The Google Culture

Though Google has grown a lot since it opened in 1998, we still maintain a small company feel. At lunchtime, almost everyone eats in the office café, sitting at whatever table has an opening and enjoying conversations with Googlers from different teams. Our commitment to innovation depends on everyone being comfortable sharing ideas and opinions. Every employee is a hands-on contributor, and everyone wears several hats. Because we believe that each Googler is an equally important part of our success, no one hesitates to pose questions directly to Larry or Sergey in our weekly all-hands ("TGIF") meetings – or spike a volleyball across the net at a corporate officer.

We are aggressively inclusive in our hiring, and we favor ability over experience. We have offices around the world and dozens of languages are spoken by Google staffers, from Turkish to Telugu. The result is a team that reflects the global audience Google serves. When not at work, Googlers pursue interests from cross-country cycling to wine tasting, from flying to frisbee.

As we continue to grow, we are always looking for those who share a commitment to creating search perfection and having a great time doing it.

About our offices

Our corporate headquarters, fondly nicknamed the Googleplex, is located in Mountain View, California. Today it's one of our many offices around the globe. While our offices are not identical, they tend to share some essential elements. Here are a few things you might see in a Google workspace:

Local expressions of each location, from a mural in Buenos Aires to ski gondolas in Zurich, showcasing each office's region and personality.

Bicycles or scooters for efficient travel between meetings; dogs; lava lamps; massage chairs; large inflatable balls.

Googlers sharing cubes, yurts and huddle rooms – and very few solo offices.

Laptops everywhere – standard issue for mobile coding, email on the go and note-taking.

Foosball, pool tables, volleyball courts, assorted video games, pianos, ping pong tables, and gyms that offer yoga and dance classes.

Grassroots employee groups for all interests, like meditation, film, wine tasting and salsa dancing.

Healthy lunches and dinners for all staff at a variety of cafés. Break rooms packed with a variety of snacks and drinks to keep

Googlers going.

Google Diversity and Inclusion

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Diversity is our Business

Everybody’s searching for something different. Just as the very idea of Google depends on diversity, so does delivering the best possible products. Our success hinges on our ability to understand the needs of all 597 million of our users. That’s why we work hard to attract and hire talented individuals of every possible perspective, from all over the world. No matter how you slice it, diversity is our DNA.

Featured Projects and Groups

The 40 Language Initiative

Google is a global company with international users accounting for more than half of our total user base. In order to meet the needs of our ever-growing user population, we need a broad diversity of perspectives and voices in the creation of our products. English-speaking users comprise only 30% of the total Internet population. For Google to be competitive internationally, our products need to speak all the languages our users speak. With that in mind, we

started the 40 Languages Initiative in May 2007, with the aim of getting Google products into 40 languages, mapping to roughly 70 countries. This initiative will enable more than 99.3% of the Internet population to use Google's products.

"Diversity and inclusion are fundamental to Google's way of doing things. We strive to be a local company in every country in which we operate, and we understand that our users have different cultures, languages, and traditions. It drives the projects we work on, the people we hire, and the goals we set ourselves. We go to great lengths to create products that are useful to our users wherever they are, and we've found that this commitment to diversity and to our users has been key to our success."

- Nikesh Arora, President, EMEA Operations

The Guguelitos

According to the most recent eMarketer report, "Hispanics Online," there are currently 23 million Hispanics online, which is about 52% of the US Hispanic population. By 2012, more than 29 million will be online, increasing Internet penetration to 58.6%. To target this massive and growing market with AdSense and AdWords, our employees in Online Sales and Operations launched an organized group to coordinate separate efforts throughout the organization.

Read entire feature

Google Grants

Google Grants is a unique in-kind donation program awarding free AdWords advertising to select charitable organizations. The program empowers organizations who share our philosophy of community service to spread their public service messages and reach global audiences online. To date, recipients have included non-profits who help the world in areas such as science and technology, education, global public health, the environment, youth advocacy, and the arts.

Accessibility Solutions at Google

Information access is at the core of Google’s mission – to make the world’s information universally accessible and useful. That’s why in addition to crawling, indexing and ranking billions of websites, images, videos and other content, we also work to make that content available in all languages and in accessible formats. We want to make information available to everyone, and that includes people with physical and mental disabilities. We’ve found that providing alternative access modes like keyboard shortcuts, captions, high-contrast views and text-to-speech technology helps everyone, not just people with disabilities.

Google.org

Google.org aspires to use the power of information and technology to address the global challenges of our age. It is an integral part of Google Inc., and works closely with a broad range of "Googlers" on projects that make the most of Google's strengths in technology and information; examples of this approach include Google Flu Trends, RechargeIT, Clean Energy 2030, and Google PowerMeter.

Business Overview

As with its technology, Google has chosen to ignore conventional wisdom in designing its business. The company started with seed money from angel investors and brought together two competing venture capital firms to fund its first equity round. While the dotcom boom exploded around it and competitors spent millions on marketing campaigns to "build brand," Google focused instead on quietly building a better search engine.

The word quickly spread from one satisfied user to another. With superior search technology and a high volume of traffic at its Google.com site, Google's managers identified two initial opportunities for generating revenue: search services and advertising.

Google grows and business blooms

Over time, these two business lines evolved into complementary networks. Google AdWords advertisers create ads to drive qualified traffic to their sites and generate leads. Google publishing partners deliver those ads targeted to relevant search results powered by Google AdSense. With AdSense, the publisher shares in the revenue generated when readers click on the ads.

For sites wishing to have more control over their intranet or site searches, Google developed the Google Search Appliance, a scalable and secure appliance that delivers accurate search results across any number of documents.

Google continues to think about ways in which technology can improve upon existing ways of doing business. New areas are explored, ideas prototyped and budding services nurtured to make them more useful to advertisers and publishers. However, no matter how distant Google's business model grows from its origins, the root remains providing useful and relevant information to those who are the most important part of the ecosystem – the millions of individuals around the world who rely on Google search to provide the answers they are seeking.

