"You also don't have a set workload: you do as much work as you think is appropriate and then go home."
Looking at both sides of this: the common complaint in most traditional companies is being under the thumb of the beancounters, and work being shipped incomplete, or buggy, etc. Or people working insane hours to make things happen.
It's a wish then for many in technology to eliminate this problem. At Google it appears this has happened. However, it seems to have introduced an entirely new problem...with no communication with end users, and no real deadlines, google's user facing software is often lacking obvious features that don't get worked on for ages...and forums full of users complaining without much of an acknowledgement or response from Google. The lack of focus and community interaction on certain Google products is at times bizarre.
It's an interesting note that you're damned if you do or damned if you don't. But it's very interesting to see both sides of this.
Looking at both sides of this: the common complaint in most traditional companies is being under the thumb of the beancounters, and work being shipped incomplete, or buggy, etc. Or people working insane hours to make things happen.
It's a wish then for many in technology to eliminate this problem. At Google it appears this has happened. However, it seems to have introduced an entirely new problem...with no communication with end users, and no real deadlines, google's user facing software is often lacking obvious features that don't get worked on for ages...and forums full of users complaining without much of an acknowledgement or response from Google. The lack of focus and community interaction on certain Google products is at times bizarre.
It's an interesting note that you're damned if you do or damned if you don't. But it's very interesting to see both sides of this.