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Some Developers Leaving Google For Microsoft
recoiledsnake writes "We have heard about lots of talented developers jumping ship from Microsoft to Google, but is the trend beginning to turn? Dare Obasanjo (a Microsoft employee) writes about a few high-profile people picking Microsoft over Google — either making the jump directly, or choosing Microsoft after receiving offers at both. Sergey Solyanik is back to Microsoft and he primarily gripes about the culture and lack of career development at Google. He writes, 'Everything is pretty much run by [engineering] — PMs and testers are conspicuously absent from the process. Google as an organization is not geared — culturally — to delivering enterprise class reliability to its user applications.' Danny Thorpe, who was the key architect of Google Gears, is back at Microsoft for his second stint working on developer technologies related to Windows Live."
Observers report large numbers of chairs flying out the windows of Google headquarters. More at 11.
"Everything is pretty much run by [engineering] -- PMs and testers are conspicuously absent from the process."
Oh what a fucking nightmare!
How we know is more important than what we know.
"Google as an organization is not geared - culturally - to delivering enterprise class reliability to its user applications."
Whew, good thing Microsoft is.
"Google as an organization is not geared -- culturally -- to delivering enterprise class reliability to its user applications."
You don't have to be, when the entire on-line world is your beta test laboratory.
Sig this!
When I hear "...is not geared - culturally - to delivering enterprise class reliability to its user applications" as a reason to leave a company that's NOT microsoft to go work FOR microsoft, I have to wonder exactly how large the dump truck full of money was.
stuff |
"Google as an organization is not geared -- culturally -- to delivering enterprise class reliability to its user applications." - Sergey Solyanik
As opposed to Microsoft, which seems to be not geared - professionally - to delivering enterprise class reliability to its user applications.
but they better STFU while the engineers are talking.
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Everything is pretty much run by [engineering] -- PMs and testers are conspicuously absent from the process. Google as an organization is not geared -- culturally -- to delivering enterprise class reliability to its user applications. At Microsoft, everything is pretty much run by Marketing. Anybody who uses the marketing-speak phrase "delivering enterprise class reliability to its user applications" obviously has more of a marketing mindset than an Engineering mindset, and thus would be better off at Microsoft. If we are indeed seeing a migration of hard-core engineers from Microsoft to Google and of Marketing droids from Google to Microsoft, well than, I'd say the movement in both directions benefits Google! (I've seen many extremely talented software engineers go to work for Microsoft over the years, so if their software sucks, it's certainly not for lack of creative talent.)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
but most of them primarily help people waste time online (blogger, youtube, orkut, etc)
No, these are things to sell eyeballs for advertisers. That's what Google is about, making money with selling ads around easy to use and "fun" tools.
bash$
I prefer Austin. Our weather rocks, are salaries are great, and our houses are cheap. Unfortunately, Austin is surrounded by Texas.
I love how there is an article that has first hand accounts of why actual people are leaving Google to work at Microsoft and there still seems to be argument against Microsoft. The Rush Limbaugh's of the tech world. We always get emails on our team about people that used to work at Microsoft then go to another (Valve, google, etc..) and then come back after a couple of months of or a year complaining how the other engineering systems just suck. Microsoft does deliver world class products if you are willing to look past non SP1 Vista.
I'd have figured that they were just leaving Google so they'd actually have something interesting to do. At Microsoft, there's still loads of core functionality missing from their software.
The myriad possibilities for improvement simply boggle the mind.
I havn't RTFA's in a long time here, but wow, that second article is such a reminder in !RTFA = less desire to punch monitor. Wtf seriously, guy seems to be motivated only if people are buying the product as a measure of usefulness?? I dunno, maybe having 20 million people using some software you built might also be an indication of that? ;)
No doubt that's why the bookstores all have huge sections on 'dealing with depression' and great titles like 'bad weather, good mood' and 'gray skies aren't the end'.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I've worked at both. In terms of working environment, I found them both to be good, though in different ways (better food, more excitement at Google; private office at Microsoft). In terms of quality of life, I prefer Seattle, but in terms of jobs and networking, the Bay Area wins. In terms of software development processes, Microsoft's may look better on paper, but Google's seems to be better at actually delivering. In terms of management... Ballmer makes me wince. So, so far, it's a toss up.