Google AdWords for Advertisers

Google designed AdWords for advertisers who want to reach a qualified audience as efficiently as possible. Advertisers select their own target keywords and only pay when customers click on their ads. It's easy to create ad text and manage online advertising accounts with no large upfront payment required. All that's needed is five minutes and a credit card. The ads appear across Google's growing roster of partners, including thousands of sites from America Online to the Washington Post, and are targeted to relevant search and content pages.

Google's experienced sales and service team optimize campaigns for our larger advertisers. Our staff of AdWords experts work with advertisers to select the appropriate keywords and generate the matching creative, then carefully monitor the campaign to improve its performance over time by winnowing keywords and rewriting copy based on what is most effective. There's no limit to the number of keywords that an advertiser can select and each keyword can be matched with a different creative execution. Recent advertisers include Amazon, Cisco Systems and Staples.

Google provides all of its advertisers with a full complement of reporting services to enable fine tuning of campaigns and real-time intelligence about which components are performing best. Advertisers can further increase efficiencies by targeting their campaigns to specific geographies or languages.

Google AdSense and Web Site Services

Google believes relevant advertising can be as useful as search results or other forms of content. And that advertising can enhance the experience for visitors to a publisher's website, while helping publishers recover some of their investment in creating content of value. Google AdSense™ combines Google Search technology with our base of keyword advertisers to deliver ads that precisely target search results or the content on a site's pages, no matter how specialized the subject matter. Advertisers, publishers, and information seekers all profit as a result.

Signing up for AdSense is easy -- it only takes a few minutes to apply. And our sales team helps customize the program for sites receiving more than 20 million page views a month.

AdSense serves relevant ads on content pages search result and content pages as well as dormant domain pages.Google Search Services enable publishers to provide Google web search on their own pages – results that can be used to generate revenue with the AdSense for Search program The Google Search Appliance, a scalable and secure device that provides Google quality search across an individual website or intranet.

Google Wireless Services deliver Google search results via PDAs, wireless phones and other mobile devices powered by many of the world's leading wireless service providers

Our Philosophy

Ten things we know to be true

"The perfect search engine," says co-founder Larry Page, "would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want." When Google began, you would have been pleasantly surprised to enter a search query and immediately find the right answer. Google became successful precisely because we were better and faster at finding the right answer than other search engines at the time.

But technology has come a long way since then, and the face of the web has changed. Recognizing that search is a problem that will never be solved, we continue to push the limits of existing technology to provide a fast, accurate and easy-to-use service that anyone seeking information can access, whether they're at a desk in Boston or on a phone in Bangkok. We've also taken the lessons we've learned from search to tackle even more challenges.

As we keep looking towards the future, these core principles guide our actions.

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.

Since the beginning, we've focused on providing the best user experience possible. Whether we're designing a new Internet browser or a new tweak to the look of the homepage, we take great care to ensure that they will ultimately serve you, rather than our own internal goal or bottom line. Our homepage interface is clear and simple, and pages load instantly. Placement in search results is never sold to anyone, and advertising is not only clearly marked as such, it offers relevant content and is not distracting. And when we build new tools and applications, we believe they should work so well you don't have to consider how they might have been designed differently.

2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.

We do search. With one of the world's largest research groups focused exclusively on solving search problems, we know what we do well, and how we could do it better. Through continued iteration on difficult problems, we've been able to solve complex issues and provide continuous improvements to a service that already makes finding information a fast and seamless experience for millions of people. Our dedication to improving search helps us apply what we've learned to new products, like Gmail and Google Maps. Our hope is to bring the power of search to previously unexplored areas, and to help people access and use even more of the ever-expanding information in their lives.

3. Fast is better than slow.

We know your time is valuable, so when you're seeking an answer on the web you want it right away – and we aim to please. We may be the only people in the world who can say our goal is to have people leave our homepage as quickly as possible. By shaving excess bits and bytes from our pages and increasing the efficiency of our serving environment, we've broken our own speed records many times over, so that the average response time on a search result is a fraction of a second. We keep speed in mind with each new product we release, whether it's a mobile application or Google Chrome, a browser designed to be fast enough for the modern web. And we continue to work on making it all go even faster.

4. Democracy on the web works.

Google search works because it relies on the millions of individuals posting links on websites to help determine which other sites offer content of value. We assess the importance of every web page using more than 200 signals and a variety of techniques, including our patented PageRank™ algorithm, which analyzes which sites have been "voted" to be the best sources of information by other pages across the web. As the web gets bigger, this approach actually improves, as each new site is another point of information and another vote to be counted. In the same vein, we are active in open source software development, where innovation takes place through the collective effort of many programmers.

5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.

The world is increasingly mobile: people want access to information wherever they are, whenever they need it. We're pioneering new technologies and offering new solutions for mobile services that help people all over the globe to do any number of tasks on their phone, from checking email and calendar events to watching videos, not to mention the several different ways to access Google search on a phone. In addition, we're hoping to fuel greater innovation for mobile users everywhere with Android, a free, open source mobile platform. Android brings the openness that shaped the Internet to the mobile world. Not only does Android benefit consumers, who have more choice and innovative new mobile experiences, but it opens up revenue opportunities for carriers, manufacturers and developers.

6. You can make money without doing evil.

Google is a business. The revenue we generate is derived from offering search technology to companies and from the sale of advertising displayed on our site and on other sites across the web. Hundreds of thousands of advertisers worldwide use AdWords to promote their products; hundreds of thousands of publishers take advantage of our AdSense program to deliver ads relevant to their site content. To ensure that we're ultimately serving all our users (whether they are advertisers or not), we have a set of guiding principles for our advertising programs and practices:

We don't allow ads to be displayed on our results pages unless they are relevant where they are shown. And we firmly believe that ads can provide useful information if, and only if, they are relevant to what

you wish to find – so it's possible that certain searches won't lead to any ads at all.

We believe that advertising can be effective without being flashy. We don't accept pop-up advertising, which interferes with your ability to see the content you've requested. We've found that text ads that are relevant to the person reading them draw much higher clickthrough rates than ads appearing randomly. Any advertiser, whether small or large, can take advantage of this highly targeted medium.

