Google Reviews in San Jose, CA Area

Current Employee – been working at Google full-time for less than a year

Pros – The people I work with are great. From everyone that I talk to, everyone says all the free food in the world can't replace the caliber of people one works with... I totally agree. Onsite massage therapist and all the food you can eat is great but the people I work with are smart, forward thinking, and thinking about what is best for the users and company.

Cons – Very fast paced. Reorgs all the time. If you're not proactively bettering your position in the company you can find yourself "reorg'ed" out of a position. Google Offers is an internal starup so very volatile.

Advice to Senior Management – Great job

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Google full-time for less than a year

Pros – Freedom to pursue self-identified projects, supportive and competent co-workers, and., of course, lots of free food.

Cons – More challenging to advance outside of headquarters.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Google full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – - Perks/food/offices
- Innovation
- Leader in the industry. Your design and creation will set the tone.

Cons – - Might appear fast moving company but it's a multinational bureaucracy

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Google as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – Amazing culture! Great energy and many opportunities.

Cons – Sometimes decisions were hard to come by due to so much consensus.

Advice to Senior Management – More focus on career development within teams would be good.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Google full-time for more than a year

Pros – All engineers get to code a lot.

Cons – Many 1-person projects. Need to learn many layers of Google-specific technology to get anything done.

Advice to Senior Management – Promote best practices for small team success throughout the company.

Current Employee – been working at Google full-time for more than a year

Pros – Management is very supportive and projects always involve new and exciting challenges. Great place to work.

Cons – need more lanes in the bowling alley

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Google as a contractor for more than a year

Pros – Intelligent people from different background and culture. Perks.

Cons – Perks, benefits, and culture may spoils you after you leave the company.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Google full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Very good total compensation and benefit

Cons – Too much work, lack of respect, bad work/life balance

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Google full-time for more than a year

Pros – Never been happier at a company. Lots of challenges everyday, and you work with the brightest people in the world. Unlike a lot of big companies, people are willing to help one another. Big Google also tries to foster meritocracy, and every year they have a company wide survey that helps lower, middle, and upper management know what to improve directly from tens of thousands of Googler feedback.

Cons – Some Googlers are self-entitled and not just to non-Googlers but to other Googlers as well. I blame it on poor hiring decisions. There's tremendous growth at Google and sometimes despite their best intentions, poor hiring decisions are made.

In some parts of the business, it's very political. Can be challenging if you don't know how to play the game.

Some managers are too busy to show their reports tough love or real 1:1 mentoring.

Advice to Senior Management – On customer service: Care about customer support to a degree that it doesn't make financial sense. Google has some of the best products on the market, and customers expect the same level of 1:1 support. This applies to any customer or partner that is paying for services or products.

On people management: Find out which jobs are being performed that are low impact (usually non-sales metric driven roles) Give bad managers attention as soon as the GoogleGeist results come out. Their reportees may be really suffering.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Google full-time for more than a year

Pros – Some of the most brilliant minds have solved many of infrastructure's big woes today. Learning how it's done is quite exciting. Also, free food everywhere, awesome campus, and travel opportunities.

Cons – Can be hard to find projects with high impact due to the companies size.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company