I Left at Google - Here's Why
Summary
TLDRIn this video, the speaker reflects on their decision to leave Google, a company with a market cap surpassing many countries' GDPs, known for its high employee perks and dream-like work environment. Despite Google's prestige and benefits, the speaker cites three main reasons for their departure: the fear of layoffs and subsequent reorganizations, the desire for new challenges and learning opportunities, and the pursuit of better compensation. They share their experience of Google's 20% project, which allows employees to explore other areas of interest, and discuss the impact of organizational size on work pace and learning. The speaker also highlights their new role at DoorDash, emphasizing the company's focus on innovation, technology stack, and the opportunity to work with large-scale data, which aligns with their career aspirations.
Takeaways
- 🚀 Google's market cap is around $2 trillion, placing it in the top 10 countries by GDP.
- 🍽️ Google is renowned for its exceptional employee perks, including free food that surpasses most restaurants and hotels.
- 🏢 The company's offices are described as some of the best in the world, with unique amenities like gaming arcades and rooftop decks.
- 🌐 Google's low acceptance rate of around 2-2.5% makes it more exclusive than prestigious universities like Harvard.
- 👨💻 The speaker left Google not to become an influencer or to start courses, but to join DoorDash, a food delivery service.
- 🛑 Google implemented a hiring freeze due to macroeconomic slowdowns, leading to layoffs and reorganizations that impacted employee morale.
- 🔄 Frequent managerial changes at Google reset the speaker's progress, as they had to adapt to new managers every 6 months.
- 💼 The speaker sought new challenges and learning opportunities, feeling that Google's bureaucratic processes hindered rapid growth and innovation.
- 💰 Financial considerations played a role in the decision to leave Google, with the speaker receiving a higher position and compensation at DoorDash.
- 📈 DoorDash offered a more dynamic environment with a focus on innovation and a diverse technology stack, aligning with the speaker's career goals.
Q & A
What is Google's current market cap and how does it compare to global GDPs?
-Google's current market cap is around $2 trillion, which places it among the top 10 countries with the highest GDPs.
Why is Google considered a prestigious employer in the software industry?
-Google is considered a prestigious employer due to its high market cap, generous perks, and being a dream company for many in the software industry.
What are some of the perks that Google is known for offering its employees?
-Google is known for offering perks such as free food, in-office amenities like spas and massages, gyms, cafeterias, and more.
How does the food provided by Google compare to other companies' offerings?
-Google's food offering is considered to be on another level compared to other companies, being better than most restaurants or hotels.
What are some unique features of Google's offices around the world?
-Google's offices feature unique amenities such as gaming arcades, dedicated bridges between buildings, in-office trams, rooftop decks, and stunning views from cafeterias.
What is the acceptance rate at Google and how does it compare to prestigious universities?
-Google has a very low acceptance rate of around 2-2.5%, making it more exclusive than some prestigious universities like Harvard.
Why did the speaker leave Google despite its reputation as an amazing place to work?
-The speaker left Google to pursue their passion, which includes teaching and enabling young kids, and not to become a full-time influencer or to launch courses.
What was the speaker's experience with Google's hiring freeze and layoffs?
-The speaker experienced a hiring freeze and layoffs at Google, which led to demoralization and reorganizations, impacting their decision to leave.
How does Google's size and scale affect the work environment and employee learning?
-Google's size and scale lead to a lot of reviews and approvals, which can slow down the pace of work and potentially hinder employee learning and innovation.
What was the speaker's reason for joining DoorDash after leaving Google?
-The speaker joined DoorDash for a level up in position and compensation, the opportunity to work with a large user base and transaction volumes, and the company's focus on innovation and improvement.
What is the significance of the '20% project' at Google and how does it impact employees?
-The '20% project' at Google allows employees to spend 20% of their time on projects outside their core work, but it doesn't significantly impact performance reviews, which can limit its effectiveness.
Outlines
🌟 Google's Prestige and Perks
The speaker discusses Google's impressive market cap, which rivals the GDP of many countries, highlighting its status as a prestigious employer. Google is known for its exceptional employee benefits, including free food that surpasses the quality of most restaurants, and a range of in-office amenities such as spas, gyms, and cafeterias. The speaker shares personal experiences visiting Google offices around the world, noting their unique features like gaming arcades, dedicated bridges for employees, and rooftop decks with stunning city views. Despite these perks, the speaker reveals that they have left Google, prompting curiosity about their reasons.