Advertising on Google is always clearly identified as a "Sponsored Link," so it does not compromise the integrity of our search results. We never manipulate rankings to put our partners higher in our search results and no one can buy better PageRank. Our users trust our objectivity and no short-term gain could ever justify breaching that trust.

7. There's always more information out there.

Once we'd indexed more of the HTML pages on the Internet than any other search service, our engineers turned their attention to information that was not as readily accessible. Sometimes it was just a matter of integrating new databases into search, such as adding a phone number and address lookup and a business directory. Other efforts required a bit more creativity, like adding the ability to search news archives, patents, academic journals, billions of images and millions of books. And our researchers continue looking into ways to bring all the world's information to people seeking answers.

8. The need for information crosses all borders.

Our company was founded in California, but our mission is to facilitate access to information for the entire world, and in every language. To that end, we have offices in dozens of countries, maintain more than 150 Internet domains, and serve more than half of our results to people living outside the United States. We offer Google's search interface in more than 110 languages, offer people the ability to restrict results to content written in their own language, and aim to provide the rest of our applications and products in as many languages as possible. Using our translation tools, people can discover content written on the other side of the world in languages they don't speak. With these tools and the help of volunteer translators, we have been able to greatly improve both the variety and

quality of services we can offer in even the most far-flung corners of the globe.

9. You can be serious without a suit.

Our founders built Google around the idea that work should be challenging, and the challenge should be fun. We believe that great, creative things are more likely to happen with the right company culture – and that doesn't just mean lava lamps and rubber balls. There is an emphasis on team achievements and pride in individual accomplishments that contribute to our overall success. We put great stock in our employees – energetic, passionate people from diverse backgrounds with creative approaches to work, play and life. Our atmosphere may be casual, but as new ideas emerge in a café line, at a team meeting or at the gym, they are traded, tested and put into practice with dizzying speed – and they may be the launch pad for a new project destined for worldwide use.

10. Great just isn't good enough.

We see being great at something as a starting point, not an endpoint. We set ourselves goals we know we can't reach yet, because we know that by stretching to meet them we can get further than we expected. Through innovation and iteration, we aim to take things that work well and improve upon them in unexpected ways. For example, when one of our engineers saw that search worked well for properly spelled words, he wondered about how it handled typos. That led him to create an intuitive and more helpful spell checker.

Even if you don't know exactly what you're looking for, finding an answer on the web is our problem, not yours. We try to anticipate needs not yet articulated by our global audience, and meet them with products and services that set new standards. When we launched Gmail, it had more storage space than any email service available. In retrospect offering that seems obvious – but that's because now we have new standards for email storage. Those are the kinds of changes we seek to make, and we're always looking for new places where we can make a difference. Ultimately, our constant dissatisfaction with the way things are becomes the driving force behind everything we do.

Google User Experience

Our aspirations

The Google User Experience team aims to create designs that are useful, fast, simple, engaging, innovative, universal, profitable, beautiful, trustworthy, and personable. Achieving a harmonious balance of these ten principles is a constant challenge. A product that gets the balance right is "Googley" – and will satisfy and delight people all over the world.

Ten principles that contribute to a Googley user experience

1. Focus on people – their lives, their work, their dreams.

The Google User Experience team works to discover people's actual needs, including needs they can't always articulate. Armed with that information, Google can create products that solve real-world problems and spark the creativity of all kinds of people. Improving people's lives, not just easing step-by-step tasks, is our goal.

Above all, a well-designed Google product is useful in daily life. It doesn't try to impress users with its whizbang technology or visual style – though it might have both. It doesn't strong-arm people to use features they don't want – but it does provide a natural growth path for those who are interested. It doesn't intrude on people's lives – but it does open doors for users who want to explore the world's information, work more quickly and creatively, and share ideas with their friends or the world.

2. Every millisecond counts.

Nothing is more valuable than people's time. Google pages load quickly, thanks to slim code and carefully selected image files. The most essential features and text are placed in the easiest-to-find locations. Unnecessary clicks, typing, steps, and other actions are eliminated. Google products ask for information only once and include smart defaults. Tasks are streamlined.

Speed is a boon to users. It is also a competitive advantage that Google doesn't sacrifice without good reason.

3. Simplicity is powerful.

Simplicity fuels many elements of good design, including ease of use, speed, visual appeal, and accessibility. But simplicity starts with the design of a product's fundamental functions. Google doesn't set out to create feature-rich products; our best designs include only the features that people need to accomplish their goals. Ideally, even products that require large feature sets and complex visual designs appear to be simple as well as powerful.

Google teams think twice before sacrificing simplicity in pursuit of a less important feature. Our hope is to evolve products in new directions instead of just adding more features.

4. Engage beginners and attract experts.

Designing for many people doesn't mean designing for the lowest common denominator. The best Google designs appear quite simple on the surface but include powerful features that are easily accessible to those users who want them. Our intent is to invite beginners with a great initial experience while also attracting power users whose excitement and expertise will draw others to the product.

A well-designed Google product lets new users jump in, offers help when necessary, and ensures that users can make simple and intuitive use of the product's most valuable features. Progressive disclosure of advanced features encourages people to expand their usage of the product. Whenever appropriate, Google offers smart features that entice people with complex online lives – for instance, people who share data across several devices and computers, work online and off, and crave storage space.

5. Dare to innovate.

Design consistency builds a trusted foundation for Google products, makes users comfortable, and speeds their work. But it is the element of imagination that transforms designs from ho-hum to delightful.

Google encourages innovative, risk-taking designs whenever they serve the needs of users. Our teams encourage new ideas to come out and play. Instead of just matching the features of existing products, Google wants to change the game.

6. Design for the world.

The World Wide Web has opened all the resources of the Internet to people everywhere. For example, many users are exploring Google products while strolling with a mobile device, not sitting at a desk with a personal computer. Our goal is to design products that are contextually relevant and available through the medium and methods that make sense to users. Google supports slower connections and older browsers when possible, and Google allows people to choose how they view information (screen size, font size) and how they enter information (smart query parsing). The User Experience team researches the fundamental differences in user experiences throughout the world and works to design the right products for each audience, device, and culture. Simple translation, or "graceful degradation" of a feature set, isn't sufficient to meet people's needs.

