Google Reviews in New York City, NY Area

Pros

Quality of individual hires, strength of business, free cash flow which funds perks and benefits, less politics than other companies of a similar size

Cons

becoming a big company, too many mckinsey types in sales roles, politics starting to grow, easier to come in new to a senior role than be promoted into it

Advice to Senior Management

Take the "act like a small company" ethos to every level of the company and make sure it is being implemented - it sounds good, but is falling on deaf ears in middle management

Pros

Awesome food, great salary, wonderful coworkers. Lots of room for a self-starter to advance. Promotion can be quite rapid if you are determined and this is your goal. None of the cost/benefit approach to IT that you see at a lot of other companies.

Cons

Management can be clueless or absent at times. It can take a lot longer to get things done than you expect.

Advice to Senior Management

Remove blocks to rapid development and mandated platform use. Be more open in communication, particularly in explaining the reasons for controversial decisions.

Pros

Career development, impact and range.

Cons

Compensation and lack of transparency at times.

Pros

benefits, atmosphere, decorum, all very strong at google.

Cons

advancement opportunities stop after middle management

Advice to Senior Management

keep doing it and you will have happy employees

Pros

Great perks and pay. You can be proud to tell your mom you work there. Work/Life balance is good. Employees are good people to know now and for the future. Work on great products that hundreds of millions or billions of people will use.

Cons

as much as it does not want to be one, it is a big company and too easy for people/projects to get lost in the mix. NY Office is big, but definitely suffers form not being in Mountain View.

Pros

Best Work Life Balance ever seen

Cons

Poor Career Growth
Promotion review is dysfunctional

Advice to Senior Management

get real!

Pros

Opportunity for big impact
Fun people
Can afford to do anything they decide to -- its not a startup experience

Cons

Large and growing size means your team and manager are your destiny more than Google overall
Few opportunities to grow into leadership positions
Some things take too long to get done now that there are so many people to consult before locking a decision

Advice to Senior Management

Focus -- there are still too many projects, moving parts

Pros

Terrific people, interesting and challenging problems to work on, with amazing collaborators at every level, high impact (huge numbers of users), wonderful work environment (food, space, lack of bureaucracy), awesome to be able to get help with whatever on a mailing list at practically any time of day or night.

Cons

C++ can be a pain (coming from lisp). It's good and bad that code changes so quickly that much of what one learns become rapidly obsolete -- and there's a gargantuan amount to learn, so one feels pretty inept for the first few months or more. Then again, it means things get better quickly when broken.

Advice to Senior Management

Make clearer the leadership attention paid to concerns raised within the company.

Pros

yoy learn a lot, creativity is demanded, free hand is given to test your creativity, wonderful work culture, one of the best practises are followed.

Cons

too much stress full, always have to work hard, its like working madlly when u work and enjoying madly when u enjoy

Advice to Senior Management

clear line of communication is regarded, some formal hierarchy also needed, performance pay has to be more clear, more acceptance of flex time work

Pros

Great food, amenities and good compensation.
Excellent location in Chelsea.

Cons

#1- Current Recruiting practice has some very strange practices and the rather junior, mediocre recruiting staff are afraid to challenge

#2-Inflexible recruiting practices that hire against a set of ideals vs business needs. At least 1,000 people a day are screened out due to ridiculous ideals that are never questioned

#3-Recruiting practices that do not improve without 18 layers of approvals and weak recruiting leadership.

#4-Strong recruiters leave. Mediocre recruiters stay so that they can provide more convolution to an already convoluted process.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire for the business, creativity and potential, not academic credentials or schools. Get rid of the current recruiting leadership.