From Christine: Susan Wojcicki on the Secrets of Google’s Success]
Archive for Google confidential
Google’s Engineering Philosophy
Google’s Engineering Philosophy:
1. All developers work out of a ~single source depot; shared infrastructure!
2. A developer can fix bugs anywhere in the source tree.
3. Building a product takes 3 commands (“get, config, make”)
4. Uniform coding style guidelines across company
5. Code reviews mandatory for all checkins
6. Pervasive unit testing, written by developers
7. Unit tests run continuously, email sent on failure
8. Powerful tools, shared company-wide
9. Rapid project cycles; developers change projects often; 20% time
10. Peer-driven review process; flat management structure
11. Transparency into projects, code, process, ideas, etc.
12. Dozens of offices around world => hire best people regardless of location
Life at Google – The Microsoftie Perspective « Just Say “No” To Google
Life at Google – The Microsoftie Perspective « Just Say “No” To Google: interesting article.
Another advantage of free food (if used properly) is to guarantee a good diet for your employees.
At Google, lunch is sacred (just like in France): you don’t skip lunch, you avoid scheduling meeting over lunch, you don’t grab food and eat it at your desk. Lunch is fun, lunch is joyful and a very good informal way to exchange information within the team.
1-800-GOOG-411: Freedom With Speech
Google LatLong: 1-800-GOOG-411: Freedom With Speech: so, I guess, it is not a secret anymore.
That’s my first launched product at Google.
The irony is that I left Bell Labs research where I was working on telephony service to join Google.
And guess what I work on: telephony services.
Stay tuned (on the LatLong blog and over here) for more news around voice and speech applications.
The Goog Life: how Google keeps employees by treating them like kids (Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought)
The Goog Life: how Google keeps employees by treating them like kids (Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought).
Interesting article and even more interesting discussions.
I work in the NY office 
. So no dinosaurs and no space ship.
As for being treated like kids, I would say that you can decide to be treated like one, or not.
Note that this is not so unusual. Look at professional sports where athletes have all their needs and wishes taken care of.
Google Watch : Google vs. Microsoft: Five Battleground Verticals for 2006
Google Watch : Google vs. Microsoft: Five Battleground Verticals for 2006.
Of course, no comment.
Google legal perks
So people are talking about Google perks: free food, free drinks, massage chairs, massages, pets, etc.
But today, I experienced a very different kind of perk: a 90 minutes seminar about some aspects of the US criminal law.
Very informal, very casual, very informative and presented by some people from Google legal department who are as enthusiastic about law as we engineers are about code.
Watching the news, watching CSI, Law and Order, etc. or reading a John Grisham book will never be the same
My first week at Google
I started at Google (New York office as a product manager) over a week ago and I really like it.
A lot of my friends are asking about it. So, instead of repeating myself, I will try to share with you — my dear readers — some thoughts about it on a regular basis.
You will understand that there are a lot of details that I cannot disclose (not on that side of the firewall at least). I have to be a little careful here. The last thing I want is to end up like the poor fellow mentioned in the story "Google blogger has left the building".
The first thing I would say about Google is great people. This should not be a big surprise when you look at all the smart guys they have hired. A colleague of mine posted today a question about Python on the internal mailing list and got an answer from Guido van Rossum himself, the inventor of Python.
Also, if you have been through the interview process (successfully or not), you have realised that the people there — interviewing you — are passionate and super sharp.
I don't know much about the Mountain View offices (I will visit there soon), but here in New York, this is Google quality times New York diversity: a dynamic cocktail!
Still on the people side, it is not very often that you meet people who are so enthusiastic about their work and would not work anywhere else.
And I am not just talking about engineers: product managers (I am one of them), sales, human resources, tech sypport, etc.: everyone.
The second thing that strikes me is the company DNA. Before joining and based on some past experiences (university, research lab, etc.) , I had some thoughts about how a company should be run (or at least about how I would like to run it), how information should flow, etc. So far, things have been pretty much how I would have dreamt them. I am sure it is way too early to draw such conclusions, but it is a good sign.
Just to illustrate my point, I would like to give two examples: (1) continuous education and (2) information sharing.
The day you join, you start learning about how things work: coding practices, version control, design documents, software patterns, etc. And as you evolve, you keep learning. This is a continuous process that is faciliated and encouraged internally (if not made mandatory).
Same for information sharing. As a Google employee, you are trusted from day one and are given access to the knowledge of the company. Some people explain to you how things work, how Google makes money.
A lot of attention has been paid to so-called Google perks such as free
food, drinks, shuttle service with Wifi, massages, etc. I don't mind free Snapples and Milano biscuits. But for me, this is just cosmetics.
Knowing that your employer is continuously investing on you and is giving you its unconditional trust, what else can you ask for?
Of course there are things that could be improved.
- I am a bit disappointed by the NY office cafeteria. I guess it does not match my very high French standards.
- The NY offices are not — yet — soccer friendly enough. Big screens to watch Champions' League games are urgently needed. Not to mention the upcoming World Cup in Germany in June. Clock is ticking, so hurry.
But since there seems to be some change in the air, things might get better on this side.
to be continued …