Google is also committed to improving the accessibility of its products. Our desire for simple and inclusive products, and Google's mission to make the world's information universally accessible, demand products that support assistive technologies and provide a useful and enjoyable experience for everyone, including those with physical and cognitive limitations.

7. Plan for today's and tomorrow's business.

Those Google products that make money strive to do so in a way that is helpful to users. To reach that lofty goal, designers work with product teams to ensure that business considerations integrate seamlessly with the goals of users. Teams work to make sure ads are relevant, useful, and clearly identifiable as ads. Google also takes care to protect the interests of advertisers and others who depend on Google for their livelihood.

Google never tries to increase revenue from a product if it would mean reducing the number of Google users in the future. If a profitable design doesn't please users, it's time to go back to the drawing board. Not every product has to make money, and none should be bad for business.

8. Delight the eye without distracting the mind.

If people looked at a Google product and said "Wow, that's beautiful!" the User Experience team would cheer. A positive first impression makes users comfortable, assures them that the product is reliable and professional, and

encourages people to make the product their own.

A minimalist aesthetic makes sense for most Google products because a clean, clutter-free design loads quickly and doesn't distract users from their goals. Visually appealing images, color, and fonts are balanced against the needs for speed, scannable text, and easy navigation. Still, "simple elegance" is not the best fit for every product. Audience and cultural context matter. A Google product's visual design should please its users and improve usability for them.

9. Be worthy of people's trust.

Good design can go a long way to earn the trust of the people who use Google products. Establishing Google's reliability starts with the basics – for example, making sure the interface is efficient and professional, actions are easily reversed, ads are clearly identified, terminology is consistent, and users are never unhappily surprised. In addition, Google products open themselves to the world by including links to competitors and encouraging user contributions such as community maps or iGoogle gadgets.

A greater challenge is to make sure that Google demonstrates respect for users' right to control their own data. Google is transparent about how it uses information and how that information is shared with others (if at all), so that users can make informed choices. Our products warn users about such dangers as insecure connections, actions that may make users vulnerable to spam, or the possibility that data shared outside Google may be stored elsewhere. The larger Google becomes, the more essential it is to live up to our "Don't be evil" motto.

10. Add a human touch.

Google includes a wide range of personalities, and our designs have personality, too. Text and design elements are friendly, quirky, and smart – and not boring, close-minded, or arrogant. Google text talks directly to people and offers the same practical, informal assistance that anyone would offer to a neighbor who asked a question. And Google doesn't let fun or personality interfere with other elements of a design, especially when people's livelihood, or their ability to find vital information, is at stake.

Google doesn't know everything, and no design is perfect. Our products ask

for feedback, and Google acts on that feedback. When practicing these design principles, the Google User Experience team seeks the best possible balance in the time available for each product. Then the cycle of iteration, innovation, and improvement continues.

Quick Profile

Mission

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Quick Facts

Founded: 1998Founders: Larry Page and Sergey Brin Incorporation: September 4, 1998Initial public offering (NASDAQ): August 19, 2004Headquarters: 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043Offices: Locations of our offices around the world.Management: Our executives and board of directors.Investor Relations: Financial and corporate governance information.

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Section: comment EDITORIAL COMMENT We've all been there: hired someone you thought was perfect, who made all the right noises at interview, and who even passed the various tests you set them. And then even before they've made it through their first week, you realise you've made a huge mistake. They don't get on easily with their new colleagues; their work ethos isn't quite compatible with your own; they don't fit the culture. Whether it's due to pressures of time or circumstance, you've hired the wrong person.

Speak to any recruitment expert, and they'll tell you that 'fit' is the hardest concept to define, and the toughest thing to get right. But getting it wrong can be so costly to the business. The question is: how much time are you and your line managers prepared to invest in finding people who fit?

If you work in a sector with a high turnover of staff, then sometimes you may just have to plump for the next available bum on seat. But if your organisation is inundated with hundreds of applications per vacancy — as is the case for internet search engine giant Google — then recruitment becomes a much more absorbing process.

Google UK's HR director Liane Hornsey raised a few eyebrows during her presentation at the HR Directors Business Summit in Wales last week (page 6) when she said that she went through 14 interviews to secure her job, and that managers typically spend 30% of their time recruiting. Time-consuming that may be, but Hornsey said the payoff came in the organisation's retention rates: staff turnover stands at just 3%.

Google's approach is in stark contrast to the news stories we have run in recent weeks about employers wishing they had the right to sack people they didn't like without fear of ending up in tribunal.

I'm not suggesting that all senior managers should 'do a Google' when it comes to recruiting. But if we spent more time getting our recruitment right, we might never need to fire a bad hire again.

'How much time are you and your line managers prepared to invest in finding people who fit?'

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By Karen Dempsey, Editor

Benefits

“Talented people are attracted to Google because we empower them to change the world. We are focused on providing an environment where hard-working people are rewarded for their contributions to Google and for making the world a better place.”

In the same way Google puts users first when it comes to online services, Google puts employees first when it comes to daily life in its offices. We strive to be innovative and unique in all services we provide both to customers and employees, including our benefits and perks offerings. Google works to improve life for every Googler by providing an award-winning array of benefits and perks that enable you to get on with the things you love to do – both in and out of the office.

Health and Wellness*

Medical Insurance

The Group Mediclaim Program provides competitive, pre-defined insurance coverage to Google India employees and their dependents for expenses related to hospitalization due to illness, disease or injury.

On-site Nurse

At our Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Gurgaon offices we have an on-site nurse to take care of our employees.

Wellness Programs

Google provides a variety of health and financial wellness programs throughout the year.

EAP – Employee Assistance Program

Services for employees and their dependents include free short-term counseling, legal consultations, financial counseling, and more.

Life and AD&D Insurance

Automatic coverage at 4 times annual base salary or 10 lakhs whichever is greater.

Short Term & Long Term Disability

4 times annual Base Salary + Target bonus is payable depending upon the nature of the injury and the degree of incapacity.

Business Travel Accident Insurance

Automatic coverage at 2 times annual salary.

Retirement and savings*

Gratuity

Gratuity is payable on completion of a minimum period of 4.8 years at a stretch with Google. The amount of Gratuity is calculated as per the last average salary drawn and the number of years served in Google.

