What is it like working for Google or Facebook?

[karthikc]

Has anyone at Pakpassion worked at either of these companies? Can you share your experience

 

[Syed1]

A friend of mine works at Apple. He says the pay is excellent, there are a lot of benefits but everytime I walk into work i feel like I have my hair is on fire.

These companies are only glamorous on the outside but once you get in you realize they make you work like crazy.

 

[Pakpak]

Cousin worked for Terradata and IBM. Good pay and looks excellent on CV. He has travelled a lot as well especially for working for the latter company.

 

[karthikc]

A friend of mine works at Apple. He says the pay is excellent, there are a lot of benefits but everytime I walk into work i feel like I have my hair is on fire.

These companies are only glamorous on the outside but once you get in you realize they make you work like crazy.

The facilities at Google offices around the world seem great!! But yes..bheja fry hoga kaam se

 

[TahirFan]

Every company is out to make a profit, some have better benefits than others but from my experience what makes a company pleasurable to work for are their people.

 

[Yossarian]

Ultimately, companies will not spend more on you than the going market rate for that role and that quality of individual. Whether that's in terms of better pay, better benefits, better facilities or a better looking office chair.

Furthermore, much depends upon one's immediate boss and direct line of management. You could be working for a 'great' company, with great policies, but have a lousy line boss/manager who treats you like sh1t, clamps down hard if you're even a minute late, makes it difficult for you to have time off even for personal emergencies, and your life becomes hell.

There's a saying that good salaries and benefits will attract you to a job, but after a while it won't be enough to keep you there even if the pay is great.

 

[Sachin136]

I have worked for some of the Big 4 in short term FT positions and it was a great experience. I found it very different from the work environment in startups.

A friend of mine works at Apple. He says the pay is excellent, there are a lot of benefits but everytime I walk into work i feel like I have my hair is on fire.

These companies are only glamorous on the outside but once you get in you realize they make you work like crazy.

I didn't find that to be the case at all. The environment is relaxed and the hours aren't excessive. However, I have a few friends working at places like Citadel or Two Sigma who complain of being overworked, but they also get compensated more.

 

[JaDed]

I have worked for some of the Big 4 in short term FT positions and it was a great experience. I found it very different from the work environment in startups.



I didn't find that to be the case at all. The environment is relaxed and the hours aren't excessive. However, I have a few friends working at places like Citadel or Two Sigma who complain of being overworked, but they also get compensated more.

What are the programming languages you are working on right now?

 

[Dios]

I have worked for some of the Big 4 in short term FT positions and it was a great experience. I found it very different from the work environment in startups.

Big 4 as in the Big 4 accounting firms? Where did you work and which service line?

 

[Sachin136]

What are the programming languages you are working on right now?

Mostly use C++, Java, Python and Matlab.

Big 4 as in the Big 4 accounting firms? Where did you work and which service line?

Big 4 as in Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft.

 

[AamchiMumbaikar]

Was with Microsoft for an year, it's not fun for people who have a life outside office. Most of my colleagues used to with till 7 pm go home have dinner and again login to work on something. It was pretty imbalanced, they all were doing it out of their own interest, it felt extremely mechanical. Pay and benefits were good but you wouldn't like it after some time.

 

[Sachin136]

Was with Microsoft for an year, it's not fun for people who have a life outside office. Most of my colleagues used to with till 7 pm go home have dinner and again login to work on something. It was pretty imbalanced, they all were doing it out of their own interest, it felt extremely mechanical. Pay and benefits were good but you wouldn't like it after some time.

Outside US? Me and most people I know there didn't end up averaging more than 40-45 hours a week in Seattle.

 

[AamchiMumbaikar]

Outside US? Me and most people I know there didn't end up averaging more than 40-45 hours a week in Seattle.

Seattle itself, which team or vertical were you with?

 

[Sachin136]

Seattle itself, which team or vertical were you with?

Oh, I guess it varies a lot then.

C+E

 

[Third_Umpire]

Worked at Google for 6+ years in Mountain View, and left a year ago. It is a terrific company with a strong employee friendly culture, and all the comforts an employee could want. From free food to transportation, to onsite laundry and haircuts. Work life balance is not bad at all. It's not a regular 9 to 5, but also not investment banking hours.

The work however, is not that interesting for the majority of people. Google is a very large company and plagued by bureaucracy, politics and mundane tasks as much as any other company. This is ultimately why people end up leaving.

The compensation is very good, but not top of the market. You can easily get a bump when you leave Google as others are willing to pay higher. Google doesn't think it needs to pay top market salary because of the perks etc.

Overall, hands down the best company in the world at the moment.

 

[Cosmic]

I used to work at google for almost 3 yrs then left to work with yahoo.. now work with some startups.. !!!@

 

[karthikc]

Worked at Google for 6+ years in Mountain View, and left a year ago. It is a terrific company with a strong employee friendly culture, and all the comforts an employee could want. From free food to transportation, to onsite laundry and haircuts. Work life balance is not bad at all. It's not a regular 9 to 5, but also not investment banking hours.

