Software Engineer My First Week At Google
The moment has finally arrived, I officially started at Google last Monday! In this post I am going to take you through my first week and give you an idea what goes on, and provide my personal perspective on things. Unfortunately I can't share everything with you all, because much of what we do has to remain confidential, but it should still be interesting nonetheless!
Relocating
After quitting my job at dSPACE, inc. (a great place to work, by the way) I moved from Ann Arbor, Michigan to work in Google's Mountain View campus. The relocation experience was nothing less than magical. It's like every worry I may have had vanished because it was taken care of by their relocation team. I had to break my lease - no problem, they paid the last month's rent for me. I had to pack and move my stuff - they sent a crew of strong men to literally pack all of my things, load them on a truck and unpack them at the destination (they would not even let me help during the process). They paid for me to drive across the country, hotels and meals included (they would have flown me and relocated my car too, but I wanted to drive with my dogs). When I got there they paid for my temporary housing which was a way nicer place than I'm used to. I could have stayed there for 30 days (or more if I needed an extension) while I found a permanent place for myself, but in fact I moved out sooner. I didn't even have to search for my own apartment, because they hired an agent to work with me and find me the best place given my parameters. The agent drove me all around Mountain View and Sunnyvale and we looked at a handful of places, but I found my dream flat near downtown Mountain View. I was lucky to get this taken care of before my Google start date, because now I'm completely moved in and I can focus on drinking from the fire hose that is Google's orientation.
Noogler Orientation
When I arrived for my first day I only vaguely knew where to go. I showed up at the building and wandered around outside until I spotted other clueless-looking people and assumed they were also Nooglers. Everyone was nervous and excited, and they were all very nice. While we waited we talked about where everyone came from and where they used to work. There were people of all ages and backgrounds, from engineers to marketers to managers. We all waited together in line for them to validate our paperwork and take our new badge photos. The line was so long, that inside the building it snaked around the small lobby, even crisscrossed over itself, which we all assumed was some kind of "first test" to see if we could maintain the line without getting confused. As we progressed through the line I could hear live music, which turned out to be a couple musicians serenading us and setting a calm, relaxed atmosphere while we waited. It was very pleasant.
After the initial administrative stuff was taken care of, I took my assigned seat in the orientation room, where my new laptop and some swag were waiting for me. I got to choose what kind of laptop I wanted, and I had chosen a Macbook Air (yes, Google allows you to use Apple products!) This should be surprising to anyone who knows me, because I absolutely hate Apple products. I only chose it because I figured now that I'm in Silicon Valley I have to be at least somewhat Mac literate, plus everything I read online said that I should choose a Mac simply because the hardware is much better than the other options. So far I have been pleased, a few minor annoyances notwithstanding.
I am going to treat Noogler orientation like a black box, because they told us everything in that room is confidential, and I think it should be one of those "exclusive" things that only Googlers get to know about. I don't know if anyone else already talks about it online, but I don't want to be the one to spill the beans. Suffice it to say that it lasted for 2 days and I learned all about what life is like at Google. During orientation we are all assigned a mentor from our team whose responsibility it is to make sure everything runs smoothly and I have someone I can ask anything to. My mentor picked me up at the end of orientation, brought me to my desk and introduced me to the rest of the team. Everyone was super nice and friendly, even the old guys (the Grayglers) who usually don't have time for a young whippersnapper like me.
My biggest takeaway from orientation was meeting lots of other Nooglers and hearing their stories. It was fascinating because it seemed everyone I talked to was some highly intelligent, successful person. Riding the shuttle bus with other Nooglers around campus I sat next to a woman who was an executive and will be running a new office for Google. She was not pretentious or "too important" to talk to me, and we had a very interesting conversation. Let me say that I felt a little out of place at this orientation, because it seemed like everyone had a PhD or at least a Master's degree, and here I am with just a Bachelor's. It kind of makes you feel like an impostor at first but after you meet people they don't care about that, we're all Googlers now. In fact I had other advantages that lots of people didn't have, for example work experience. A large number of Nooglers had just graduated college, so even though they had a PhD/Master's degree, this was their first job so they felt much more lost than me. I have already been working full time for 6 years, so I have a completely different attitude about work (and I think a healthier one). For example, a lot of new graduates were very concerned about "keeping up" and outperforming their peers; they were afraid of not making the cut. Whereas I understand implicitly that Google (or any other company) doesn't work that way. They invested so much in hiring and onboarding each and every one of us that they're not going to fire you for not being outstanding. Sure if you're under performing they'll address it on a case-by-case basis but they're not comparing you to other employees and firing you because you're not as good as someone else. So in the end I think I was much more comfortable than most people in orientation because of my work experience.
