Why I left Google Zurich

Prehistory



I often hear this question from different people, and now I will try to answer it.



Probably it's no secret for anyone, but still: how does Google work? They recruit the best engineers, pay them quite a lot (even for Switzerland) wages and create amazing working conditions: free food, massage in the office, phantasmagoric recreation areas , a children's slide going down to the dining room, etc. This is very cool, journalists like to write about it, but only it does not matter.



Well, how many times will you go down to the dining room on a hill and is it important? Free food has led to the fact that most googles get fat five pounds after finding a job, while denying themselves the pleasure of going to lunch every day at a new restaurant.

')

What determines how well you are at work: free food, massage, design of recreation areas or the work you do? I am sure that what you do every day really matters and how much joy this activity brings. Google hires the best engineers and at the same time gives most of them the routine, simple work that does not correspond to their education, experience, or ambitions. This is certainly reasonable, since even small improvements multiplied by the number of users lead to substantial revenues. Programmers, by the way, treat this differently. Many are happy with everything. But here I came to the conclusion that I can’t do stupid work only for really big money, which Google is not ready to pay. For some, this threshold of sensitivity to uninteresting work is probably lower. It's funny that I formulated it for myself during the corporate training “Search inside myself”. I found that I want to leave and do my job :) I know at least five more who left at about the same time and for about the same reason. Although, for the company, it’s probably good when not very happy employees leave to do their start-ups. And this is definitely good for the industry as a whole. The question is how much dissatisfied remains.



Life goes on, and I want to live it doing cool, bright things. We make offline MapsWithMe maps for iPhone and Android . The project, from which we are “rushing”, and which could not happen in Google. Because there are plans, deadlines and priorities that came from above, managers and intrigues, etc.



I recently spoke at Minsk Startup Weekend , and my colleague and companion Sergei was sitting in the hall at that time and ... was coding. When the presenter noticed this and asked into the microphone why he was not listening, he replied that he was trying to devote all his free time to the project and work. The audience, consisting mainly of startups, just burst into applause. It seems to me that after this moment the atmosphere in the hall changed, and Sergey infected that Startup Weekend with his mood for the next two days.



I also noticed that people who feel the drive from life often sleep a little. Working in Google, I slept for 9 hours and still went sleepy. Today we have a paid version for iPhone , and although over the last week I slept no more than five hours a night, I still jumped today after five hours of sleep and ran to watch how the purchases go there :)



People sometimes ask me, is it true that everything is so cool in Google? True, there is very cool and unusual. Is it true that this is a big company with its bureaucracy? Also true. Does this not need to go there to work? No, it does not mean. I think it's useful to go to Google after university, work there for a few years to learn and then leave to do your own cool projects.