Google Software Developer reviews

You gotta put a lot of work in, and working with so many talented people can be intimidating. Some of the people (especially people who were here before the IPO) can be a little full of themselves (but most people are pretty down-to-earth). Also, with so many people working there, sometimes it can be easy to feel a little powerless, and you might not have the same sense of personal accomplishment that you do with a smaller startup.

Working from outside Mountain View can be tough: from late hour meetings, to generally having at least 20% less influence/impact than you'd have if you were in Mountain View, especially on the making decisions side and driving projects. Fair amount of politics and fighting for key projects, bad co-ordination between teams working in similar areas. The occasional suck-up and getting promoted if you're vocal. But I wouldn't say that's the norm though. Low salaries compared to quality of people and hard work done. High difference in salaries depending on where you came from and how good you were at negotiating them. Very unscrupulous at negotiating everything when it comes to money (from salaries to anything else). Very unscrupulous at using their brand and positive image advantage to the maximum in such negotiations. They treat you like you always have to give something up from your side for the privilege of working with / for them.