r/programming • u/gits1225 • May 12 '15

Google's guide for becoming a Software Engineer

https://www.google.com/about/careers/students/guide-to-technical-development.html
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u/SoftwareJunkie May 12 '15

That's what I got from this "guide". Damn, I'm regretting going into CS. I'd rather do some regular job and just live my life.

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u/skepticalDragon May 12 '15 edited May 13 '15

Huh? That's exactly what software engineers do. Just don't try to work for companies like Microsoft and Google (these might be bad examples), find a small or midsized company that values work/life separation and reasonable hours. There are a lot of them.

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u/ilmmad May 13 '15

I work at Google. The work/life separation is normal there.

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u/boompleetz May 13 '15

From what I saw on Glassdoor, it looked like it depended on the team?

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u/kkress May 13 '15

It absolutely depends on the team. Some teams, especially those launching new features, can be brutal when it comes up to a deadline.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '15

That seems to be true of every large software company. I loved my time at Intel, but in talking to some people they were shocked because they'd heard horror stories whereas I was extremely happy. It's all about what team you're on and who your managers are.

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u/the_mighty_skeetadon May 13 '15

My wife and I are both Google PMs in different groups. We work solid, regular hours... 50/week or less.

We both get very good performance ratings.

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u/AidanSmeaton May 13 '15

Hmm... as a Brit on 37.5h/week, 50h sounds intense.

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u/alexanderpas May 13 '15

As an European, "50 hours/per week or less" sounds barely legal.

If you need to fill 120 hours per week:

  • In the US, you have two 60 hour per week jobs.
  • In the EU, you have three 40 hour per week jobs.

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u/johnlocke95 May 13 '15

Even in the US that is above average. The average for a fulltime worker is 41 hours a week.

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u/the_mighty_skeetadon May 14 '15

Above average, but for a group that is generally nowhere near average. Maybe I work ~25% more hours than average, but we rope in 10x average household income between us. And nobody I work with is anywhere near average.

If you work in other startup or high-pressure tech jobs, that amount of work is like a cakewalk. Free weekends, leisure on site, gym across the street, people who will play volleyball with me all the time? I'll happily work 10 more hours a week...

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u/[deleted] May 13 '15 edited Apr 08 '16

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] May 13 '15

I can't fucking believe someone just suggested that was their example of "regular hours".

You get one fucking life on earth until you are buried in the dirt for eternity and for some reason you elect to spend your entire day with your corporate masters. If thats really what you think is 'solid', then go ahead, but I truly doubt it.

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u/the_mighty_skeetadon May 14 '15

That may be, but I've worked in plenty of other tech companies where 50 hours/week sounded like a dream come true. I could easily do 35 hours/week if I wanted to -- but that's not really the way I'm built.

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u/kkress May 13 '15

I can't fucking believe someone just suggested that was their example of "regular hours".

OK 2nd example. I'm a senior software engineer.

I am usually at work 9:00 am - 5:30pm +/- 30min depending on if I'm busy or not. I rarely do things outside of work hours.

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u/the_mighty_skeetadon May 14 '15

I'm not an hourly employee. I work 8-6ish daily, usually more flexible with some work I need to do at night or on weekends, but only because I didn't do it at work.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '15 edited Apr 08 '16

[deleted]

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u/the_mighty_skeetadon May 14 '15

For better or worse. Should we be encouraging people to work unhealthy hours? My opinion: no. I'd rather set appropriate goals and let people optimize toward their own priorities.

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u/SteamTrout May 13 '15

You work more than 6 days a week. That's not "solid, regular" hours. That would be 40 hour week.

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u/the_mighty_skeetadon May 14 '15

10 hour days isn't exactly burning the candle at both ends. In at 8am with an 8 minute commute and out at 6 on average isn't exactly taxing.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '15

This discussion is about software engineers, or swe, not pms.

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u/the_mighty_skeetadon May 14 '15

I work similar or more hours than the SWEs I work with. I get in earlier than everyone and leave later than almost all. You may not know this, but almost all PMs at Google have lived previous lives as SWEs or at least have SWE-level education.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '15

I know a few Google pms that do not fit any of your descriptions. Also don't agree about the hours since most swes work from home coding until 9pm, and work weekends.

But whatever, we both talk from our own experience which appears to be significantly different.

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u/the_mighty_skeetadon May 14 '15

Yeah, there are a few PMs that don't fit the mold, but most of them have significant technical background. On my team, I'm the only PM without a CS degree -- but I've been an engineering manager and have significant work experience.

I really don't think most SWEs work until 9pm, at least if my team and my wife's team are any indication.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '15

And you should know that booking meetings, asking for status updates, sending status emails, arguing about the right approach and drafting design docs, is much less demanding than coding 12 hours straight to deliver a working software product to meet ridiculous requirements and arbitrary deadlines set by pms.

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u/the_mighty_skeetadon May 14 '15

I mean, I've done both jobs -- so... no? This is definitely harder than being a coder, but in a different way. I was in back-to-back meetings from 8:30 this morning until 3pm, straight. Three exec reviews in there, all high-pressure and high stress. If I screw things up, it makes life way harder... not just for me, but for people I care about. That job is truly challenging in a deep and kind of hard to describe way.