The question to me is where each company is going. When Google release a new product, there is buzz and excitement, and usually something expensive and complicated gets cheaper and simpler. When Microsoft releases a new product, people either shrug or shudder and hold on to their wallets. Microsoft keeps trying to change things (Zune, Live, whatever), they keep buying companies (Danger, whatever), and it just doesn't seem to be working for them. Given the choice, I'd probably choose to work for Google; I just don't see Microsoft going anywhere.
...several sales associates left Walmart for Target.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Could not the "wiz kid" with a few freash ideas garner much more attention in such an envirnoment. And perhaps in doing so come more to the attention of the offer makers at google?
From personal experience as an engineer within a top-heavy business (although not with Microsoft) is that really there's no way to shine. They want you to do the job they want you to do and if there's something wrong with the process, the app, or the architecture there's no recourse.
If you want to learn a lot, be challenged and be a star, you need to be in a startup atmosphere. While I am sure there are many companies with that atmosphere, currently it seems as though the most public large company like that is Google.
Don't look at anything outside of tech if you want that atmosphere either. Non-tech companies (insurance, credit card companies, etc.) are run by business people and programmers are always a red in their ledger, they don't have a clue on how to deal with them.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Crappy weather? The south bay area, where Google is located, is widely considered to have some of the most consistently pleasant weather of anywhere in the US. It's 70-85 and sunny for 3/4ths of the year.
Ok so we have one guy who starts his essay with "Google sux!" and never actually worked for the company, only interviewed with them. Then we have two people who worked at Microsoft, then worked at Google and got hired back at Microsoft, and are now praising their current employer. How is this newsworthy?
Also someone who complains when "Everything is pretty much run by the engineering" and who uses phrases like "delivering enterprise class reliability to its user applications" is a marketing droid and should not be trusted. As a sidenote I find it funny that he criticizes Google's offerings with the statement "most of them primarily help people waste time online" listing Blogger as his first example, on Blogger itself.
The fact I can afford a house on a software engineer's salary in Seattle, but not San Francisco?
1) If we're limiting this to specific cities, then yes.
2) Otherwise, if we're talking areas, then not quite.
3) And you can always rent, which is much cheaper than a 30 year mortgage. If you want, save the difference and invest in CDs (the financial kind!) or another safe investment. In 30 years, just buy the property outright (or pretty close to outright).
They both have crappy weather, so everything else equal, Seattle wins.
1) Are we limiting this to specific cities?
2) Otherwise, absolutely no way. SF weather is uniquely SF. Go across the SF Bay to Oakland on the same day and it'll be nice and sunny. Cold in SF? Drive down to San Jose.
Plus, growing up in Oregon, I have an ingrained hatred towards anything California.
That really says it all.
Here's what I have to say about Oregon: Socialized gasoline pumps.
I drive up there, and when I go for gas (god forbid), I can't get an attendant to come out and pump for my car. But all hell breaks loose when I've waited for 20 minutes (after 2-3 waves of Oregonians are serviced ahead of me) and touch that gas pump. That's right! It's illegal to pump your own gas. For a state of people that are supposedly very constructionally conservative about the Constitution and taxes, you'd think people would be able to pump their own gas. Instead they've legislated into existence an entire labor class. So, whenever I see this hatred expressed toward CA, I just think, "hypocrites."
But yet, I don't hate entire states. I have better things to do.
the bay area is VERY cool. I live here, so I know.
but life at google is not life in the bay area. google is its own sub-culture in every way. note, I don't mean that in a good way.
what good is being in sunny calif when you are slaved (peer pressure) to work till 9pm? driving home at dark kills a lot of the fun of sunny california...
you want both weekends? to yourself? really? again, google is not the place for you.
if you want to ENJOY the bay area, google is not the place. free food != 'good lifestyle'.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
As a resident of the weather-blessed United Kingdom, I say: "HAH!"
