GOOGLE - Great Place to Work

I was reading about Google itself and found this , really a good read to see what makes Google " great place to work"

Google's Misson:

Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Google is an engineering company. The Google web site is powered by some amazing technology, most of it developed in-house. Yet people often ask us what we do here at Google Engineering. "What are you working on? Isn't search a solved problem?"

Glad you asked.

We're working on lots of interesting stuff and one of the main reasons is that search is far from a solved problem.

Let's say you used Google to search for the topic "Michelangelo's David". The results page would show "Results 1-10 of about 6,960,000" web pages. That's pretty helpful, but we could do so much more. Google prides itself on its algorithm for choosing the most relevant pages, but it's a work in progress; we're constantly finding ways to improve its selections. Plus, the top ten pages listed are all in English; surely there are some interesting web pages in Italian that we could translate for you, and chances are at least some of them deserve high ranking. Over at http://images.google.com you can find some helpful photos of the sculpture (plus some knock-offs), but there are video clips, museum guidebooks, historical articles, and many other sources of information about David that the web doesn't reach. And it's likely someone at the Galleria dell'Accademia has a 3-D scan of the sculpture you'd enjoy browsing. (From the search results, it's clear that Stanford has some 3-D data too.) So yes, Google is very good at searching the web for the most relevant pages for the query you type, but that's really only a minor subset of the true `search problem', which remains far from solved.

And consider this: We currently search billions of web pages. That's a lot of information, but even that's not the whole web. And even if it were, it's still only the web; what about all the other information out there? Google's mission is to make all the world's information accessible, not just a subset of the web.

So you see, we have our work cut out for us. Feel like helping?

You don't need to be an expert on searching; in fact, most of the people in our engineering group had little or no background in search technology before they came to Google. To implement a good search algorithm on the scale of the web requires ideas from just about every area of computer science, including information retrieval, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, distributed computing, large-scale system design, networking, security, data compression, user interface design; the list goes on. Or look at it this way: a typical query to Google can touch thousands of machines before returning the answer. With all those machines and all that communication, the problems can be daunting and new ideas and new technologies can always be brought to bear.

You also don't have to be willing to move to the San Francisco Bay Area. We have engineering offices in Santa Monica; Kirkland, WA; New York; and other cities. We also have engineering centers outside the U.S., including Switzerland, India, Japan, China and many others. Each of these offices works on the same problems as in Mountain View. In fact, many Google projects have membership that spans engineering offices.

The Story So Far

The search problem is tough, but we've made significant progress. Besides constructing the world's most heavily used web search engine and a lot of other public web services (www.google.com, news.google.com, images.google.com, groups.google.com, catalogs.google.com, labs.google.com, maps.google.com, gmail.google.com, scholar.google.com, adwords.google.com), not to mention the Google Appliance and the Google Toolbar, Google Engineering has achieved a number of other milestones you may not be as familiar with:

• 
  We designed and built an advertising system that automatically performs hundreds of millions of automated auctions per day to determine the placement and prices of advertisements appearing on Google search result pages and non-search pages on dozens of other sites.
• 
  We built a very large scale, distributed, fault-tolerant file system, called GFS, to help manage and process huge data sets. A paper in SOSP 2003 describes the file system.
• 
  We designed and developed a fully automatic news system (news.google.com), which has rapidly become a standard tool for human journalists. Custom algorithms group together articles about the same story from different news organizations from around the world, providing diverse viewpoints about the day's events. Heuristics judge the importance of each story relative to other stories in the news around the world to generate our headline summary pages automatically.
• 
  We built a searchable archive of millions of catalog pages by scanning and OCR'ing printed catalogs. This experimental service demonstrates the benefits of a searchable interface for information not previously easy to search or browse.
• 
  We're exploring large-scale machine learning as a means of improving search quality. Our spelling correction system is one excellent example (spehl korector? phonitick spewling? who needs a dictniary?). People searching for Britney Spears have clearly found it useful on many occasions. In more recent work, we have been working on algorithms and techniques to construct very large scale Bayesian network models to help understand the relationships between words.
• 
  We are building a large-scale public e-mail system capable of storing 2 GB of data per user, with a unique user interface that centers around search, scaling to many millions of users.

All this is achieved by connecting together tens of thousands of servers behind google.com and providing them with a lot of custom-built, cutting-edge, innovative software.

It should be clear by now that the search problem involves much more than just searching, and that some of the most exciting work at Google happens behind the scenes. We're also working on a number of interesting projects at the moment that are too preliminary to discuss here, and we're always looking for new and interesting ideas.