Time Away from Work*

Vacation

20 days vacation leave in a year.

Sick Leave

12 paid sick leaves taken as appropriate.

Holidays

We have 12 holidays that include mandatory holidays and festival holidays as defined by the government.

Maternity Benefits

Up to 12 weeks off at approximately 100% pay, eligible for an additional 8 weeks if employed at Google for more than 1 year.

Parental Leave (for non-primary caregivers)

Up to 4 weeks off at approximately 100% take-home pay

Benefits and Perks … beyond the basics*

Tuition Reimbursement

We'll help you pursue further education that's relevant to what you do. You must receive grades of "B" or better. Tuition reimbursement is up to Rs. 150,000 per calendar year or per course as applicable.

Employee Referral Program

Good people know other good people. Some of our best employees have been hired through referrals. Google encourages you to recommend candidates for opportunities here and will award

you a bonus if your referral accepts our offer. We pay out these bonuses a month after the referral starts at Google.

Child Care

We look at providing support in taking care of your little ones when you are at work!! Our Hyderabad office partners with nearby day care centers.

Gift Matching Program

Google matches contributions of up to 3000 USD per year from eligible employees to non-profit organizations. Bolstering employee contributions to worthy causes with matching gifts doesn't just mean helping hundreds of organizations, both locally and globally; it's also a tangible expression. We want Googlers to get involved – and the company is right behind you.

Adoption Assistance

Google assists our employees by offering financial assistance in the adoption of a child. We'll reimburse you towards legal expenses, adoption agencies or other adoption professional fees. Parental leave and take-out benefit also apply.

Benefits and Perks … way beyond the basics*

Food

Hungry? Check out our free lunch and dinner – our experienced chefs create a wide variety of healthy and delicious meals every day. Got the munchies? Google also offers snacks to help satisfy you in between meals.

Transport

Google is pleased to provide its employees free transportation by cab to and from their place of residence.

Other On-Site Services

At Google you'll even find on-site massage therapy, gym, and fitness classes!

More great stuff

Discounts, holiday parties, team off-sites, and so much more!

* Benefits vary depending on location and are subject to change without notice. Please check with Human Resources at your specific location for more information.

HIRING

Job search

The process begins with searching for a job opening that interests you by job department, location, or even by key word.

Applying at Google

Once you apply for a job, your qualifications and experience will be reviewed by one of our recruiters to determine if you are a fit. If you are a possible match for the position, a recruiter will contact you to learn more about your background and answer questions about our hiring process and what it's like to work at Google.

Phone interview

You’ve applied for the position and your skills fit the job. The phone interview assesses your technical skills and proficiency, to the level of determining whether you should be brought in for in-person interviews. Typically phone interviews are conducted by someone in a similar role and last about 30-40 minutes.

Onsite interview

Our interview process for technical positions evaluates your core software engineering skills including: coding, algorithm development, data structures, design patterns, analytical thinking skills.  During your interview, you’ll meet with several engineers across different teams who will give a cross-section view of Google Engineering. Interviewers will ask you questions related to your area of interest and ask you to solve them in real time. Our interview process for business and general positions evaluate your problem solving and behavioral abilities. Remember, it's not a question of getting the answer right or wrong, but the process in which you use to solve it. Creativity is important.

Hire by committee

Virtually every person who interviews at Google talks to at least four interviewers, drawn from both management and potential colleagues. Everyone's opinion counts, ensuring our hiring process is fair while maintaining high standards as we grow. Yes, it takes longer, but we believe it's worth it. If you hire great people and involve them intensively in the hiring process, you’ll get more great people. We started building this positive feedback loop when the company was founded, and it has had a huge payoff.

What happens next

Following your interviews, we will decide if you are suitable for the job opening. We take hiring very seriously and like to make consensus-based decisions. To that end, it can take up to two weeks for us to make a definitive decision as to whether we'd like to have you join the team. Please be patient with us – your recruiter will keep in touch with you when feedback has been received and decisions made. Also feel free to get in touch with your recruiter at any time.

“Google is organised around the ability to attract and leverage the talent of exceptional technologists and business people. We have been lucky to recruit many creative, principled, and hard-working stars.”

Larry Page, Google Co-founderStanford University

n 2008 Google HR set up a private Google Group to ask former employees why they left the company. We’ve been forwarded what appears to be authentic posts to the thread by a number of ex-Googlers, which we reprint below minus identifying information other than their first names.

The thread shows a brutal honesty about what it’s like to work at Google, at least from the point of view of employees who were unhappy enough to resign. Top amongst the complaints is low pay relative to what they could earn elsewhere, and disappearing fringe benefits seemed to elevate the concern. Other popular gripes – too much bureaucracy, poor management, poor mentoring, and a hiring process that took months.

A few of the posts are more positive, and frankly there isn’t a whole lot here that you don’t see in other big companies.

One message stands out though in most of the posts – employees thought they were entering the promised land when they joined Google, and most of them were disappointed. Some of them wondered if it meant they were somehow lacking. One person sums it all up nicely:

Those of us who failed to thrive at Google are faced with some pretty serious questions about ourselves. Just seeing that other people ran into the same issues is a huge relief. Google is supposed to be some kind of Nirvana, so if you can’t be happy there how will you ever be happy? It’s supposed to be the ultimate font of technical resources, so if you can’t be productive there how will you ever be productive?

The full thread is below.

From: StephenDate: Wed, 28 May 2008 13:25:07 -0700 (PDT)Local: Wed, May 28 2008 2:25 pmSubject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.

Actually, I hit the Send button on this before I intended to.I left Microsoft to work for Google in 2005. I stayed 10 months. Iwas demoralized. I shouldn’t have ever taken that job. I wasdisenchanted the whole time, and yes, like you, my regret over thepoor bargain I’d made affected my performance.

