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Comparison of Working at the 3 Big Search Giants
castironwok writes "Finally, everything you've ever wanted to know about being an employee at Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Tastyresearch describes his (or her) past few years interning and working at the three companies. Things I didn't know from before: Bill Gates wears old shoes, Google's internal security watches you like a hawk, the office styles of each company, and how to fill your suitcase with Google T-shirts. He calls the few select companies the 'prestigious internship circle', noting 'once you have worked at one, it's a lot easier to get into another'."
Microsoft? There are people who use MSN for searching? Name two.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Yahoo prefers one 24" monitor compared to the dual setup at Microsoft and Goolgle(19" and 20" respectively) Considering that most 24" LCDs cost at least as much if not more than a pair of smaller ones, I wonder why they opted for less screen real estate(also interesting to me since I am in the market to upgrade displays and am debating between the two setups as well)
Monstar L
Perhaps, some jewel of knowledge a previous intern either didn't have or wouldn't give up?
Nah, it's not that. These companies are far, far too honest for that.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
When I worked at Yahoo, I had to say things like "Doinky doink" to my boss and paint my face green on one side and white on the other since I was the guy in charge of the Saskatchewan part of Yahoo...wherever the hell Saskatchewan is...anyway... the people in the cubes next to me where chimpanzees but they wore "Richard Nixon" halloween masks.
When I worked a Microsoft, I had to wear a suit, but the suit was in camoflage colours. My supervisor (I never did find out his name, I only knew him as "XZ95") was in charge of BTLIME.DLL, the subroutine that made sure that the system clock didn't accidentally exceed the number "6"...a big responsibility.
Finally, I got a job at Google... I don't know how it's going because I've spent all my time trying to win the "special day" competition to remake the "Google" web page logo on those "special days"
Thanks for listening
"Google's internal security watches you like a hawk"
Uhh...no. I walk around with my badge concealed, explicitly to see how much of a problem it causes, and I have been stopped less than a handful of times this year, and probably less than twenty last year. (Barring events that are explicitly high-security.)
This is intersting information for someone who is looking to be an intern, but that's about it.
Al have interesting work, good pay, interesting areas to live. "May you be cursed with job offers from all three" and have to decide :-)
The blogger's favorite Microsoft app is Outlook Express? Well, I guess given the choices...
He was handing out free xboxes in college before landing as an intern in Microsoft in 1994, That's the year that windows 95 was launched, I definitely do not remember seeing or hearing about xboxes at that time of the year.
Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips."
One of my sites receives approximately 2500 visitors from MSN searches each day. Mind you, Google tends to contribute upwards of 12000 every day, and Yahoo! about 4500.
This doesn't surprise me at all -- I'm sure you're seen as not only good enough to have worked at the other ones, but as a possible wealth of information about the workings of the others. And you're cheaper and lower-profile than hiring away the competition's bigger fish.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The MS one is big because its running IIS on Vista.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
When I worked in the military everyone was supposed to have badge-on-display and everybody was supposed to look at badges all the time. The top security guy rigged a test: He had an arbitrary soldier replace his picture with one of a baboon. He walked past security points at least 6 times a day and was only discovered after 6 months when he dropped his card and people had a really close look at it.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
At my last contract job at MS, I really tried to use MSN search...
Sometimes the site wouldn't even load, sometimes clicking on search results would fail (because the click-tracking would fail), sometimes the main MSN site would show an server error. Each of these things were rare, but given how many things have to happen to complete a search task, overall I would estimate a 10% failure rate, to get any results at all.
Meanwhile, Google ALWAYS works. I have never once seen Google fail to load, or produce proper results. If Google doesn't load, I know it's my local network that's the problem.
Maybe it's the Parallel nature of Google's configuration vs. the apperently Serial setup of MSN. If a machine at Google fails, it dosn't affect much else, while one failure at MSN breaks the chain.
I wonder why?
Oh, that would explain it.
