Why did you decide to come to Google?
Google presented the opportunity to take on the challenging role of scaling real time serving systems rapidly to handle more traffic, optimizing them to use resources more efficiently, and maintaining a very high level of availability while new features are being added continuously. This was quite a different role from my previous jobs (those were primarily software development), but the decision was actually pretty easy! A very good friend had referred me to the position so we had time to discuss the environment, projects, culture, and technology beforehand. To me the biggest draws were the culture, technology, and the high caliber of people I encountered throughout the interview and hiring process. Plus, Google just seemed like a lot of fun!
Why do you like working at Google?
Working at Google, I've learned more in a shorter amount of time, than at any of my previous jobs. Some of this has been due to informal, on-the-job learning that you'd get at most jobs, but there are also presentations by Googlers, industry experts, and academics (Tech Talks) on a daily basis that enrich the experience. But mostly, I feel like I've learned from my co-workers. I feel that working here has given me a chance to work with some of the most talented, motivated, and brightest people I've ever had the luck of working with.
What is your favorite perk/benefit about working at Google?
FThe food is simply amazing. In the old days, Google was remarkable for providing good, free food in a nice cafeteria, but now that has grown to over 15 cafeterias on the Mountain View campus alone, each with its own theme, and daily changing menus. The quality of the food is remarkable: fresh, organic produce, high-quality meat and vegetarian-friendly fare (I ate vegetarian at Google for over a year and loved the great selection.)
What cool projects have you worked on at Google?
I've worked on the Google.com (SRE) team supporting the ads serving systems inside Google, one of the largest of its kind in the world. One of the more interesting projects was working with a small, mixed team of about a dozen Googlers to deploy a near-completely rewritten version 2 of the AdSense serving system, while the system was still running and serving live user traffic. This was a project that took 9 months, but in the end, the change improved the quality of ads we serve to end users and increased revenue for Google and our AdSense customers as well.
At Google, there's also the concept of 20% time - the ability to spend 20% of your work hours on a project of your choosing, even one not related directly to your work! I spent six months or so working on an add-on for the Google Checkout service.
What is unique about your role?
The role of Google.com engineering is unique in Google in that it gives very real-world and hands-on experience running production systems, giving engineers a breadth of understanding on how to build highly available, distributed applications, and the chance to work with many other teams regularly (hardware and network operations teams, software development teams, etc.). It really is where the rubber meets the road in terms of bringing Google's products to the end user!
What's been the biggest surprise about working at Google?
The number and variety of extracurricular clubs here at Google have been a pleasant surprise to me! Just a sampling from the last Club Day here at Google included: Game Night, Christian Fellowship, Softball, Juggling, Knitting, Bridge Club, Google Grants, Parking lot hockey, American Indian Network, Hispanic Googlers Network, Greyglers, Black Googlers Network, Wine, Golf Club, Anime, Gayglers, Toastmaster, Art, Cycling, a pool-playing club, Decadance, and my favorite, the Google Salsa club! These and many other organizations are purely self-organized, and they show the great diversity and breadth of interest here at Google. I've done outings with the Cycling club and even led a ride to one of our company offsites. I'm also a regular at the Salsa club. These extracurriculars allow people from all parts of the organization to meet each other, and most importantly, have fun and unwind.
