Pros

Excellent benefits
Exciting company atmosphere. Who doesn't like working for a company that is frequently in media headlines
Intelligent colleagues you can learn from

Cons

Frequent re-organizations which can cause your career to move more laterally than vertically
Many of Google's senior managers are better as individual contributors than team/group leaders

Advice to Senior Management

People management should be a top priority. Some of the leaders that you have hired/promoted are great visionaries, salesmen, individual contributors, but not great leaders. They do not energize the masses to do their best and get behind a common goal. Google needs more great people managers.

Pros

I worked here as a technical sourcer on a 1 year contract. Overall, the company is great - not much to complain about when you're getting fed 3 free awesome meals a day + unlimited sushi/smoothie/snacks inbetween. i loved how they allowed you to bring pet dogs to work. love the on site massage, oil changes, author talks, volleyball, etc.

Cons

no room for growth as contractor and management made many empty promises

Advice to Senior Management

didn't work close enough with management to provide input here

Pros

-Lots of cool people
-Lots of perks
-Lots of respect from business schools/grad schools
-Really chill place to work !

Cons

-You work really hard and don't make much in comparison
-Lots of people who graduated from the same school in that office

Advice to Senior Management

-Don't let the culture die
-Preserve your brand
-Make sure that you don't scare your top talent away through instabilty

Pros

B r a n d n a m e ! !
P e r k s
M o n e y

Cons

No career growth.
Half the time you feel if you are actually doing anything useful.
Very frustating and depressing at times.

Advice to Senior Management

Diversify into more areas besides the "core" area of search. Google has so much cash -- use it.. For example, consumer devices.. phones, video games, set-top boxes, etc...

Pros

Management follows the model of the open source community, the attitude of everyone is very open. There are many well-known extras. You're working with people at the top of their game.

Cons

Some people still whine that they don't have enough extras. The workspace is very hectic and noisy. Sometimes things seem to move too fast in every direction.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to work on long-term goals for employees?

Pros

Cutting edge technology and some high quality source code.

Cons

Most proprietary technology documentation is off limits to Contractors/Vendors without special permission (a pain-in-the-neck to get). Yet, you are still expected to learn and use the technology. This is strange since the source code is in plain view. This documentation blocking slows down development with no gain in secrecy.

With exclusionary rules like this, you are made very aware of being 'less than' a regular employee and the stigma continues from there. In interactions with some, it's scarcely noticeable. With others, it's taken as an opportunity to act a bit superior and snobby.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of the red badges and open up the wiki pages. Contractors/Vendors are not subversives.

Pros

Good food, good perks, fun smart people.

Cons

They hire too many young overachievers - people who have only ever "shown aptitude for having aptitude", as that one writer said. So it feels like half of everyone is angry about learning what being in the workforce is actually like, and shocked that you don't get promoted for working 12 hours a day and having aptitude and a great GPA.

Advice to Senior Management

Offer a class to the young employees about this topic: reality. Actually, also make the older employees who have only ever worked at Google take the same class. This includes many in senior management.

Pros

Amazing benefits, very qualified people (overqualified actually), relaxed work environment, very hard to get fired, always work in a global environment, lots of cross-team collaboration, lots of social events.

Cons

No career advancement, no insight into how your individual work ties into higher level strategy, lack of professionalism, strategic and organizational changes are executed slowly and ineffectively.

Advice to Senior Management

At the moment Google is a stepping stone for many career builders. Combine the amazing work environment at Google with the possibility to advance in your career. At the moment very qualified people are doing very elementary tasks, especially in sales.

Pros

- Great perks, from free food from >10 cafes, gym, flexible timings
- Amazing people to work with, some of the smartest people i know
- Its Google!
- Lots of opportunities to learn and increase your skill set

Cons

- Not a startup anymore, starting to feel like a corporate environment
- Compensation not as high as other companies in the locality
- Recognition for your work is sometimes lacking
- Can get lost in the sea of people

Advice to Senior Management

- More feedback on performance to employees, in addition to the review cycles
- Keep all the people involved in setting the direction for new projects

Pros

Code base. Data mining. Datacenters. Employee expertise. Openness. Food. flexibility
Perks Global position

Cons

Mergers and acquisitions not up to par.

Advice to Senior Management

All good, nothing to do here.