Xoogler here. Individual contributors are aware of it, but have very little to no power to change it. I left when I realized I would never make career progress due in large part to this incredibly restrictive advancement model. My partner, also an Xoogler, left for the same reason.

Google is big enough, and appealing enough as an employer, that it appears to be comfortable accepting this turnover as part of how it does business. Anyone who wants to change things leaves, or is "encouraged" to leave, and only those who buy wholly into the model stick around to get promoted. Then, since that method of promotion worked for them, they entrench and encourage it, and the cycle continues.

Google employees in an individual-contributor role have limited power to change this if they want to remain Google employees. They're subject to performance reviews on this system, and the expected value of any individual advocating for a change is so tiny, compared to the expected value of playing along with the system and getting their salary and bonus check. If you want this culture to change, you need the people signing the checks to feel compelled to change it.

The practical effect is likely to be people leaving Google because they can get rewarded for maintaining existing products elsewhere.

>Thanks, but to you and any other GOOGLE EMPLOYEES

> Are you not internally aware of this?

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his [exceptionally generous] salary [and RSUs, bonuses] depends upon his not understanding it!"

- Upton Sinclair (approximately)

Strangely, I would say many if not most Googlers understand this situation, and that it is bad. The rank and file are mostly unhappy with it.

But the rank and file can't change it.

It's bad for the company. It's bad for the industry. And it's a much more straightforward advancement model for the individual if they know how to exploit it. That's a very particular kind of "unhappy".

Getting promoted at Google requires serious gaming of the system, especially once you go for L5. Very few people in the system at L5 or below think it is easy to exploit, even if it is supposedly "straightforward".

Decision making is opaque, even if the process is technically well-documented. One committee isn't bound by what the previous committee decided and on and on.

And yes, I think quite a few of the rank and file are unhappy about it.

Complete outsider to that, but it's easy enough to figure - you would have to be promoted like 3-7 times under the current system before anyone would start to care about your opinion on things like that. Good luck ever finding someone who can be enough of a creature of the current system to be promoted that many times within it, yet still maintain the firm idea that it needs to be changed.

Oh everyone is aware of it. They have been making some changes to the promotion process to try to address it. But it's still a huge issue.

I'm not so sure about what the alternative is, though. The promotion process at other places I've worked was pretty much "does your boss like you? If so, they'll promote you." Which has a whole host of other issues. For instance you can get promoted for doing a mediocre job at maintenance work but being very friendly and likable.

On the other hand, you could be promoted for just doing a great job and being a fit for the new position without any hassle.

I feel people are underestimating the benefits of this simple structure.

Nobody would want to promote someone that will consistently make them look bad.

While this issue is not unique to Google, IMHO their hiring process exacerbates it further. From day -1 you're primed to game the interview racket; once you're in, why would your mentality suddenly change wrt to climbing the promotion ladder? Your incentives haven't changed.

Google as a company is worth almost $1T. It's hard to argue that's the wrong approach when they are so ridiculously successful.

How well is GCP doing compared to AWS and Azure?

How well is GSuite doing compared to MS Office?

How well is Android doing as far as revenue and profit compared to iOS? According to information that came out during the Oracle trial, Android has made Google less over 10 years than iOS makes Apple during a down quarter.

How well is G+ doing against FB?

Google hasn’t had but one successful revenue generating product - ads.

Amazon and Apple have similar market caps and yet don't have this product discombobulation

This comment is not without merit, and it's a good point. Everyone here is complaining about this, yet it's true: Google is still highly profitable. Would they be more profitable if they had a more seemingly-sensible management and weren't pissing people off with this behavior? It's impossible to say I think. Perhaps it eventually will bite them in the ass though, because it doesn't really seem like a good way to run a company long-term. But for now, it's definitely making the executives a lot of money, as well as many engineers.

I think all this does show how dysfunctional many human organizations are where chasing the new shiny is rewarded much more than keeping things stable and running correctly. Can you imagine if airplane manufacturers were run this way?