racter

My TL takes the Gbus from SF, it's a two hour commute. I drive 1.5 hours from the east bay. If you have a family and can afford it, mountain view is quite nice. But if you're single, it's probably boring compared to SF. Depends on how you want to spend your time I guess.

1. Many engineers are unable to recognize the merits of one design over another. But they have a finely tuned sense of engineering effort required to implement certain design features, so they literally see the cost of UX proposals without seeing the benefit. So they argue.

2. Many PMs believe that all design is subjective, and therefore it's perfectly reasonable to substitute their judgement for that of the UX'er. So they argue.

3. Google is a uniquely bottom-up culture, where consensus is required to move forward.

These three things lead to design by committee, and it is extremely painful.