😟 Layoffs and Reorganizations at Google
The speaker recounts their experience during Google's hiring freeze and subsequent layoffs, which led to a demoralizing work environment due to the uncertainty and fear of job security. They describe the impact of these layoffs on team structures, with many reorganizations and manager changes occurring, which they felt hindered their progress and contributed to their decision to leave. The speaker also touches on Google's work-life balance and the limitations they perceived in the company's 20% project policy, which allows employees to work on passion projects but doesn't significantly impact performance reviews, leading to a focus on core work.
💼 Pursuing Opportunities and Growth
The speaker explains their move from Google to DoorDash, detailing the push and pull factors influencing their decision. They discuss the layoffs and reorganizations at Google as push factors that made them consider leaving. As for the pull factors, they were attracted to DoorDash's large market share, the opportunity to work with a diverse technology stack, and the chance to take on a role that combined data and AI engineering. They also appreciated DoorDash's focus on daily improvement and innovation, as well as the company's values and the vision shared by the team leaders. The speaker concludes by inviting viewers to engage in a discussion in the comments section.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Market Cap
💡Perks
💡Productivity
💡Reorganizations
💡Work-Life Balance
💡20% Project
💡Layoffs
💡DoorDash
💡Data Engineering
💡Compensation
Highlights
Google's market cap is around $2 trillion, ranking it among the top 10 countries with the highest GDPs.
Google is a prestigious employer known for its high pay and excellent employee perks.
Google offers free food and numerous in-office amenities such as spas, massages, gyms, and cafeterias.
Google's offices are considered some of the best in the world, with unique features like gaming arcades and rooftop decks.
Google's Paris office offers a stunning view of the Eiffel Tower from its cafeteria.
Google has a very low acceptance rate of around 2-2.5%, making it more exclusive than some prestigious universities.
The speaker left Google to pursue a passion for teaching and enabling young kids.
Google announced layoffs of about 6% of their workforce, affecting 12,000 employees.
Reorganizations following layoffs led to frequent changes in management, impacting employee progress.
Google's work-life balance is due to the extensive review and approval processes within the company.
The 20% project at Google allows employees to work on projects outside their core role, but it doesn't significantly impact performance reviews.
The speaker joined DoorDash for a level up in position and compensation.
DoorDash is the largest food delivery platform in the US with a 56% market share.
The new role at DoorDash combines data engineering and AI engineering, aligning with the speaker's expertise.
DoorDash's value of getting 1% better every day reflects a focus on continuous improvement.
The speaker resonated with the vision of the DoorDash team leaders, influencing their decision to join.
Transcripts
Google a company that is so huge that
its market cap is higher than most of
the country's gdps in fact if you look
at Google's current market cap which is
around $2 trillion it puts it into top
10 countries with the most highest gdps
it is seemingly one of the most
prestigious employer and a pay master
and kind of a dream company for many
people in the software industry it is
also known for incredible perks free
food and a lot of in-office amenities
like in office spa and massage um gym
and and cafeteria and many more things
yeah people say that a lot of other
companies also provide free food but
trust me if you compare it with Google
it it's just on another level in fact in
my experience it is better than most of
the festar restaurants or hotels that
I've been
in talking about offices Google offices
were also simply amazing like they were
one of the best offices that I've been
to I've visited four offices in New York
City
uh couple of offices in London one in
Paris one in Amsterdam and I've also
visited Pune and Mumbai offices in India
for example New York City office has
like an entire gaming arcade there's a
dedicated bridge that you can go through
from one building to another
specifically for Google employees there
is an in-office tra that takes you from
third floor to first
floor most of the offices have a rooftop
top deck from where you can see the
entire city like the Paris office almost
looks like a chatau or a French Palace
and it has one of the most amazing views
of effil tower directly from the
cafeteria one of the offices had like a
meditation area where you can just go
wind
down and then many offices also have
alcohol for some reason I'm not just
talking about beer or wine but actual
hard Liquors being in some of the office
for some reason the point being Google
offices are one of the best offices in
the world they spend exorbitantly on
offices another thing that Google is
known for is a very low acceptance rate
of around2 or. 5% which puts it at the
lowest compared to any other Fang
competitors and it has over like 3
million applicants per year which makes
it more exclusive to get into than some
prestigious universities like Harvard
but then if it is such an amazing place
to work then why did I leave Google
hello everyone this is Josh after having
spent over 2 years I have finally left
Google and in this video I'm going to
