I think you underestimate your value to the company.
“All I do is copy code from the internal codebase and patch things together until they work” — this is exactly what established tech companies mostly need from their engineers. They want people with enough CS competence to not fuck things up while patching together new solutions from the institutional code soup that everyone knows how to navigate and review.
If you can do this reliably at 10% of your capacity and don’t have ambitions of applying creative solutions with unproven tech, you’re a real asset. Don’t leave rashly unless you’re genuinely bored or frustrated.
Their value to google is high enough to keep them employed but the job is beneath their capabilities.
That's what we call "the perfect job." It pays the bills, but leaves you the maximum amount of (mental|emotional|psychological|spiritual|whatever) energy to work on the things that really interest you ... outside of work.
Of course different people will approach this differently, but I don't want my job to be interesting. I don't draw any sense of self-worth / self-satisfaction / joy-in-life / etc. from my job. My job is just a means to an end, where that end is to pay the rent, pay the electric bill, buy food etc. I have enough other ways to achieve those other things, and an "interesting" (and by extension, "demanding") job just gets in the way.
For me personally, being bored at work actually leaves me more tired at home afterwards. I'm working on something so boring at work now and I can't handle it. It's just going to kill me very slowly over the course of the next month.
Now for your second point, I completely agree--I don't want to feel like my job is my worth or joy in life, and it isn't. But at the same time, I wouldn't take a job at an assembly line even if it paid $1M a year.
That's why you work on your side projects at work. I plan and design and write in a text editor my personal stuff all the time. It's just a text editor so it doesn't look suspect.
> but leaves you the maximum amount of (mental|emotional|psychological|spiritual|whatever) energy
That's probably not the case. It looks counterintuitive but being bored and feeling unmotivated at work can leave you at the end of the day with much less energy than an very intensive but interesting work.
Your 2nd paragraph makes sense for a person like you, but I'd guess that the OP is one of those different people, for who self-satisfaction at work is a key thing.
That's probably not the case. It looks counterintuitive but being bored and feeling unmotivated at work can leave you at the end of the day with much less energy than an very intensive but interesting work.
I actually agree with you on that. With the caveat that this is true if you do (by choice, or by inclination) really want your job to provide self-fulfillment / self-actualization / blah / etc.
What I'm not sure about, is whether or not that is a personality trait which is basically fixed and can't be changed, or whether this is something where you can make a conscious choice to change. I think it's the latter, because my own subjective experience has been that I used to be more of the "if my job is boring that leaves me feeling dis-spirited" or whatever, but over time I found that I cared less and less about the "day job" and more and more about what I chose to focus on outside. But I'll freely concede that this just one anecdote, and that what makes sense for me may not work for others.
Pro-tip: don't tell or show this sentiment to a potential employer if you ever look to switch jobs. This is probably the worst possible mindset for an employee to have from employer's perspective.
BILL
Ooh, uh, yeah. I'm going to have to go ahead and sort of disagree with
you there. Yeah. Uh, he's been real flaky lately and I'm not sure that
he's the caliber person you want for upper management. He's been having
some problems with his TPS reports.
BOB PORTER
I'll handle this. We feel that the problem isn't with Peter.
BOB SLYDELL
Um-um.
BOB PORTER
It's that you haven't challenged him enough to get him really
motivated.
BOB SLYDELL
There it is.
BILL
Yeah, I'm not sure about that now.
BOB PORTER
All right, Bill. Let me ask you this. How much time each week would you
say you deal with these TPS reports?
Yah, that's why you're paid well, because why else would you do it? If you want meaningful work get into research or work at a uni, but don't expect much money.
> The failing for google is not providing this person a path to do more or at least understanding their ambition to do more.
That's not a failure of Google. People need to be self-driven.
People who want to do more should talk to their manager about it, or pursue other opportunities within the company, or leave. Google and all the other big tech companies offer plenty of things to do for ambitious people if they express an interest.
> Google is failing to identify and extract more valuable labor from OP.
Google is doing a pretty good job extracting labor value in general. If they miss a specific individual who doesn't seem very motivated (to the extent of being a self-described slacker), I wouldn't view that as a failing. Ambitious people generally make themselves noticed, and trying to extract ambition from every slacker in the company is probably not very rewarding.
It's impossible for an organization on Google's scale to recognize everyone's potential perfectly, and match them with a perfectly challenging and rewarding position. At the end of the day, even Google has mundane jobs still need to be done.
The fault is on OP here, for not moving on earlier. FAANG is not the end all be all of software development. Consider joining a startup where you'll have a much larger influence over critical pieces of the software stack.
Regardless of what their understanding of Big O is, Google still needs a lot people to do CRUD work or make another mobile app, like any other company.
The issue seems to be hiring the highly educated and entitled to do boring but necessary work. GSUs can only motivate people so much.
I think it is just an optimal solution for large companies with disposable income.
A company I worked at hired smart engineer with a masters from Berkeley, and then tasked him with breaking down cardboard boxes and other mundane tasks. The fact that they were grossly overqualified for any of the tasks was a advantage because they were flexible, and reliably needed no oversight.
If money isn't an object, why not get the best tools possible.
“All I do is copy code from the internal codebase and patch things together until they work” — this is exactly what established tech companies mostly need from their engineers. They want people with enough CS competence to not fuck things up while patching together new solutions from the institutional code soup that everyone knows how to navigate and review.
If you can do this reliably at 10% of your capacity and don’t have ambitions of applying creative solutions with unproven tech, you’re a real asset. Don’t leave rashly unless you’re genuinely bored or frustrated.