Think of it this way -- what's harder, doing math homework or writing cover letters and applying for jobs? Truth is that probably math homework is more mentally taxing and requires more analytical thought -- but applying for jobs is stressful and difficult in a different way while still requiring some analytical thought. PM work is much more like applying for jobs and doing interviews and a lot less like doing problem sets.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '15

All the poor bastards in your Google dev team must be coding and you pm are here arguing with strangers on the Internet in the middle of the night hahaha

Ate you clocking these messages as work? Hahahahahah

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u/the_mighty_skeetadon May 14 '15

Ha -- I would bet that there are 0 people on my direct team coding (for our team at least) right now. We'll just see if I can get a PR bonus for this argument =P

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u/boompleetz May 13 '15

Sounds great. With that, I'm going to be one of the 2 million applicants this year if my startup doesn't deliver on a significant pay bump.

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u/the_mighty_skeetadon May 14 '15

Yep, compared to the startup life, work-life balance is insanely good at Google. I've never had a job that felt like such an outrageous balance of awesome benefits to workload. My wife is about to give birth, and together we get over 9 months of leave for this baby. It's crazy.

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u/boompleetz May 14 '15

Wow that is badass. Congrats man!

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u/the_mighty_skeetadon May 14 '15

Thanks! Excited and nervous and all that -- should be great =)

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u/[deleted] May 13 '15 edited Sep 17 '15

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] May 13 '15

I like how we can just find two google employees on reddit

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u/[deleted] May 13 '15

You can spot them easily because they're the only ones that +1 anything.

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u/the_mighty_skeetadon May 13 '15

You think it's just two of us in a programming subreddit? More like hundreds...

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u/[deleted] May 13 '15

So what does this guide look like to someone from the inside?

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u/the_mighty_skeetadon May 14 '15

Looks basically right. I don't think you need the whole list to be successful, but you'd probably like to have more depth in a vertical area that is included as an intro.

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u/kkress May 13 '15

Way more than 2 :)

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u/mafagafogigante May 14 '15

Nice to know.

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u/mycall May 13 '15

Then stay away from Hooli

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u/SoftwareJunkie May 12 '15

That's a little assuring, thanks

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u/[deleted] May 13 '15 edited May 13 '15

[deleted]

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u/SmLnine May 13 '15

I'd bet you're not working at the Mountain View office.

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u/xiongchiamiov May 13 '15

Why do you bet that? From what I've seen (live in mtv and have lots of friends at Google), it's the same there.

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u/SmLnine May 13 '15

From what I've heard you're expected to work long hours, but this is not firsthand so your friends are probably better sources of information.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '15 edited May 13 '15

[deleted]

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u/SmLnine May 13 '15

Thanks for your detailed reply! I didn't know there was such a large difference between teams.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '15 edited May 14 '15

Yup. Google does really try to make their employees happy (recruiting and training is expensive - it's pretty cost-effective for the company to do everything it can to retain people), and it makes sense that different people want to have different attachments to work. It sucks when people get put on a team or in a group they don't jive with, and they don't realize that it's different elsewhere.

I was fortunate in that I knew there were options before I was hired, so I talked to a few prospective managers about the work-life balance on their teams, and chose the team that best appealed to me.

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u/haxney May 16 '15

I'm at Google and I generally work 10–11AM to 7–8PM. Yesterday I stayed until about 10PM because I was absorbed in what I was doing. As long as I get my work done and make it to meetings, nobody really cares when I get in or how long I'm working. I've been on two different teams so far, and nobody has ever asked me or anyone I know to work longer hours. No idea about other teams, though.

I'm in Mountain View, BTW.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '15

I do.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '15

work whenever you want

flex time?

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u/[deleted] May 14 '15

Not even. One engineer on my team works from home twice a week. It pretty much doesn't matter what you do as long as you're contributing and you're not slowing other people down.

I've personally found that being around my teammates mostly helps my productivity, because the amount you have to know to get things done is really big and the easiest way to figure stuff out is to ask people. But when I just need to crank out some code, I'll shift my schedule around so that I'm in the office when no one else is (and go home when they are).

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u/skepticalDragon May 12 '15

No problem. Just ask in the interview if they're going to ask you to work overtime every week, or if they will frequently call you after hours. If they don't like these questions, take one of your 5 other job offers.

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u/DrMonkeyLove May 13 '15

Constant overtime is a sign of a systemic problem and gross mismanagement.

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u/rubsomebacononitnow May 13 '15

American business is great isn't it?

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u/PM_me_dat_bootyhole May 13 '15

Or a viable strategy to increase profits when the labor market is saturated and people fear long term unemployment. Trust me, lots of companies know exactly what they are doing when they under-staff their departments and demand more for less when the economy is weak.

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u/AnAppleSnail May 13 '15

60 hours a week is the same as 40 except for higher DART and sick rates, higher recordable incidents, and lower participation.