As I was saying. Google actually celebrates its hiring process, as ifits ruthless inefficiency and interminable duration were a sure proofof thoroughness, a badge of honor. Perhaps it is thorough. But Iwould be willing to wager that Microsoft’s hiring process, which takesa fraction of the time, does not result in a lower-skilled workforceor result in a higher rate of attrition. And let me say this: ifLarry Page is still reviewing resumes, shareholders should organize arebellion. That is a scandalous waste of time for someone at thatlevel, and the fact that it’s “quirky” is no mitigation.

I was, like you, offered a considerable pay cut to go to work atGoogle. The relocation package was lame. So were the benefits. (Ihad worked at Microsoft. Microsoft was self-insured, so there were noco-pays.)

In one TGIF in Kirkland, an employee informed Eric Schmidt thatMicrosoft’s benefits package was richer. He announced himselfgenuinely surprised, which genuinely surprised me. Schmidt, in thepresence of witnesses, promised to bring the benefits to a par. Heconsulted HR, and HR informed him that it’d cost Google 22 million ayear to do that. So he abandoned the promise and fell back on histired, familiar standby (“People don’t work at Google for the money.They work at Google because they want to change the world!”). Astatement that always seemed to me a little Louis XIV coming from abillionaire.

I still can’t recall all the moralizing postures without a shudder ofdisgust.

From: BenDate: Wed, 28 May 2008 14:43:09 -0700Local: Wed, May 28 2008 3:43 pmSubject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.

Stephen wrote:> He> consulted HR, and HR informed him that it’d cost Google 22 million a> year to do that. So he abandoned the promise and fell back on his> tired, familiar standby (“People don’t work at Google for the money.> They work at Google because they want to change the world!”). A> statement that always seemed to me a little Louis XIV coming from a> billionaire.

I ran into a similar irritation while at Google, actually – during thattime when the minikitchens were being stripped heavily. I heard that one

of the reasons was cost – I remember figures mentioned like “thousandsof dollars per day” – and it just didn’t jive well with me.

I mean, look at the profit numbers. Google’s net income for 2006, when Ileft, was 3 billion. 22 million a year? Less than 1% of their *profit*.“Thousands of dollars a day”? Even if it’s ten thousand, that’s stillwell under 1%.

Reduce profit by 2% to make your employees much happier . . . well, Iknow what I’d choose. In some ways it seemed like Google was gettingincreasingly pennywise/poundfoolish, and that just seemed like a dubioussituation.

(Although, to Google’s credit, they opened up a new cafe that solvedmany of my food-related issues . . . after I left. Sigh.)

-Ben

From: TedDate: Wed, 28 May 2008 17:39:06 -0700 (PDT)Local: Wed, May 28 2008 6:39 pmSubject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.

Sounds familiar (I was at Kirkland too.)Google took longer than any company I ever worked for to get thru thehiring process (approx 5 months from resume to job start.)

The interview process was very mixed: They had me slated as a WindowsDeveloper for some reason, tho everyone on my interview loop wonderedwhy. I flubbed my first coding pretty bad but after that it was clearthat no-one on my interview loop had enough experience or knowledge tolevel me. On the other hand they figured that out and scheduled afollow on interview with the head of the Kirkland office who askedreasonable and pertinent questions.

Unlike the previous posters, I was happy with my salary and (for somereason I can’t articulate) I kept my own private medical insurance…

Also I was surprised that Google seemed to be proud that they didn’tcommunicate from one interviewer to the next: at Microsoft it was agood opportunity to find more appropriate interviewers, etc. if aperson seemed misslated. Oh well, I thought my interview and hiringprocess was an anomaly.

From: LaurentDate: Thu, 29 May 2008 08:10:08 -0700 (PDT)

Local: Thurs, May 29 2008 9:10 amSubject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.

I also left Google after only 5 months.

As soon as I got inside, I had the feeling of being swallowed by agiant borg 

Really, I felt like I didn’t exist, watching people buzzing aroundwith laptops.

I did however meet with Larry and Sergey during a product reviewmeeting, and have only good things to say about these 2 guys.

Regarding compensation, I did have to negotiate quite a bit to get onpar with what I earned before.

For options however, I didn’t get much (something like 180 options and330 gsu).

What was strange with me at Google was: while outside, I had all thesebig ideas I could do if I ever worked there.

Once inside, you have 18,000 (at the time, Feb 2008) other googlersthinking the same things.

I think it’s a good move for them to have App Engine: they won’t needto hire that many people anymore, or buy small garage-guys becausenow developers will be able to develop over the Google OS for free forGoogle 

One last thing: Google also thinks inside a box (the browser). I feltthis a lot, and was another reason I left. (too constrained)

It’s no surprise that they push to extend what the browser can do.(Gears, Earth plugin)

Cheers.

From: “shubaDate: Wed, 28 May 2008 22:01:06 -0500Local: Wed, May 28 2008 9:01 pmSubject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.

Hi Friends,

Yes, I do agree with Stephen about HR. I totally second the statement thatGoogle’s Hiring process is slack. Agreed, they receive a record number ofapplications everyday, but still the feeling that the resume is lost in a‘black hole’ when there is no reply in as long as 6 months, is terriblydisappointing. Also, the whole exit process could be bettered and ironedout.

I understand when Eric Schmidt says, one doesn’t work for Google for themoney alone. Job with Google is sure an experience. But, yes, bringing theperks on par with other bigwigs will bring down the attrition level to someextent, thou we all do understand that attrition is not a big problem forGoogle right now.

Keep writing!

Shuba.

From: ShelbyDate: Thu, 29 May 2008 10:26:39 -0700 (PDT)Local: Thurs, May 29 2008 11:26 amSubject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.

I had an equally ridiculous hiring process – although mine actuallyseemed normal (by Google standards) until the result. “And let mesay this: if Larry Page is still reviewing resumes, shareholdersshould organize a rebellion. That is a scandalous waste of time for someone at thatlevel, and the fact that it’s “quirky” is no mitigation. ” – thiscouldn’t be more true.

