Over 16 years I've worked at only four companies, but one of them was Google, and it was honestly my least favorite.

Creature comforts: I have an actual cubicle with >2x the space. Excellent meals are still provided, but now lines are <1 min. I can always find a parking space. I can always find a bathroom stall.

Engineering culture: No more promo or perf review nonsense. There's none of the internal competition / pressure that I felt every day at Google. The org and leadership has vastly less churn. The place is dead at 5:15pm. And the people I work with are incredibly smart.

In terms of company: my new employer is not creepy. My grandmother understands what I work on.

Do follow your heart, but I'm so happy I left.

Always interesting to hear these counterpoints. I've never worked at Google, but reading internet comments and such you get the impression that most people consider it some ideal workplace (though to be fair, many people selling you this fantasy are also trying to sell you their Google interview prep courses). Yet when I meet Googlers/ex-Googlers in real life, I never got that same impression. Seems like any other corporate job (I'm personally pretty jaded from corporate), just more prestige and maybe more pay. Also it seems like one's experience will vary drastically depending on what team they get placed on (eg. Google X vs. some internal tool).

I won’t ask what company you’re at, but have you noticed a correlation between size of company and your happiness? Is this new Valhalla a significant smaller organization than Google?

Sounds like Netflix and I think you’re on point that the model might be great but won’t scale to anything resembling google size

What "pressure" you feel is entirely up to you. Most managers at Google don't micro manage you.

But are you expected to exceed expectations? :)

You do your best on your projects. No one thinks day to day how their perf will be. What a stupid way to live.

Definitely happens at other FAANGs.

"The best" is pretty subjective based on what one is looking for in a job. Not everyone gels with all company cultures.

It's great that you like working for Google and have found a good fit.

Some features I like in workplace culture:

- Empowering the "builders" and developers to have autonomy and guide how product development cycles are defined.

- Top cover provided by managers - managing expectations from stake holders

- Overall non-toxic environment

- Quality work and product vision