As someone who worked at Square ~3 years ago and now works at Google, the rate-limiting and "promotion by apology" (their term, not mine) feel fairly similar - Google's is a bit more impersonal. However Google pays much, much better. Square (I felt) offered more opportunities to build a good engineering reputation and to gain actualization in other ways, and to make a significant impact.
Eh, at least in my case the offer they extended me was shit (speaking from my privileged and fortunate position). Combined with that promotion process it was easy to reject (and a month later I got an offer elsewhere for one level and $75k/year more).
So my data may very well be out of date. Google's salaries are indeed somewhat low, but their total comp was way higher than what Square targeted at the time. Since Square is now public and doing so well I'm not surprised to hear they're paying better than they did.
