How do google employees have amazing WLB?

Intel
NVLC71

Go to company page Intel

NVLC71
Oct 11, 2020 414 Comments

I keep hearing a lot about amazing work life balance from (almost all) google employees. The TC is amazing too. How on earth is it possible? I don’t think any other company in FAANG or any company can manage to give both good pay and good WLB.

Any insights?

#tech #google #wlb #tc

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TOP 414 Comments
  • Google
    YfnK83

    Go to company page Google

    YfnK83
    A lot of reasons
    1) Ads revenue is pretty stable so there is no rush to get a market fit hence engineers dont have to work super had
    2) This is an infinite recursion, but since wlb is good a lot of emphasis is on code quality, which leads to it being very easy to write new code withouth it breaking as our testing is super good. Strong code review systems

    A lot of folks hate part 2, so much enphasis on code quality leads to more time for code to be accepted, however once upon a time Search and Ads codebase was so bad that folks had to spend a lot of time just dealing with fires when there was a directive to increase our testing and code quality which has lead to life being much eaiser in that aspect
    Oct 11, 2020 17
  • Cisco
    Efran42

    Go to company page Cisco

    Efran42
    49% of Google’s workforce are contractors. Googlers tend to rely on contractors for the shitty tasks, and due to the name brand they get some pretty high quality ones who hope to convert to FTE.

    Contractors are treated like second class citizens - really it’s a corporate caste system.
    Oct 12, 2020 32
  • Apple
    NYrd77

    Go to company page Apple

    NYrd77
    IMO, Apple SWE has better pay in the long run and better WLB than Google.

    - Better pay due to refreshers and stock growth.
    - Better WLB due to once a year perf review

    Apple HWE is terrible with WLB though from what I heard.
    Oct 11, 2020 21
    • Apple
      Blurf

      Go to company page Apple

      Blurf
      When I was at Google I was stuck at the top of the L6 range for a long time.Almost impossible to make to L7 without working on a very high impact project. But now as an ICT5 at Apple I still have a fair amount of headroom on the scale so I basically don’t need to worry about being promoted again.

      The perf process at Apple is much simpler than Google’s, and the managers seem to have a lot more say in the promo process. At Google, the promo committee process, while intended to make it more impartial, actually adds a lot of randomness to the process and makes managers feel somewhat helpless when trying to get their people promoted.
      Oct 13, 2020
    • Amadeus
      JnDH67

      Go to company page Amadeus

      JnDH67
      @Blurf how is the WLB at Apple?
      Oct 19, 2020
  • Amazon
    sto

    Go to company page Amazon

    sto
    It ultimately comes down to head counts. Google hires 3 persons to do a job of one, essentially reducing the amount of work to 1/3rd. Amazon hires 1 person to do a job of 3.
    Oct 12, 2020 11
    • Lol FB is the same as amazon engineers are given freedom of direction lol
      So you do everything tpm, tpm, and data scientist stuff all at once.
      I ain't such a bad wlb though
      Jan 27, 2021
    • Try Lucid Motors. You'll learn the true meaning of frugality. Devs doing dev + project planning + ops + qa + quarterly planning. While managers and tpms enjoy a lavish lifestyle and get promoted time and again. Oh and no PTOs for the foreseeable future.
      Jan 30, 2021
  • Apple
    azrael5

    Go to company page Apple

    azrael5
    Honest question Googlers: how do you like your promo process ?
    Oct 12, 2020 17