talk about why which is the most common
question that I've received by far in
fact there are three different reasons
why I did that but before I jump into
any of that do not forget to leave a
like And subscribe to the channel it
helps me out a lot all right so the
reason that I left Google is because I
wanted to pursue my passion my passion
to teach and enable young kids and to
feed off of their dreams and win the
battles of consumerism by putting out
DSA and system design courses every year
by making innocent Souls believe that
they can all get into
Fang sadly no I have not left Google to
become a full-time influencer or to
launch DSA or system design courses I
have in fact joined another organization
called door Dash if you're based in us
or Canada pretty sure you're pretty
familiar with do Dash but if you're not
well I'm going to talk about it later in
this video let's start talking about the
first actual reason why I left Google
Now believe it or not when it was my
very first day at Google I remember it
was 11th of July 2022 I received an
email from Sundar Pai not just me but
all the alphabet employees received an
email and that email contained that
because of slowdown in macroeconomic
situations uh they are going to place a
hiring freeze now my first reaction was
wow I'm so lucky that I got in just
before the hiring freeze but then after
a while I started thinking wait what if
like they start laying off people I
guess a few months 3 4 months after that
Google announced layoff they announced
lay off about 6% of their Workforce
which is 12,000 employees uh and they
did it overnight in the US like like
people lost access to their accounts
they could not enter the building
without any prior intimation that
something like this is going to happen
so obviously it was bad uh so in India I
think so we were kind of in a state of
limbo for about 2 3 months we didn't
like we knew that like we knew that the
final list they have the final list but
we are not sure if we are the ones in
that list or not so we were like in a
state of limbo and I'm pretty sure the
productivity was not good at that time
because people were like I'm doing all
this work but will I even be here after
2 3 months it's a yeah obviously it's a
bad feeling uh and finally it happened
in India after a few months and
fortunately uh because my team so I was
in cloud and AI team and both of them
were like the priority Focus for Google
at that point uh there were very less uh
the impact was very Less in my team but
uh I knew a lot of colleagues who were
impacted and it was very bad
demoralizing to be honest now because of
those layoffs a lot of reorganizations
happened so if somebody leaves from like
let's say the middle of the management
chain obviously the people that report
to them they have to be reassigned to
somebody else right so a lot of these
things were happening uh teams were
being shuffled there were new managers
coming in or old managers going out and
because of that in my 2 years of
experience that I had at Google I had
more than four different managers which
was obviously not ideal because I felt
like after every quarter or every 6
month my progress was kind of resetting
because I had new manager to report to
even though my technical core work or
the team remained the same these reog
were one of the major reasons about why
I thought about leaving Google second
reason is learning and new challenges so
Google is known for having the best work
life balance in the industry and do you
know how that happens because there are
lot of approvals and reviews needed
which is understandable right I mean
think about the scale that Google
operates in different products it almost
feels like different companies like
Google Cloud could be a separate company
uh Google search Google devices right
there are so many things that happens
within Google so the size of
organization is huge that leads to a lot
of reviews and approvals every time you
push a new feature naturally things are
slow which is understandable otherwise
it would have been complete chaos right
but the flip side of that is your
learning kind of gets hampered in that
process and one very great thing about
Google is that they have a 20% project
so if let's say you are bored of your
regular work like for example I'm
working in cloud and then I want to work
I'm interested in Google pixels I can
work in a Google pixel team and spend
20% of my time there but the problem
with that is because it's only 20% it
does not affect your performance reviews
that much and most of the time you told
by managers to focus on your core work
and which kind of makes sense but at the
same time it negates the point of having
a 20% project in the first place uh if
that makes sense now I'm going to be
honest here while I Was preparing for my
switch from Google to Door dash one
thing that I was doing a lot is learning
and upscaling uh because I Was preparing
for the interviews now because I had a
lot of relevant experience in the same
field it was relatively easy for me to
do so but if you are completely new to
data field obviously it can be very
daunting for you to figure out where to
start preparing for interviews and
that's where I believe Odin school can
help you out a lot at Odin school you
can focus on learning industry aligned
curriculum that is taught by live
instructors who have a ton of relevant
experience so you can kind of Master
your data analytics and machine learning
skills directly from the comfort of your
home they have over 5,000 successful
Learners who have been placed in top
companies and they have a total
