I feel that something happened at Google gradually and over the past few years but did happen.
They initially paid a lot of money to hire the best and brightest minds, they created crazy algorithmic interviews and a lot of hoops and became known as the place where the best went.
Then it got inverted that the best go to Google so if you were at Google you were the best. Which led to people optimizing for the money.and optimizing to get into google. The problem was what was once a singal and a filter then became an objective and a goal.
Overtime the organization crew and people left due to culture changes from being a scrappy startup to being a F50 company, or retiring or just wanting something new.
The problem was the best and brightest had put together systems that couldn't be maintained by those that weren't also fantasticaly competent, after debugging is twice as hard as coding and all that, and so slowly over time the whole house of cards is rotting slowly overtime as more and more problems accumulate but the individuals left aren't competent enough to fix them or address them, and I don't just mean at the engineering level but the whole stack from engineering to upper management.
The Goths showed up sacked Rome for its wealth and treasure but can no longer keep the grain coming and the fountains running.
Google 2010 was a very different place from Google 2014, I only imagine it’s got worse.
When I started in 2010 managers had IDEs and could discuss code, it didn’t matter if I came in at 11AM because I was there until 9PM and got the work done of 10 engineers (and led a bigger team)
In 2014 is when other middle managers started pulling rank instead of letting data and facts win, suddenly being in at 9AM was important, suddenly programming skill was less important then brown-nosing, moronic death marches started as the B level,“yes men” programmers were hired, who were too scared to question authority and think for themselves.
So I left and started my first company, best decision ever, but I imagine Google has got worse internally, especially seeing their laughably poor AI search results of late
> but I imagine Google has got worse internally, especially seeing their laughably poor AI search results of late
Hey, who are we to question the wisdom of the AI highlighting fucksmith's 11-year-old Reddit post about adding non-toxic glue to our pizzas to help the cheese stick, when most of us aren't even paste-eaters.
They initially paid a lot of money to hire the best and brightest minds, they created crazy algorithmic interviews and a lot of hoops and became known as the place where the best went.
Then it got inverted that the best go to Google so if you were at Google you were the best. Which led to people optimizing for the money.and optimizing to get into google. The problem was what was once a singal and a filter then became an objective and a goal.
Overtime the organization crew and people left due to culture changes from being a scrappy startup to being a F50 company, or retiring or just wanting something new.
The problem was the best and brightest had put together systems that couldn't be maintained by those that weren't also fantasticaly competent, after debugging is twice as hard as coding and all that, and so slowly over time the whole house of cards is rotting slowly overtime as more and more problems accumulate but the individuals left aren't competent enough to fix them or address them, and I don't just mean at the engineering level but the whole stack from engineering to upper management.
The Goths showed up sacked Rome for its wealth and treasure but can no longer keep the grain coming and the fountains running.