There's a system of levels at Microsoft, and the "interestingness" of work, range of influence and pay depend on the levels (within limits predetermined for each level).
It's a well known fact that the easiest way to get a level increase at the higher levels is to leave Microsoft and then come back. Some folks jump over two levels after just two years outside the mothership - this is simply not achievable if you're L63-64. Sergey returned as (at least) L65. Good for him. Skipping his blog drivel, let's not assume that he did it for anything but a bag of cash and a large signing stock grant.
That said, Microsoft _is_ a great place to work, if you can ignore the bureaucracy. The pay is good, the benefits are second to none (no free lunches, tho), you get your own office (most of the time, anyway), and if you have a family, there's simply no better large tech company to work for.
They are both huge huge corporations.
They both have a ton of acquired businesses, products, and services that are buried in their rubble of bloat.
And they both, to this day, only make money from selling what got them into the business in the first place. For google that would be Adsense, and for MS, Windows and Office.
So whichever company you choose, you probably won't make a difference, just like all the failed developers before you.
Everything microsoft does is geared towards department level computing. Their entire AD implementation is right out of 1986; Netware had better enterprise features. And somebody better tell Microsoft that had they simply used LDAP, they wouldn't have to blow billions on AD. Provisioning and employee lifecycle? They're the only major software company in the world with no solution there.
Their products ooze of something designed for a company with 100-1000 employees. Imagine that you have apps that when installed force servers to reboot. Imagine your major subsystems run as services so it becomes problematic when you what process level isolation of app server. Imagine to get an app server, you *must* install IIS. Imagine that when you want multiple versions of .NET, it's not as simple as just having multiple directories for each instance, you actually have to *install* it on the server with admin privileges.
My MS rep called the other day, and I said not interested since they have no enterprise architecture tools. He tried to sell me Sourcesafe and MS's IDE because "it has architecture tools in it". I pointed out that software engineering is not equal to enterprise architecture except in a most tangential way. He had no idea what I was talking about except to ask what "my definition" of Enterprise Architecture is. When a salesman has to challenge his customer that they don't understand, he/she is clearly not atuned to what's happening in the IT industry.
It goes on and on. It's like the entire thing at MS was designed by CompSci students who are killer coders, but don't have any idea of how to do things like master data management. They have no concept of a TDS versus an ODS. Everything at MS is a hodge-podge of cute little features that break down as soon as you try to do something more complex than "write a killer web page that pulls inventory in real time from a data base". Mind you, that's a great app for a small company, but stuff that you can do faster/cheaper with free solutions like linux/apache/mysql. I don't need to actually pay a large company for software licenses for crap like that.
Ironically, the scientists at MS have some great ideas and understand these concepts really well. The products, however, reflect none of that work. They're too busy locking in the OS with products. Like they're afraid their stuff won't sell on it's own, so you've got to buy the whole kit and kaboodle
I see MS as headed for a cliff as fast as their sales will take them. They're doomed in the same way IBM was doomed back in the late 80's.
Maybe because quality of life includes other factors besides the weather. And Seattle has ranked at the top in terms of quality of life for a long time. The bay area however isn't much further down the list.
Seattle has extremely mild weather year round that rarely causes enough discomfort that proper clothing can't fix. At worst its just cloudy too many days of the year. If you think that's the even remotely close to the worst you really should leave your bedroom sometime. 1 month in Tokyo during the rainy season will show you what messed up weather really is. A down poor at 80 degrees with extreme humidity in June is a lot worse than 60 degrees with overcast. A monsoon interrupting 100 degree whether is messed up, especially when you aren't surrounded by palm trees and coconuts.
So Google isn't "geared... culturally" to deliver enterprise class reliability.
What's Microsoft's excuse?
Game... blouses.
As a Seattle resident, I can tell you that 1) the bookstores have no such thing
Out of stock in Seattle isn't really a defense...
From Dare Obasanjo's excerpts of Sergey Solyanik's blog, about Google: "Everything is pretty much run by the engineering - PMs and testers are conspicuously absent from the process. While they do exist in theory, there are too few of them to matter."
