Google Senior Software Developer reviews

Google is starting to feel like a big company. The number of times org charts appear in meetings is constantly increasing. There is a growing necessity to deal with politics in order to promote projects and get recognition. It is getting harder to innovate in the core parts of the business.

Massive pressure to perform to the level of your peers, to the level of legendary figures who have gone before, and to the levels required to keep the dollar generating machinery running. Also, Management, communication and other people skills are not favored in Engineering. The results are predictably enough that technically competent engineers who demonstrate good results, get management responsibilities that they fit in between technical work. Those that have the people skills don't get these promotions. I have not personally suffered from this so this analysis is not sour grapes. I have seen women who are already doing the project management role out of necessity as well as their own technical load, get passed over for promotion even though the projects they are on succeed, because they can't point to high personal metrics due to their unrecognized management load.