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2000 is a distant memory. In 2000, VA Linux and Redhat were the it companies. Work at one and you could work at the other and the world would kill tthemselves for your autograph. Now no-one even knows what VA Linux was and Redhat is a troll. Hard to believe in 4 years we'll probably forget what Google was.
The guy wrote "horderves" to mean "hors d'uvres".
Now we know that he values perks and the showy stuff. Good luck chatting, networking and backstabbing your way up the 9 levels of management at Yahoo. Where I work there are no super stars, no free anything but I can come and go whenever I want (9 to 5 is no problem, too), get a really good reliable paycheck and most importantly the work is interesting and unpretentious. No need to sacrifice my private life for an endless string of office parties and chic gossip.
I think that IDs give a false sense of security: here is why...
I did a little experiment at my old job that required an ID be displayed...I just wore it backwards...all that was on the back was a company logo and RFID chip to open the main door and the data center: never once did security ask to see the picture and credentials that I was concealing...
Our High school (2000-2004) made us wear IDs, the kids from the catholic school down the street would use IDs from the previous year or IDs that others had "lost" to sneak in and at lunch with their friends at our local public school...almost never getting busted. even by random ID checks that the lunch cashiers did.
The place I work now doesn't have IDs, just a magnetic card that you swipe to get in the secure doors after hours...there is not a security problem because everyone knows enough other people that if you cant answer a few questions in a casual conversation, you will be busted in 10 minutes...questions like "new here? welcome aboard, what position are you filling?" and "oh, who manages that dept?"...that is the place where I have felt the SAFEST...
These places sound great in theory but the more you think about it, the more phony and limiting they become.
Consider that they provide all of these resources to keep you on their campus as long as possible. Their entire goal is to squeeze as much work out of you they can while prolonging the time it will take you to burn out. They create their own small community you're expected to be a part of at almost all times.
Maybe I'm in the minority but my work isn't my life. I enjoy what I do but I don't stay at the office any long than I have to. I have friends to see, places to go and personal endeavors to get to that don't involve my company. I don't want my recreational activities to be sponsored by or provided by my company. I'm not sure I want to work in a place that "optionally" provides these facilities as they become expectations of the employees and those that shun them become outcast by their coworkers.
It's like if you don't participate in as many work related activities as possible, you'll alienate yourself and not be part of the brainwashed masses at your company of choice.
Maybe I'm old fashioned but I get to the office, I do my job and after about 8 hours or so I go on my way and do whatever I want to do. I get lunch with some friends at places of our choice. I'll even participate in work related and non-work related recreational activities with people. But it's not a way of life.
I don't know, something about working for a company that has created facilities and devices to keep you occupied under their roof for as long as possible seems a little fishy. I don't trust companies like this. They don't have your best interest's in mind, like most companies, but try and create diversions from this. Many young geeks end up wasting their youth in this corporate socialism.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
"This is intersting information for someone who is looking to be an intern, but that's about it."
I'm waiting to hear from the janitors.
Haha... making IE the default browser on Windows and counting the Home Page hits as searches doesn't make M$ jack shit in search except for the legacy thugs they've always been.
Most Yahoo! employees get laptops. Most laptops can only connect a single external display.
It's scary being a Flash and Flex developer on Slashdot. You guys are unnaturally rabid.
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"Really, everyone would rather just hire competent, trustworthy people who will do their actual job well and with appropriate discretion. No one is looking for a stool pigeon."
The FBI is.
Since you've worked no where, no one will hire you for lack of experience. I laugh at jokes even when they're at my expense.
God spoke to me.
In his table, under "Research Lab", Google gets a "Not really". This guy has absolutely no idea about what he's talking about. Google has some of the most cutting-edge research in the industry. They almost always have research papers published at the conferences that I attend (so does MS, but Yahoo rarely does). Here are some examples.