portfolio of 500 plus top companies that
they are affiliated with you will get to
learn 115 plus live sessions more than
500 self-based learning courses and a
lot of assignment which will involve a
lot of Hands-On as well I recommend that
you go through the entire syllabus and
course so that you know what to expect
before you have committed to this course
and if you use the link that I have
provided you might get some additional
discounts uh thank you so much Odin
school for sponsoring this content now
let's continue with the rest of this
video third money I'm I'm not going to
sit here and say that money doesn't
matter it's not the most important thing
to me it is not the most important but
it is definitely one of the most
important things uh because let's be
honest here that that's the reason why
we all work in the first place right if
if we suddenly get about $100 million in
our bank accounts 99% of us will not
going to be working again it was an
important factor about why I left Google
so basically if you look at companies
like Amazon or Google the best place to
see how much employees are being paid
and what are different levels available
is to check levels. FYI so if you are
for example at Amazon the position start
from sd1 and then you get promoted to
sd2 and then you get PR Ed to like
senior software development engineer the
same thing at Google starts from S 2
which is the starting level but I don't
know why it is called two um so if you
uh see in anyone's LinkedIn profile like
they are s to at Google they are not
equal to sd2 at Amazon it's kind of
confusing and then after S2 you get
promoted to S3 and then you get promoted
to a senior software engineer role so
one very good thing that I got when I
moved from Google to Door Dash is I got
kind of a level up to a senior position
and that was also a level up in terms of
my compensation so it was obviously a
good deal and if you want to explore
about more of these things I would
definitely recommend check this out it's
not a sponsored message or anything but
it will help you a lot if you going
through any interview rounds and if you
have any questions uh about what levels
you should be considered for or what
salary are they usually paying for that
level levels. fi has a lot of
information yeah so these are the three
main reasons but that's not it usually
when you make a move from one
organization to another there are two
aspects involved one is push second is
pull so push is something that pushes
you away from your current organization
which I already talked about and then
pull is something that brings you closer
or make like pulls you towards your new
opportunity so let's talk about some
pull reasons about why I left Google and
and joined door Dash door Dash as you
can see it's an American company online
quick ordering and delivery company it
trades with the symbol Dash on NASDAQ so
it is a publicly listed company with a
56% market share in the US it is the
largest food delivery platform and it
also has a 60% market share in the
convenience delivery category so do Dash
does not have operations in India like
you cannot order things through door
Dash if you're living in India but they
have recently opened software
engineering office in Pune and that's
where I have joined door Dash obviously
has a really large user base
and a lot of orders happening on a daily
basis and a lot of transaction volumes
so that's obviously a really good sign
uh for a data or AI engineer because
they will get to work with uh data on a
different scale level and does is also
known for having a really good
technology stack it's based on AWS I was
working on AWS before I joined Google
and then I worked on gcp and then now
I'll again be working on AWS so I feel
like it will give me a good diverse
experience and this role was a mix of
data engineering and AI engineering
which was a perfect fit for me because
when I joined Google I joined as a data
engineer and then I moved to an AI
engineer role and when I moved to an AI
engineer role I understood the
importance of data engineering and even
if you are an AI engineer I'm telling
you you'll spend 50% of your time doing
data engineering tasks it's a much
smaller company compared to Google so
usually it has much more Dynamic
environment in a company like this
usually Innovation is focused more it
it's prioritized more and that's why
like you learn a lot you grow a lot
technically uh and one of the values
that I really found interesting about do
Dash is get 1% better every day so it
shows how much they are focusing on
improving day-to-day and if you apply
the same principle to your career it
it's a great thing I also like love
talking to the leaders uh of the team
that I was joining after I cleared out
all the interviews I was agreeing with
their Vision we had chat that was also
one of the reasons why I decided to join
do Dash um if you stuck around so far
thank you so much and uh do not forget
to leave a like And subscribe to the
channel if you have any questions or
anything that you would like to discuss
about let's talk about it in the comment
section below and that's it from my side
see you next time
Посмотреть больше похожих видео
Why I Skipped On-campus College Placements
Meet System Administrators at Google
DA DIPENDENTE A FREELANCE, DOVRESTI "BUTTARTI"?
How is life after returning to India from abroad? (USA to India)
How Working For Google, Amazon, And Microsoft Lost 'Dream Job' Status
Why Most Google Employees Quit After 1.1 Years (On Average)
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)