To me, the story lacks sufficient deep analysis to be sure we understand Mr. Solyanik's experiences.
I doubt that very many people are moving from "Do no evil" to "Doing a lot of evil is the only way we know to make a living".
What is Windows Vista but a rather unimportant update to Windows XP, that failed? Microsoft Word has new menus, but changing the menus also means that Microsoft now has two menu arrangement standards in use at the same time, and users must master them both. Internet Explorer version 7 has a third menu arrangement, further breaking the standard with which those who just want to use their computers are so familiar. TrueCrypt developers are talking about suing Microsoft in European court because of anti-trust violations.
Is that the direction successful people want to go?
To understand this story, it's good to know more about Dare Obasanjo, in my opinion. He's intelligent, he's a good communicator, and he has a history of being very effective at promoting himself. To me, his story is just him being himself, and promoting himself to Microsoft. Maybe it is not very indicative of what is happening at Microsoft.
Dare Obasanjo's excerpts of Sergey Solyanik's blog start with, "Last week I left Google to go back to Microsoft".
In contrast, Sergey Solyanik says "There are many things that Google does really well, and I plan to advocate that some of these things be adopted at Microsoft."
Mr. Solyanik went back to Microsoft because he didn't like the openness and lack of structure at Google. He wants more structure. He doesn't want to be a manager, and he doesn't want to decide himself the direction of what he is doing.
Dare Obasanjo's excerpts are misleading, in my opinion. As I said, he seems to me to be promoting himself to Microsoft, rather than understanding anything about why a particular person would quit Google after only a year there and go back to Microsoft. Also, Mr. Solyanik may have been given a very sweet deal; that is not discussed.
More: Note that Mr. Solyanik's profile has a link to MSFT needs an extreme makeover.
Quote:
"It's sobering to realize that during Ballmer's term as CEO, MSFT has underperformed almost all of its top tech peers (including AAPL, IBM, HPQ, SAP, INTC, CSCO, SYMC, NOK, ORCL, ADBE, RIMM, QCOM, Ebay, and AMZN), and badly lagged the major averages. We may even see our third plunge to test the 2000 lows during his watch. Unbelievable. There may be another major technology CEO with an equivalent or worse track record who is still in power, but a name doesn't come readily to mind."
In my opinion, Microsoft depends for much of its profit on adversarial behavior.
Facts
- Seattle average home cost - 400kish
- Bay area home cost - 600-650kish
- WA state taxes - 0
- CA state taxes - pwned paycheck
Believe me, if I started murdering people, there would be none of you left.
I've worked at a number of big, slow, sclerotic corporations. Each time I've left, I've been told stories about how tough the world is on the outside and how others who have attempted to make a go of it have returned. When I look at the people who returned, it became clear that the big, cruel world is an excellent filter for the sorts of people who can take risks and produce results. Those who can't will return to the womb. These people returning make the 'mommy company' all that much slower and bloated.
I've been approached to return, but if the company couldn't make it worth my while to get me to stick around, things have only gotten worse since I've left.
Have gnu, will travel.
No, I didn't RTFA, but I'd guess the quality of life in Seattle is about, oh, one billion times better than the Bay Area.
Having lived at both places, being a native Washingtonian I would bluntly call BullS*** on the quality of life being better in Seattle than the Bay Area.
They are both over-urbanly developed, they both are full of self-egrandizing, gutless prigs who equally would be lost in the Cascades, regardless of their cozy home in Snoqualmie Falls or North Bend, et.al.
The problem with the IT Industry is that it has discovered that their centers for the Industry haven't changed in over 30 years.
Sure they've expanded into the suburbs of Portland, but on the West Coast you have Silicon Valley, Seattle and the LA region.
The East Coast is fixated with New York, Boston and various universities of reknown to be incubators for more startups stuck in what? Overly priced, pretentious cespools.
Look around. The best places to see growth aren't the sexy urban centers, or mystical retreat forrests in certain zones across the U.S.
They are in areas that offer actual growth and a solid standard of living, a variety of outdoor options and a midscale urban life.