Engineer Training
After the Noogler orientation that everyone goes through, we all split up and went our separate ways for the rest of the week. The best way to describe the last 3 days was like College. There were various "classes" staggered throughout the day, and it was up to you to manage your schedule and make sure you're there on time. I barely saw my manager or team at all because most of the time I was wandering around campus going to the various sessions. The sessions didn't start until after 10:00 am so typically I went to my office at around 9:00 am (I was usually the first one on my team at that time), checked my e-mail and then hopped on a colored bike (gBike) or sauntered over to the first session of the day. All of the sessions are confidential so I won't go into details there, but we talked about various aspects of engineering and technical infrastructure at Google. A lot of it was not relevant for me in my role, but it was still very interesting and I loved that they entrusted every full-time software engineer with this knowledge.
There was typically lots of time between sessions, so you could go to a cafe for lunch (free!) or raid one of the micro kitchens, or just sit in a comfy chair and browse the web. It was very laid back. In fact, by the end of the week I was ready to jump in already and start working on some code, so I asked my manager if I could get started on something. He kind of laughed and told me basically to chill out, that there would be plenty of time for that and I should just focus on the training. I think they know that the people they hire are gung-ho and they do everything possible to not burn us out, because we will easily burn ourselves out. In fact, today is a Saturday and I'm seriously considering going into the office because it's such a nice place. I have to talk myself down from it though, because I still have a lot to do around the house, and I really should just chill out because I'm sure after a while this excitement will fade and it will become work again.
I have an anecdote from yesterday that anyone who saw "The Internship" could appreciate. In the movie there is this character who sits by himself silently with his headphones, completely oblivious to the world around him and just punching away at his laptop. I thought surely that's exaggerated, but yesterday I met just such a person! He sat by himself at lunch, behaving in the exact same way, and when he got up to leave I was ahead of him so I politely held the door open for him. I stood there a good 5-10 seconds for him to walk through the door and he didn't even acknowledge that I was there. It's like in his mind the door magically opened itself for him and I was just a pylon in his way. At first I was indignant, but then I realized that he's just different. Some engineers understand common courtesy, others don't, and who am I to police that? I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was in the middle of designing some brilliant new search algorithm, or who knows, maybe he's the head of some department at Google (like in the movie, lol) but somehow I doubt that. Anyways, I chuckled to myself afterwards and went on with my day.
TGIF
Every Thursday the company holds something called TGIF, which normally stands for "Thank God It's Friday", but since it's on Thursday it confuses even the best minds. The spirit of it is the same though, in that everyone stops working at 4:00 and attends the big event. There is limited space at the physical event, so they reserve seats for all the Nooglers and others "attend" via a live stream. They served appetizers and beer/wine, the idea is to get everyone a bit sloshed and have a good time while they discuss confidential Google stuff. Sorry, that means I can't tell you what they talked about. But I got to see Larry Page and Sergei Brin, along with a slew of other big names at Google (think of all the people leading the I/O conference). It was super laid back, they were all having fun with it, drinking beers and bantering back and forth. It was really unique and fun to watch.
The Personal Touch
At Google, more than any other company I've worked for, I feel like a person rather than a commodity. Something happened to me in my first two days that could have thrown a wrench into my entire on-boarding experience. My dog was having trouble settling into my new apartment, and the night before my first day at Google she started vomiting blood. It didn't matter what I tried to feed her, she threw up everything. I know I should have taken her in to the emergency vet, but it was late and tomorrow was my first day so I decided to just observe and see if she'd get better on her own. So the next day I didn't feed her, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. When I came home I tried to feed her just a small amount of dogfood and she threw it up again with more blood. I got really worried so I rushed her to the vet hospital. They were going to run a full suite of diagnostic tests and depending what they found I would have to give her personalized medical attention while she recovered (it could have been medication and a special diet, or in the worst case surgery to remove a foreign body). The thought of doing this after just 1 day on the job scared me because I didn't know how Google would respond. Most companies I worked for would probably have delayed my start date, or worse, let me go because I hadn't accrued any vacation/sick days yet. The next day I talked to my mentor about the situation (he's a dog-owner himself) and he told me flat out that I should not focus on work until my dog is better. If it means sleeping in to catch up for lost sleep, or leaving in the middle of the day to check on my dog, or even bringing her into work, that I should do whatever I have to because there is plenty of time to get up to speed at Google. He said if I missed a pelatihan session I could just make it up the next week, or whenever I'm able. This totally blew my mind, having just come from the automotive industry in Michigan. If they knew it was just my dog that was sick they would have played the world's smallest violin for me and told me to get back to work. In addition to everything else, after this episode I'm convinced that Google is the best company in the world to be at.
More to Come
This was just the end of my first week, but next week should be filled with more classes and more learning. I have scheduled meetings with various people on my team so we can get to know each other and I can learn more of what I'll be working on (I still don't even know that yet!) There is lots more that I could talk about (they even loaned me a nice bike for commuting until I get one of my own) but this post would go on and on, so I hope to keep posting more over time. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!
