Here's the thing though. Google builds the actually important products very well. Ads and Search. Particularly the former. The ad serving infrastructure at Google is huge and stable and makes insane money. Everything else is a sideshow.
The real quality work being done at Google is by SREs -- not SWEs -- in Ads / Search & Core. The infrastructure they build and maintain is amazing and hard to explain to people outside. I say this as a former SWE there.
The real quality work being done at Google is by SREs -- not SWEs -- in Ads / Search & Core. The infrastructure they build and maintain is amazing and hard to explain to people outside. I say this as a former SWE there.