their vendors. So, a lot of vendor employees will try their 1000% effort to let you admit the issues are caused by Google even you have strong evidence to prove they did something wrong. So, what sort of efforts I’ve seen now but not limited to: keep talking about irrelated topics and do not allow you to close the case, threatening you to give you negative feedback via GVC, using uncomfortable words. Career growth. There is no career growth in TSE org. TSEJD3 doc is BS. In Google, you need to show you can do higher lv work to be promoted. I was L4 TSE. For L5, you need to take on a lot of duties other than case handling. However, you don’t have any time to do them because case handling will take all your time. If you do case well, great but that’s CME. But if you join TSE org as a manager, that will be different. Mgrs having way much faster promotion speed than TSEs. Mgrs in my office were all promoted at least once within 2 years. But only the same number of TSEs were promoted. The ratio is 1:1 but you need to know each mgr has about 6-7 TSEs. Now is the pay. First, TSE starting lv is 2. So 4 YOE people can only get L3 TSE. Also, TSE’s TC is about 1 lv lower than another eng ladder. Now here is an example: 4 YOE people can get L4 SWE and TC is actually two levels higher than the same YOE TSE. Overall, to avoid TSE at all costs. PS., this is only my opinion about the org based on experience, which means probably is not true anymore. So, this is just FYI. #tse
Can confirm. Swapped from the ladder to swe. Avoid if you can...
Thanks OP🙏
How easy it is to switch to TPM from Customer Engineer ?
Smelling what?
Thanks OP
How much would earn a L3 TSE?
Wtf. I thought the solutions engineer role was presales. They got you answering priority 1 tickets? Like a support engineer? It sounds like you’re just answering questions from a queue instead of having meaningful conversations with customers, building relationship with sales, and working with product to improve features. I was under the impression that a Solution Engineer at Google was presales, just like the customer engineer role (which I’ve read that it’s more pre and post).
Wow this is crazy. I recently just accepted a L4 TSE offer for Dublin. I’m currently a Cloud Support Engineer with AWS. My current TC is $70k/yr… Offer from G was Base: €83.5k Bonus: 15% RSU: $91k over four years. I still feel I was low balled. Although this is significantly higher than what I earn in my current role at AWS and also a level higher. Anyone knows what the offer for this role is in Dublin? My aim is to switch ladders to SRE after a year preferably to a team in the USA(currently leet coding). But reading this is making me reconsider the whole idea of leaving AWS. As there’s more or less an established pathway at AWS (promo to L5, interview for an opening, apply for L1 visa) Not sure if this is same at google. The idea of replying to p1s every hour is ridiculous and the overall ticket handling process and monitoring using tools as described. I kept being told during the interviews that at google I wouldn’t have to chase metrics like at AWS. Probably misinformation right?
I can confirm that this review is even more relevant in 2023. The job descriptions are misleading, the culture is a far cry from Google's own, the engineering component is fading away and the customer-facing aspect is becoming paramount. Depending on your team/product, your experience may differ but even the best case scenario is a worse deal than most technical roles at Google. Career Growth: - It's quite apparent that Cloud leadership sees Cloud Support as a liability and don't really value TSEs' expertise, which is a huge deal since a lot of the experience doesn't transfer outside of Google. - There are no real opportunities for career growth as a TSE. Nobody really knows what career trajectory they should aim for, because there is none envisioned for it. It's a job, not a career. TSE managers are all hired externally, and there are new sub-specializations that are coined every year and discarded the next year. - While at some point TSE was a relatively elite role, over time they lowered the bar for hiring and let go of their most valuable talents. Transfer to SWE: - Used to be quite straightforward before 2022, but now you need to be extremely strategic to find enough artifacts to be even considered by a hiring manager. Doing anything other than regular casework (5x5) needs approval that is pretty much impossible to get, and you can't get 20% projects as a TSE. Making the matters worse, fewer positions are posted after the layoffs and it's very unlikely that they'd choose a TSE over a SWE for an internal transfer. Pay: I personally can't complain, but the median is considerably lower than same-level SWE/SRE. TL;DR If you have the background to land a SWE/SRE role, avoid this position at all costs.
Thanks for sharing! I guess joining Google as a TSE just doesn’t really make sense anymore.
few doubts 1. How easy is it to switch to SWE from TSE? 2. How easy is it to become a TSE manager from TSE role? 3. When do refreshers start for TSE and rough amount for L3/L4 ? 4. What other teams can one later join in case one joins TSE. 5. What are WLM, SF violation alert, third-party QA?
1. almost impossible right now. You can do the interview. But if you can pass interview, why don't you just directly apply for SWE? 2.All Mgrs are hired externally at least for my office. But I know few TSEs promoted to mgr. 3. start date is the same as all other google ladders. The amount is depends on location. My office is north america. But you should expect 1 lv lower than swe. 4. no. All other roles need at least two rounds of interview. 5. internal tools. I can not tell you details.
It wasn't asked, but will Google offer relo and sign up bonus? I will need those if I get an offer as TSE.