The second passport thing is definitely true. When I'm abroad--even, recently, Buenos Aires--I have access to office space, free food, a gym, and even a music room where I can practice guitar and piano.
It's funny because later in the article he mentions the difference between Google and Amazon, and this is a huge one. At Amazon you can't even open the building next door without approval.
When I went to other sites I just had to file a ticket and that was it. If something were to be approved, it was automatic, unless it was a restricted office/building. Maybe it depends on the job role.
Not too unusual, other companies I've worked were very similar.
I think there's a pretty big difference between filing a ticket to open the building next door and having free workspaces around the world you don't have to do paperwork to use.
This is absolutely true and has been for years. You’re granted access to the minimum number of buildings required for your job function, and can file a ticket for temporary access grants to other buildings based on need.
It’s absolutely not true and hasn’t been for at least the last 5 years, in my experience.
I have access to every building in my city despite only requiring access to one of them, and I didn’t have to request it.
When I visited Seattle, I had to request access (which required clicking a grand total of 5 buttons in an internal portal and was instantly auto approved) to “the Seattle campus” and was granted access to every building, and still have that access years later. It wasn’t temporary.
Ditto for the other offices I’ve visited, both domestic and abroad. One office internationally I literally showed up and walked to reception and said “hi I work here but I’m visiting from out of town” and they immediately gave me access. I don’t see how this is different from the “second passport” described in the article.*
There are a couple of limited-access offices such as for subsidiary companies, but those are not the majority.
* - the one big difference definitely is the amenities and food, though. Amazon offices don’t have great, or even good, food. And the amenities are lame, most offices don’t even have a gym. There isn’t much of a reason to stop by an office unless you’re specifically there to work.
I worked for Amazon for a bit over two years, followed by Google for a bit over the last decade.
It never would have occurred to me to visit an Amazon office, so I didn't know about the ticket thing. I rarely worked with anyone remote.
When I joined, Google encouraged travel (less so lately). In the time I've been here I've visited over a dozen offices around the world. Some of them on vacation, because I knew there would be something unique about the local office, but also because with the exception of one office (Copenhagen), I'd worked closely enough with someone there to drop by their desk, say hello, shake hands, and get the best restaurant and bar recommendations I've ever found (and some great unexpected dinners with colleagues!)
Another great thing is you can usually find someone who is up to have fun, even if you have no social connections in a place you're travelling to. I was visiting Barcelona a few years ago and emailed the misc- alias seeing if anyone wanted to visit Montserrat with me, and 5 of us went up there and had a great day together. Best part is, it is usually cool people who say "yes" - the abject nerds aren't going to respond to that kind of email.
Nope, not even close to true in my experience. Almost all of the high performers I know have a huge social network they can tap into and you can't finger them as SWEs from a mile away.
Well, that's how I feel about some of my coworkers. I know it is a strong word, and I think it is appropriate. For the most part, they're not bad people, but they just have an extremely limited outlook on life(from my perspective).
It's almost literally a sidekick passport. If you fly into a city with a major Google office and you say you are there for work and you work at Google, the customs agent might ask to see your badge.
It has nothing to do with it being a passport, when you tell a custom agent you come for work and you work for company X they can ask for some proof. Nothing more to it.
TIL google has an office in Buenos Aires, wonder how that works with the current inflation, do engineers get paid in pesos? do they have to re-adjust their salaries every few weeks?
About 50% of my comp as a Canadian was in the form of RSUs which were in USD, so there's that. But of course, the amount you're given is indexed (in the past quite generously, but less so over time) against local compensation rates.
A few of the offices even have a pool (Google Dublin, and soon Google London)
Because the buildings are usually located in very central city locations
- I've often used the offices as a way to kill time til' check-in opens for hotels after a long-haul flight (grab food, caffeinate, have a shower, etc)
Recently I took a night train between Stockholm and Copenhagen.
Showered in the Stockholm office, walked 5 minutes to the train station, slept, woke up in Copenhagen, grabbed a hearty breakfast in the CPH office.
It's a little perk that is honestly vastly underestimated
On the topic of the perk of just showing up to an office and being able to get in, I completely agree that it's underestimated. I visited the Zurich office once and my flight got in at some terrible hour after a bad Frankfurt connection (aren't they all though?). I couldn't get in to my corp housing, but I just rolled up to the office with my suitcase and walked around giving myself the tour while the buildings were ghost towns. I think I dozed off in some room that had an aquarium.
Likewise, one time I was on vacation in Hong Kong and just waltzed into the office and hung around for a little while. I actually ran into a friend of mine in the office who I had no idea lived in Hong Kong or worked for Google at the time.
YouTube's San Bruno office (well, the Gap building at 901 Cherry) has a gym and pool. It's also bright, airy, and did I mention bright? So much natural lighting, it would be a shame if you had a super glossy monitor and no way to block glare 4 hours out of the day.