My experience actually in Aug. 2004 when I was interviewing for asales position in the Seattle office was the typical 13+ interviews,including a day trip to MV where I was told that someone would take meto lunch and instead she took me in a conf. room and interviewed me.So I ended up not eating at all that day until I returned to theairport at 4pm. However, I passed my interviews with flying colorsand was surprised 3 weeks later when I still hadn’t heard from myrecruiter about the results of the hiring committee meeting. Finallyhe called to tell me that I was rejected because I was currentlyworking as a Flight Attendant. A job I had started 4 months priorbecause it was a great opportunity to move into their management groupbut then the airlines started downsizing management and so I appliedfor the Google Travel Sales role instead. However, apparently theelitist hiring committee members believed that FA’s are stupid andthere was no way they would be able to work at Google. Lucky for methe recruiter agreed it was incredibly sexist and fought with HR tobring me on as a temp. Three months later they resubmitted me to the

committee and had me remove my former job – instead I mentioned that Iwas “traveling” for four months and bingo! I got hired full time. 3+years later I was promoted twice and named a Google Luminary! Goodthink Larry is such an excellent judge of character.

I have to say though, that level of bureaucracy remained pretty muchthe whole time I was at Google. I finally left after a lifestylechange moved me to Austin and they re-nigged on an offer to move meinto the Travel Vertical role for which I was promised before themove. It’s a real bummer because I loved my co-workers and there area ton of great people at Google. But the management has no power toinfluence change because they are micromanaged by the Execs.I’m very happy at my new company though – making twice as much andenjoying the benefits of a start-up culture again.

From: issaraDate: Fri, 30 May 2008 08:50:45 -0700 (PDT)Local: Fri, May 30 2008 9:50 amSubject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.

I was hired to work in Google’s Singapore office. I found out veryquickly that Google International is not the same as Google-US. Theoffered pay was way too low to survive in Singapore, so I left after Igot another job offer that I felt was better for me. I really dobelieve that Google is doing some important work with humanitarianmapping projects and digitizing libraries. But for me, I felt thatGoogle’s popular image did not match its actions in the work place,and that some of the things they did were not very “Googly.”

Issara

From: “LisaDate: Fri, 30 May 2008 15:16:20 -0700Local: Fri, May 30 2008 4:16 pmSubject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.

I’m enjoying this group and this thread.

I had a far different hiring experience — it moved tooquickly! I wasn’t actually ready to leave my previous position, butwhen the Google recruiter called, it would have been silly not to talkto her.

I had one full day of MV in-person interviews, a few phoneconversations, and the next thing I know, they’re calling me topresent an offer. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have accepted it. I spent

all of 11 days working at Google before I returned to my previous (nowcurrent   company.

I wish I had asked more questions and asked to meet the team I’d bemanaging (at least some of them!) before I jumped on board, butGoogle’s reputation as an employer is legendary. At the time, I feltconflicted, but then I’d think “Google wants me, and everyone knowshow hard it is to get hired there. I should jump on this opportunity.”I don’t bear any ill will — I think Google is an amazing company, isdoing some revolutionary things, and is full of smart people. And Ibought shares in 2004, so I hope they continue to be very successful. 

Cheers!

LisaFrom: PamDate: Fri, 30 May 2008 15:39:04 -0700 (PDT)Local: Fri, May 30 2008 4:39 pmSubject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.

I have been sitting back, surprised at the level of negativityexpressed by those on this thread, and wanted to share my verydifferent experience. Sure, Google isn’t perfect, its management isn’tperfect, the HR department isn’t perfect, etc, but by and large theydo things better/smarter/friendlier than the vast majority ofcompanies out there.

My hiring process back in 2003 was, like some of yours, somewhat drawnout, and I was made to contract for almost 4 months before beinghired, but Google gave me a chance, and I gave Google a chance. AndI’m so glad.

Forget about the cool products I worked on over the years that are onthe cutting edge of technology and impacting millions of people. We’remostly talking about work/life balance and job satisfaction. I getsuch a kick out of thinking about the incredible stuff I got to dowhile at Google (watch Barack Obama/Al Gore/Hillary Clinton/ColinPowell/Malcolm Gladwell/Jimmy Carter speak, go to a trapeze class,hear John Legend play in Charlie’s cafe, go to a chocolate trufflemakingclass, ski on Google’s dime year after year in Tahoe, to namejust a few), not to mention enjoy a work environment at Google thatwas informal, comfortable, safe, and supportive — so different fromthe work environments of my friends in other industries or at othercompanies.

I wonder if post-Google bitterness is correlated to when you joinedand/or how long you were at Google. It seems that it is. Maybe it’sthe memories of Google in the first few years I was there that make itit seem magical, but I really do treasure the time I spent at Google.I left a few weeks ago, after almost 5 years at the company, because Iwanted to pursue a markedly different career path. Sure, I had timeswhen I was frustrated with the way Google was doing things, or when Ifelt that my particular project, or assignment was lacking, and Idefinitely had managers that I didn’t enjoy. But all in all — what afreakin’ amazing experience!—–And, separately, regarding the compensation issue, it seems to me thatGoogle would do their research and pay market wages high enough toattract the best. If good candidates refuse to take the jobs becausethe wages aren’t high enough to live on, they’d be forced to raisecompensation.

From: “LoganDate: Fri, 30 May 2008 15:56:47 -0700Local: Fri, May 30 2008 4:56 pmSubject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.

I experienced the same painful hiring process all of you did. Thereputation of Google is why I worked there for three and a half years. Itook pride in where I worked and the work I was doing. I knew I could getpaid more elsewhere but the caliber of people to my left and right wasamazing. I learned a lot and have benefited from the time I spent atGoogle.

When asked by friends and family why I was leaving I came up with anautomobile analogy.

One auto has a 5 star crash safety rating, with good gas mileage, lowmaintenance costs and good performance. Another, has bluetooth for yourmobile phone, 10 cup holders, sexy looking instrument panel, premium soundsystem, DVD player and seat warmer but has poor gas mileage, poorperformance, bad safety rating, expensive maintenance, etc.

Some will make a purchasing decision on what really matters; safety,performance, serviceability. Some will make a purchase based on “how manycup holders the car has”. Google is the car with all the sexy featuresbut very little of what really matters. The amenities,extra-curricular(s)and conversastion peice of “working for Google” is what keeps mostworking at Google.

My $.02

From: TedDate: Fri, 30 May 2008 16:27:35 -0700Local: Fri, May 30 2008 5:27 pmSubject: RE: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.