The problem is they aren't saturated with every pindick fixated on the latest gadgets.
The Cost of Living in the Bay Area sucks big hairy donkey balls. It's sucked since the early 90s so that's nothing new.
The Cost of Living in Seattle has sucked big hairy donkey balls since 1996, as well.
Corporations would better serve themselves by providing regional zones where they develop centers for specific products/services and then use Networks to coordinate all this activity.
Dumping everyone onto Redmond's campus or Infinite Loop One's campus [my second favorite to work at next to NeXT], Google's et.al, aren't inherently going to produce think tanks of brilliance.
An example of an area that is burgeoning, but only in the BioMedical Fields is Spokane, WA.
If you're in these fields they've got jobs coming out of every orifice. Growth is strong, the summers are a scorcher [I grew up there] and the 4 seasons are solid. The city would have become a much larger hub if Expo '74 hadn't destroyed the second largest hub of trains west of Chicago but we can't go back in time to fix that mistake.
The bigger problem with the IT Industry is how many damn people do you need to write Web Services Applications? Really, now. How many? Every f'n device gets a rowdy two thumbs up if it has the ubiquitous Web Services, Web Browser, huge data plans and apps to show them where they can find the nearest movie, restaurant and more.
When is the IT Industry going to start seriously working with the traditional industries and streamline them into the 21st century?
I don't need multiple portable devices. I need solutions to improve a crumbling US Infrastructure, but instead we've got people just a year younger than myself whining about career growth differences between Google and Microsoft.
F*** OFF. Instead of being a Development Manager, actually find something that is screwed up that computers could fix and fix it.
Then try to explain why Vancouver BC is constantly ranked near or at the top of the most livable cities in the world. The northwest is a great place to live. The weather contributes to the variety of activities we have. You have snowboarding and beaches all in one city. It keeps things fresh. Sure a little more sun in the summer would be nice but when I add it all up, there isn't really anywhere else I'd rather live geographically. Disclaimer: I've only lived in Vancouver and Seattle though I've certainly traveled to the bay area.
Indeed, it is illegal for a customer to pump gas in Oregon. Supposedly, gasoline is considered too toxic and dangerous for mere mortals to touch, and so it must be pumped and handled by highly trained staff (you know, that guy who dropped out of school in the 9th grade and you didn't see again).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Eh, I won't claim that the cost of living in the bay area is good, but your comments about being peer pressured into working until nighttime and weekends at google, aren't true.
As you said "I work there, so I know".
Sure, some people work there late, some by choice, and others because they showed up at work after noon.
Sure, amongst 10K+ employees, you can find a few who are working late nights or occasional weekends, but those are definitely the exception more than the rule, and this is no different than your average company in the bay area.
Also, believe it or not, but some geeks actually work nights and weekends, not because they have to, or feel pressured, but because they really have nothing else they want to do with their time.
This has nothing to do with Google, some of the ones I know have always done this, whichever company happens to pay their salary at the time.
Oh, and I apologize for working there and having a good livestyle with freetime during which I enjoy doing other things. Really, I'm sorry.
If you put down enough capital and have good credit you can easily get a mortgage payment less than monthly rent, at least in a metropolitan area.
A house costs $700K+. Banks want 20% down right now, which works out to at least $140,000. Once you get past the "Who has that kind of money laying around?" you're now getting a loan on $560,000.
Seriously, good luck with that. I'm not being sarcastic.
Or, you can drive 2 hours each way M-F, for a place out in the middle of nowhere which still costs $350K. Now you definitely need a car because you're probably not too near other people who work in the same company for carpooling. If you're not burning $5/gal fuel and getting ulcers from the bad commute, then you're spending all your time on a train. Either way, that's 4 hours a day wasted on commute. Note that I haven't mentioned, until now, a spouse and kids. Forget being around for your family during the week. I know people who've done it (single and married w/ kids) but they have all burned out. I couldn't do that.
Once again, none of this is sarcasm or exaggeration. In fact, it may be somewhat conservative, even with this current blip in the housing market.