I got a tour one time of some of the less-visible infrastructure of the building. There is a huge concrete slab under the building that acts as a heat bank, and somewhere there are windcatchers (I don't see them in aerial photographs) which funnel air over the concrete before it goes into the interior. This keeps the inside cool in hot weather and warm in cool weather, without an active air conditioning system.
It's also nestled in the 280/380 interchange, so my commute very often took me up and back down on 280, which is probably my favorite stretch of road in the world. I grew up in the south bay, a stone's throw from 280, and driving up and down 280 has always been relaxing for me, even when there's (somehow) traffic.
In retrospect, I didn't fully appreciate that office. Thanks for the 5-minute reminisce.
That's interesting to hear that it is so relaxed in Europe. I work in EU at a multinational with offices all around the world, and within Europe, we are not legally allowed to enter the offices in other countries. The reason is simply that if there is a labor/work inspection (sorry, don't know the exact English expression) they can get a fine if I do not have a work order for a project abroad.
This is true in the US, too, but selectively and only really enforced in a meaningful way by a few states (including California). If you spend 30+ days in California for work reasons (visiting a employer's office would count, even if you're not on the clock when you do it) it triggers state income tax requirements. No fine, but equivalently unpleasant.
In my experience nearly every Google campus has a music room, and nearly all of them have at least a weighted keyboard.
In the Bay Area there are a lot of acoustic pianos available. There's even a special building that has like 12 practice rooms, each with an acoustic piano.
While an employee, I stashed 6 colored "p-bone" plastic trombones in google colors in various Google Cloud offices... (tokyo has blue, green in UK, etc)
A friend who works there reported that there's currently no theremin. It seemed to have been someone's personal theremin, and they took it with them when they left.
However, it sparked an interest in having a theremin - so perhaps it'll make a return!
In school, I did a research project on grand pianos in the lobbies of tech companies. Google was one of the few whose public relations refused to comment, but a helpful engineer I pulled out of the phone tree did ask around the MV office with my set of questions.
In the past it was sales&marketing only with smattering of a few "guest desks" for visiting engineers. And the site leads at Waterloo (at least) lobbied hard to prevent Toronto from ever really having engineering for real. Probably out of worry about centre of gravity being sucked away, etc.
IMHO it limited Google's hiring ability in Ontario. And it made me (and others) have to sell my house in Toronto and move when my employer was acquired. I tried the van/bus commute for 6 months and it was too hard.
Then the Geoffrey Hinton folks moved in there I believe. And I think some AI R&D was happening there?
And then COVID happened, and everyone was WFH but when you did go into the office and book a desk, it became possible to go into the Toronto office instead.
I left after that so can't say how it is now. Google goes through waves of "defrags" where small groups and teams in peripheral offices are... purged and merged because there's a feeling that "strength in numbers" for a particular project pays off. I wouldn't be surprised to see what happen post-layoffs.
The Toronto office, when I visited it, was small. Food was good though.
Don't work for Google, but been to the Toronto office (it is on the smaller side).
It is in the heart of the Toronto downtown, near Richmond & Spadina, next to the old & new City Hall. Definitely disagree with GP, I'm not sure what better area you would pick (but I love downtown). Similarly in Taipei, the Google office is right in Taipei 101 (like having an office in CN Tower - very cool.)
To be fair, Amazon's office in Toronto is next to the CN Tower and has a great view of it - so maybe Amazon takes the cake here. You have to pay for the cake though.
> It is in the heart of the Toronto downtown, near Richmond & Spadina
No, it's Richmond and University or Richmond and Bay. It's basically in financial district which is as boring and corporate as it comes. My point was to the GP saying "Google always seems to lease the best/coolest office real estate"
My girlfriend works for Google. I just moved to the Bay Area and I can definitely relate. She gives me tours of the Mountain View headquarters (and the campus) quite often and I just feel... it's too tranquil... it's too nice... it's too serene and it's just such a privilege to be here. The atmosphere is calm, the location is on beautiful rolling hills of California, the food is fantastic, there is a strong focus on biking/walking/community. Just lovely.
In reality they were out of room at many of their offices pre-COVID, and they hired like crazy during COVID, and had no room for everyone to RTO.
Before I quit you had to book a desk if you wanted to come into the office, hybrid. I pushed to get myself my own assigned desk because I despised the stock monitors, etc.
At that point (fall 2021) hardly anybody was coming in, so it was a ghost town. But they would not have been able to fit everyone in if they'd demanded people come back.
I worked from the Buenos Aires office, as part of my week long trip there. I was new so I didn’t have a million PTO days. The office space was beautiful, centrally located, with incredible food, and genial colleagues. We watched a World Cup match together. Same deal in Istanbul.
Should be fine (although your ability to access work materials might be limited). Visiting the Shanghai office is a decent alternative to the tower's paid observation deck (similar situation at the Taipei 101 office)
I've heard blockages in the Beijing Wudaokou office, but that was before I started working at Google (I left China in 2016 and started at google in 2020, so maybe a big gap). Maybe it changed? (or my info was wrong)
