Friday, March 25, 2005

Googleplex Working Style

Joe Beda, who works for Google, talks about the Google working style. (Note Joe stresses these comments are his own, and not any sort of offical corporate strategy or such.)

Joe says there is, by and large, one code base at Google. This makes it easy to find code to reuse and to contribute. He also says it’s easy to switch teams at Google, doing part this part that. There is not really a complicated formal process involved, but it’s more about finding a good mutual fit. Joe continues to say the Google intranet is totally transparent, revealing intimate details of one project group to all the rest of Google workers.

Joe also mentions the 20% rule of Google Inc., which not only allows, but encourages engineers to spend part of their time working on projects that really interest them. And:

“The intrapersonal environment at Google is very energizing. When someone comes up with a new idea, the most common response is excitement and a brainstorming session. Politics and who owns what area rarely enter into it. I don’t think that I’ve seen anyone really raise their voice and get into a huge knockdown drag out fight since coming to Google.”

This truly sounds like a fascinating work environment.

[Via John Battelle.]

Googleplex Working Style by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (0)

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