After reading this article over I realize just how much it sucks to work for RIM (www.rim.com). We don't get any perks like the any of these companies, hell the cafeteria in my building only has vending machines. Free? All we get now is water from coolers, very bad coffee, and a random piece of RIM clothing once a year. It's actually amusing to watch 6000 people walk around the RIM campus wearing the same jacket. :) Hell, they are so cheap for developers that I had to *fight* to expense a book on C++ network programming for a library I use everyday. The end deal was I could expense a new 30-40 dollar book every 2-3 months, which doesn't help me now :)
:) Maybe I should dust off the resume and start looking!
Don't get me started on the cancellation of stock options for everyone in RIM since 2002, except for upper management of course.
RIM = IBM pretending to be a start-up.
Anyway, I just wish I had the problem of choosing between MS, Google, and Yahoo for a job.
TFA is correct; Google has no research lab. Google's papers are based on Google's experiences building the world's largest distributed system. They are published for two reasons; first is that that is interesting to computer science researchers and second is that everyone loves Google. Google does have "Google Labs" but their responsibility is product development on Google's primary product, the Google search engine. Google has nothing that is comparable to (for example) Microsoft Research, which works on numerous different computer science problems, many of which do not have any immediate application in Microsoft's products.
All Google software engineers get laptops. Plus the desktop!
fuck working at a web company i'd much much rather work at MS. look at the perks and the pay its way over what the other give you? i'd kiss bill gates ass at every oppertunity
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Interesting way to look at it. However, if you haven't figured it out already, most companies are trying to figure out how to suck the last erg of productivity from their workers. The bigger they are the worse this tendency is. I suppose what you are getting at is here there are examples of companies that have the audacity to attempt to make you like it. Frankly these kinds of efforts to suck me dry is a problem I wish existed with my employer.
These kinds of perks are not evil underhanded attempts to suck the life from you. To me they are a company realizing it is OK for them to try and make you like working for them and hoping that in return they get more from you. It is a win win if you ask me. One of the worst fall outs from the late 90's dot bomb crash was that seriously desirable perks got lumped in right along with non-existent business plans or a real product as reasons for these companies failing. True enough some of the companies went overboard in this area but among the reasons for their failures the perks were by and large window dressing... they were an easily remembered excess. The Corporate workplace is due for a serious overhaul. The siege mentality of most cube hell workers is not a good thing. You want to talk about places designed to suck the life out of someone... It is well past time the work place was designed to be more lived in. Hell, we spend close to a 1/3rd of our adult lives in one. Why shouldn't work spaces be more comfortable and inviting?
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
How do guys like this afford to do these internships? Are they paid? Does the bank of mommy and daddy pay the way?
Seriously. I've got no bank of mom and dad, work and go to school. How do I do it when I'm the one who feeds/clothes myself?
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
I don't know about MS or Google, but I did an internship at Yahoo!, and my salary was excellent. In fact, it was considerably higher than anything I was expecting (and well above market average).
He's not alone. You would be amazed at how many people do that or the equivalent even when they know the whole domain name. Like typing www.thisdomain.ca into the search engine instead of on the address line. Even after you try to explain it.
Some people even ask if I have Google on my machine.
Read somewhere that one of the big search queries on Yahoo! was google. And vice-versa. Guess ditto for MSN.
And at MSFT, everyone in my team has a laptop (either a Tecra or VAIO, Core (2) Duo, 2GB), and similar desktop, dual 19" LCDs.
Seriously hiding your badges? I regularly walk out of AMD with 16000 dollar servers. Hint: Use the side door. (BTW people I am not stealing :). My lab and my office just happen to be in different buildings).
But if you want a really really cool software job you should come work at a hardware company. Thats where the men get separated from the boys. To be able to send of emails to Linus saying please change this piece of code on the next kernel because it will work better this way due to the new features our hardware boys have dreamt up is kind of priceless)
**Life is too short to be serious**
It could be more due to the fact that they couldnt get away with such human right violations in Europe. Its only in America that the law says once you are inside a corporate building normal laws regarding search and surveillance without warrants dont apply.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Sigh... I guess this is a Google/Yahoo pissing contest. Yes, Yahoo engineers can have a laptop and desktop if they want, too.
The guards are outside the buildings, not in them.
...on the TV compared to the monitor.