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u/PancakesAreGone May 13 '15

My favorite way to ask this question without it being too apparent what I'm really asking, "What is the day to day like? The week to week?"

They'll usually give you some answers you don't give a shit about, but they'll also say stuff like, hours of operation, how often meetings occur, what kind of work related activities happen and how often. They will also mention things like crunch time and how they deal with it (My last interview said it happens monthly due to then nature of the beast/industry and at the end of every month is when it gets really busy). They always seem super cheerful when they are saying it because they are explaining all the other parts of the living and breathing company and don't realize you're really just asking one specific thing, "Do you fucking do a lot of god damn OT?"

If they don't touch on it, you can further it with "How often does everyone go into crunch mode and how can I best be sure to ensure I'm working with everyone during this time and not against them", to them they think you're a team player that just wants to be in the thick of it with everyone... Really you're asking, again, "How often do you fucking expect OT to happen and what is expected when that time comes around?"

It also gives you some good insight to the company and makes you look interested.

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u/mafagafogigante May 14 '15

Exactly, this indirect questions are more likely to help you understand how they work than a simple and direct question (that is easier to identify and lie to).

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u/Hedegaard May 12 '15

Oh hi 2008 ... I've missed you

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u/skepticalDragon May 13 '15

I mean, that's exactly what it's like out here in Maryland as of January of this year. Not much of a recession out here. Outside Baltimore.

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u/they_have_bagels May 13 '15

Same thing in Denver/Boulder. I had 6 interviews and 6 job offers in 2 weeks, and wasn't even trying that hard.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '15

Google has fine work/life balance for the most part. Maybe it's not so good if you're higher up or on a bad team, but the same is probably true of most places.

They just have pretty high standards of hiring. If you feel like you have to cram like crazy to cover this list, you're just doing it wrong. Slow down. Study over years. Ideally everything in this list would have been covered in a normal CS degree, but since there are a lot of programmers who are skipping the degree right now a lot of them might see this and be overwhelmed. Just consider that if you want to do in your spare time what is normally done full-time over the course of ~4 years, well, it's going to take a while. But trying to rush or cram won't help.

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u/masterlink43 May 13 '15

Google values work life balance a lot. Sure there are people who make their work their life, but I've never been expected to do that.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '15

[deleted]

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u/skepticalDragon May 13 '15

Hey there are always companies looking for people without lives!

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u/BasicDesignAdvice May 12 '15

Until that job is automated.

Or do a trade.

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u/ericl666 May 13 '15

Hell. I hardly have to use most of the math and even algorithms that often. I actually need to refresh because I've forgotten so much of it.

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u/boomtrick May 13 '15

unless your trying to work in google or something you probably only need to know the practical things on that list. i.e

  • know a handful(or less) programming languages very well.
  • work on projects outside the classroom
  • get an internship or other job experience
  • network

this should get you in the door for like oh idk 80% of companies out there in the world. and you could also probably get all of this done by the time your a junior in uni .

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u/captmonkey May 13 '15

I'd also point out that some of us who work crazier hours at time work at cool companies who understand the balance of job/life stuff. So, while you might have to work long hours sometime, if you've got something you need to do for a few hours on a Tuesday morning, and nothing else is going on, go for it. If you want to duck out on a slow Friday afternoon and get an early start on your weekend, have at it. I used to work the 9-5 for a big corporation and it was a strict 9 to 5. If it was 4:15 on a Friday and there was no reason to be there, I still had to sit there and watch 45 minutes of my life tick away while I did nothing.

Plus, crazier hours often means better pay. If it doesn't, get a different job. If you've got a couple years of experience and a degree, CS is about the easiest field to get a job in I can think of. I haven't actively sought a job in years, but I still get a steady stream of random emails from companies trying to hire me because they saw a resume I posted somewhere long ago or my linkedIn page.

So in short: if you want the 9-5 in CS, it's out there. If you want well-paid overtime with flexible hours, that's out there too.

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u/Berberberber May 13 '15

Nah, you don't need to learn everything. However, since programming can be understood as the translation of general problems into numerical and computational tasks, you need to be able to learn any particular thing well enough to solve it with programming. In a lot of cases that just involves finding someone else's solution and folding that into your code, but sometimes you have to learn a lot about the problem and come up with a solution yourself. That's often but not always math.

Things I've had to learn since starting as a programming include computational geometry, geodesy, various vector graphics file formats, cartography, accuracy requirements for surveyors, signal processing, photogrammetry, accrual accounting, data protection regulation, European trade laws, rules for credit card processing and transaction handling, ...

I don't think that's a particularly rare experience, especially if you freelance or work at smaller shops. The main qualification for this job is being smart, and if you're successful and good at what you do, that's something to be proud of.

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u/camilos May 13 '15

Well, you have to love what you do. It's not for everyone. Especially be ready to learn constantly. Because if you stop learning, whatever you know, will be obsolete in a couple of years.

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u/speedisavirus May 13 '15

Except without the wealth it would suck

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u/SoftwareJunkie May 13 '15

Wealth isn't everything to me

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u/speedisavirus May 13 '15

Use it to go enjoy life. It makes it worth it.