My bitterness is almost entirely because of my manager. He was in myorientation group in Mt. View and seemed like a good egg at the time. Justas Google can be a great place for the software engineer to do great workunencumbered, it’s also possible for a manger to be a complete jerkunencumbered. Tho the other members of the group (that didn’t leave sooner)thought that they could put up with anything to work at Google they didnotice my manager’s particular irrationality when dealing with me. Therewere only two days of my six months there that I didn’t dread going to work.My manager made sure that no other manager would talk to me and as soon asthe head of the office left town he tried to put me on a PIP. Life is tooshort to deal with jerks so I felt I had no choice but to leave.I do believe that I could have really enjoyed myself at the home office orwith a different manager, etc. but I wasn’t given the choice of what to workon nor who to work for.

-Ted

From: “GregDate: Fri, 30 May 2008 20:29:18 -0400Local: Fri, May 30 2008 6:29 pmSubject: Re: So… Why’d you left, guys? I mean, seriously.

I wonder how much of a difference there is betweenengineering/non-engineering and MV/non-MV, in addition to theold-timer/non-old-timer split.

I started working at Google a while ago as an engineer when there wasonly the Mountain View office. (If I recall correctly, the NY salesoffice opened later that month.) Google certainly seemed like anideal place to work at the time, and if I wanted to be an engineer,I’d probably still want to work there. But there were certainlyissues, even back then, and I believe they’ve mostly gotten worse asthe company has grown.

The hiring process:Google’s hiring process tends to have a lot of false negatives. If Ihad submitted my resume myself, rather than getting recommended by anemployee, I don’t know if I would have gotten in. My GPA was a 3.7,and the cutoff (at least at one point in Google’s history) was 3.8 (Iwent to a tough school, the 6th 4.0 GPA in its history just graduatedthis year). I honestly don’t know if this cap is still there (I

suspect not) but this is just one way Google arbitrarily cut down onthe number of people interviewed.

After I had been working, I found out that I was lucky that one of themembers of my team hadn’t interviewed me. My C++ skills weren’treally all that great, since I hadn’t used C++ in a couple of years,and I would have totally failed if he had interviewed me. He told methat he would have been wrong to do so, since I actually ended upreplacing him on the team and automating most of what he had beendoing by hand, so I hope that my example helped make at least oneinterviewer a little more reasonable. But the old-timers certainlyfelt like they had to have tough interviews, and in many cases “tough”equated to things like trivia questions or brain teasers, neither ofwhich are completely relevant to what people were being interviewedfor.

The Google lifestyle:Food at Mountain View in the early days was great. Things got a bitcrazy when Charlie was cooking in the same tiny kitchen that he hadcooked for 70 people in when there were something like 400 peopleeating in the cafe, although the food quality didn’t go down nearly asmuch as I would have expected it to. But this was just one of manyexamples of overcrowding in the offices that happened over the yearsat Google. (And honestly, keeping the cooks happy seemed like a goodidea to me…)

But along with the food came the Google lifestyle: if you were stayingfor dinner, it better be because you were working afterwards. It wasfrowned upon to leave right after dinner. I think a lot of peoplespent quite a bit of time either just before or just after dinnerhanging out and not really being all that productive, which is nicefor the mostly 20-something crowd, but I can sympathize with thepeople who have families that didn’t fit in. I had my own reasons fornot wanting to hang out at work, so I never really got that far intothe Google social scene. And my experience was that the people whospent all their time at Google were the ones that ended up on thesexier projects or in charge of things. (Admittedly, some of thesepeople were also workaholics, and I wasn’t willing to give up some ofmy non-work social activities, but there seemed to be a bit offavoritism going on as well.)

Engineers and everyone else:Unlike most other engineers, I had a job that required me to talk topeople all over the company. I talked to the lawyers, marketing, PR,product managers, executives, engineers… And because I startedearly enough, I also knew quite a few people in sales. As far as

salary went, my offer was 35% higher than my next highest job offer,so I think I lucked out there. That was certainly not the normalsituation, though. Over the years I talked to plenty of people aboutwhat they thought about Google’s compensation… There’s a hugediscrepancy between engineers and non-engineers. Most of the adwordssupport people I talked to complained a lot about their situation.Not only were they generally overqualified for the jobs (given whatthe work actually was, but Google has always prided itself on havingpeople with extra education) but they could fairly easily have gottenhigher-paying jobs elsewhere. The usual reason for sticking aroundthat I heard was that after a few years at Google, their resume wouldlook a lot better on the job market.

And that’s not counting the people who are contractors. I neverunderstood why all of the recruiters were contractors, given thatGoogle showed no signs of slowing down its hiring. All this meant wasthat a lot of the recruiters had to spend a lot of time training newrecruiters, since they were replaced so frequently. (This, I think,goes at least partway for explaining why the hiring process wasoccasionally a bit slow.)

ManagementMy biggest pet peeve was the management, or lack thereof, at Google.I went through many managers in my first few years. I ended up havingat least one manager during this time that was an unpopular manager,and because of that, I was told many times over that I shouldn’tbother trying to get a promotion. When I left, I had never beenre-slotted. This, in spite of the fact that my technical judgment wasrespected enough that I occasionally delayed launches until theirlogging systems were operating correctly. And in spite of the factthat I essentially consulted to other technical groups. I could go onabout this for a while, but then I might actually sound like I wasbitter.

Remote officesI worked in Mountain View for 3 years before moving to New York.Around that time, I started traveling a lot: I had college alumniactivities in southern California, so I occasionally worked out ofSanta Monica, and my brother lived in Seattle, so I worked in Kirklanda few times. The “Google experience” is substantially differentoutside of Mountain View. And being outside of the Mountain Viewculture bubble makes it that much harder to get taken seriously. Ihonestly have no idea what it’s like to work for Google outside of theUS, but even when you’re only 3 time zones away, it’s sometimes hardto get noticed by Mountain View.

This e-mail has gotten a lot longer than I really meant it to. But mypoint is that there are plenty of good reasons people can havenegative impressions of working at Google. Just like there are plentyof good reasons people have great experiences there.–Greg