The work however, is not that interesting for the majority of people. Google is a very large company and plagued by bureaucracy, politics and mundane tasks as much as any other company. This is ultimately why people end up leaving.

The compensation is very good, but not top of the market. You can easily get a bump when you leave Google as others are willing to pay higher. Google doesn't think it needs to pay top market salary because of the perks etc.

Overall, hands down the best company in the world at the moment.

Why do you say that? Aren't they supposed to be working on lot of innovations?

 

[AamchiMumbaikar]

Why do you say that? Aren't they supposed to be working on lot of innovations?

Google and MS have lots of verticals, not all work on buzzing products. They even have services vertical which is not so interesting.

 

[karthikc]

Google and MS have lots of verticals, not all work on buzzing products. They even have services vertical which is not so interesting.

Oh..ok

 

[Salman]

Worked at Google for 6+ years in Mountain View, and left a year ago. It is a terrific company with a strong employee friendly culture, and all the comforts an employee could want. From free food to transportation, to onsite laundry and haircuts. Work life balance is not bad at all. It's not a regular 9 to 5, but also not investment banking hours.

The work however, is not that interesting for the majority of people. Google is a very large company and plagued by bureaucracy, politics and mundane tasks as much as any other company. This is ultimately why people end up leaving.

The compensation is very good, but not top of the market. You can easily get a bump when you leave Google as others are willing to pay higher. Google doesn't think it needs to pay top market salary because of the perks etc.

Overall, hands down the best company in the world at the moment.

I work for the Coca Cola holding company, I am not sure how this compares to working for one of the tech giants but over 90% of IT resources across all regions and subsidiaries are not employees but contractor who are normally paid above the market rate, actual employees make up a very small percentage of the work force, this save the company a ton in HR expense and benefits. saying that, the working environment is fantastic for contractors, a lot of emphasis goes into making it a great place to work.

 

[Third_Umpire]

I work for the Coca Cola holding company, I am not sure how this compares to working for one of the tech giants but over 90% of IT resources across all regions and subsidiaries are not employees but contractor who are normally paid above the market rate, actual employees make up a very small percentage of the work force, this save the company a ton in HR expense and benefits. saying that, the working environment is fantastic for contractors, a lot of emphasis goes into making it a great place to work.

Very common in tech to have a huge contingent workforce (i.e. contractors), however this is less the case with Google as with the Oracle, HP, IBM, Cisco's of the world. Google does have contractors, but its the exception rather than the norm.

 

[Third_Umpire]

Why do you say that? Aren't they supposed to be working on lot of innovations?

They do, but the truly innovative stuff is worked on by few people and small teams. The vast majority of people are engaged in running "business as usual", which ends up being mundane and routine.

 

[sweep_shot]

Google says an advanced computer has achieved "quantum supremacy" for the first time, surpassing the performance of conventional devices.

The technology giant's Sycamore quantum processor was able to perform a specific task in 200 seconds that would take the world's best supercomputer 10,000 years to complete.

Scientists have been working on quantum computers for decades because they promise much faster speeds.

The result appears in Nature journal.

In classical computers, the unit of information is called a "bit" and can have a value of either 1 or 0. But its equivalent in a quantum system - the qubit (quantum bit) - can be both 1 and 0 at the same time.

This phenomenon opens the door for multiple calculations to be performed simultaneously. But the qubits need to be synchronised using a quantum effect known as entanglement, which Albert Einstein termed "spooky action at a distance".

However, scientists have struggled to build working devices with enough qubits to make them competitive with conventional types of computer.

Sycamore contains 54 qubits, although one of them did not work, so the device ran on 53 qubits.

In their Nature paper, John Martinis of Google, in Mountain View, and colleagues set the processor a random sampling task - where it produces a set of numbers that has a truly random distribution.

Sycamore was able to complete the task in three minutes and 20 seconds. By contrast, the researchers claim in their paper that Summit, the world's best supercomputer, would take 10,000 years to complete the task.

"It's an impressive device and certainly an impressive milestone. We're still decades away from an actual quantum computer that would be able to solve problems we're interested in," Prof Jonathan Oppenheim, from UCL, who was not involved with the latest study, told BBC News.

"It's an interesting test, it shows they have a lot of control over their device, it shows that they have low error rates. But it's nowhere near the kind of precision we would need to have a full-scale quantum computer."

Worst-case scenario?
IBM, which has been working on quantum computers of its own, questioned some of Google's figures.

"We argue that an ideal simulation of the same task can be performed on a classical system in 2.5 days and with far greater fidelity," IBM researchers Edwin Pednault, John Gunnels, and Jay Gambetta said in a blog post.

"This is in fact a conservative, worst-case estimate, and we expect that with additional refinements the classical cost of the simulation can be further reduced."

They also queried Google's definition of quantum supremacy and said it had the potential to mislead.

"First because... by its strictest definition the goal has not been met. But more fundamentally, because quantum computers will never reign 'supreme' over classical computers, but will rather work in concert with them, since each have their unique strengths."

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50154993.