Google Senior Software Engineer reviews

Google has an enormous number of divisions, and I can only speak to the one I ended up in - YMMV. My work area was a warehouse with open ceilings, concrete floors, and metal desks arranged in groups of six people in a workspace. The interview process was generic, so that once you are approved, you go into a pool of candidates from which managers pick new hires. I only had a half-hour phone interview with my future boss before I had to decide whether to take the position. My boss never allowed me to work with anyone on a project to get me up to speed, despite numerous requests for help. He assigned me the task of writing the specs for a major modification which included several groups not in my area - a task I would not expect of anyone with less than two years experience in the division, yet he assigned it to a person with less than four months experience. HR won't let you change groups until you have completed a year in your first position, so no allowance for bad fits is made.

Can be difficult to switch projects. Some of the work can be boring. Engineering-wise, it's hard to experiment publicly -- too many eyes watching, too much need to scale. Can be hard to get good performance feedback until it's too late.