Who we are

Who did all this? A dedicated and growing team of smart, creative programmers and computer scientists -- but we just call them engineers. They come to Google with expertise in a large range of topics. And before they joined Google, some of them also built software, hardware, tools and other technology you might have used:
A Bug's Life
The Apache Software Foundation
Alpha CPUs and Alpha-based Multiprocessor Systems
Apple Lisa
Aspect-oriented Programming
ATOM (A Tool for Object-file Modification)
Cilk
CiteSeer
Cyrus IMAP
DCPI
Deep Space 1
The Digital Michelangelo Project
Epi Info
FLASH Project
FreeBSD
GIGAswitch/ATM (Autonet 2)
Gimp
Gnome
Gnumeric
GNU findutils
GNU coreutils
gtk
The Human Genome Project
Hyperbolic Browsing
ical
IEEE Std 1003.1, POSIX
Interlisp
Itsy Pocket Computer
Java HotSpot
The Java Virtual Machine Specification
JScheme
lex (by our CEO!)
Mars Exploration Rover
MIT/GNU Scheme
Perl
Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox
Plan 9
Python
Sather
Sequitur
SiByte SB-1250 Processor
The Self Language and Compilation System
Subversion
SUIF Compiler
Surfbot
Toy Story 2
Unix
UTF-8
Venti
Visual Threads
Vortex Compiler
WebTV
WINE
xscreensaver

A few of them wrote papers and books you might have read, on a fairly wide range of topics:
algorithms
artificial intelligence
bioinformatics
compiler optimization
computer architecture
computer graphics
computer security
data compression
data mining
file system design
genetic algorithms
information retrieval
machine learning
natural language processing
operating systems and distributed systems
profiling
robotics
search engine design
software engineering and design
text processing
user interface design
web information retrieval
various other topics

Not all the engineers have done such public work, of course, and their backgrounds vary enormously. Some started at Google right after college; others came after spending time in academia or industry. Some love thinking long and hard about difficult problems; others just enjoy getting their hands dirty building and deploying massive, real-world systems. What they all share, though, is an enthusiasm for the challenge of making the world a better place through the intelligent application of information technology. It's a blast.

Interested?

There is so much still to be done, so many hard (but fun!) problems to solve, so much information in the world, we'd like some of you to join us to help us in our task of making Google even better. The engineering challenges we face at Google are exciting and the perks of working here are wonderful, but the real reason most of our engineers came here is that Google Engineering is a great place to work. It's got lots of really smart people, amazing technology, fun problems, and a chance to make a real difference in the world.

Source : From "google search" only , hope google won't mind copying this .

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MIS SELLING - CTC ( A BIG MYTH)

It's always a fashion to quote our remuneration packages in 'CTC' i.e the Mighty Cost to Company , gone are the days when people use to tell thier salary what they use to get . Now we tell our salaries as " CTC" , which is no way close to what we get , at times it's not even real cost to the company .

Indian Government is coming up with a law for builders so that they quote thier apartment's area as real carpet , not as builtup or super built up , don't you think our organisations should also learn from this .

Recent article in the ET , endorses my views.
.............

LIFE may not be all that rosy for you as promised by an impressive "CTC" of the new company you would have joined after passing out of B-school . Well, the "cost to company" on offer for you is actually a way too high than the actual salary that you may take home, or for that matter, in some cases, even the gross package , on offer.

ET got an access to pay-slips of some young executives working in blue chip multinationals and domestic corporates and tried to demystify the jargons that go on in defining the cost to the company. Our conclusion: CTCs are misleading more often than not.

For instance, meet Saurav (name changed), who passed out of MDI Gurgaon to take up a lucrative job in a well-known Gurgaon-based FMCG multinational. Saurav was then promised an annual CTC of Rs 12 lakh. "It's been more than six months that I have been working here, but there's hardly been a month when I have pocketed more than Rs 60,000," he says.

While making salary offers, companies are increasingly harping on components that may not be of any use to an individual in the short run. Infact, some of these components, such as the super annuity scheme, are virtually impossible to leverage. Under this scheme, a professional is entitled to a one-time bulk amount, but only after he has completed 10 full years of service with the company. A slightly easier version is gratuity, that can be leveraged after a service of five years.

"Insurance policies like mediclaim are other vague terms that's counted a part of the CTC," an executive in a MNC financial institution says.

Interestingly, some companies are even counting EMIs for laptops given to executives as part of the CTC. "I happily felt that laptop was a goodwill gesture from my employer welcoming me into the company's workforce. But when I saw my first salary slip, it came as a shock of a lifetime. There was a head saying deduction as EMI for laptop," says Saurav. Add to it, club memberships offered to new recruits may appear attractive incentives, but at the end of the day, you are the one who pay every penny of it, via, of course the CTC promised to you.

Of late, deferred salary plan has also been forming part of CTC. Though companies say it's just another retention tool, according to this practice, incentives are not cleared along with monthly salaries and rather accumulate and are paid on half-yearly or annual basis.

At times, even the house rent allowance component can get a way too misleading. Some young engineers passing out of IIT Delhi were hired by a leading infrastructure company and posted in a small town in western UP. They were promised an HRA of Rs 10,000 at the time of recruitment, which was only reimbursable against actual costs incurred. However, during their posting in UP, they were provided company accommodation, where four young engineers were made to stay in one apartment, which obviously meant they had no claim to their HRA.

Experts say students expecting placement need to read between the lines. According to Sanjay Jog, VP(HR), Pantaloons, there are two things students should look out for in their CTC. Firstly, they should look out for discounts that companies can include in the package. These may not necessarily be used by the students. Secondly, at times companies may include a loan amount to the total salary stating that this loan can be availed at a lower rate of interest compared to the market.
Source - The Economic Times - Dec 20 , 2006
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/860933.cms?epaperTweet

DO YOU HAVE A BEST FRIEND AT WORK?

http://justforchange.blogspot.com/2006/03/working-with-friends-friends-turn.html

I remember having written this post and was quite excited about this , today even an expert from Gallup endorsed this . Tom Rath , from Gallup who has authored " Vital Freinds" mentions about :

Eight vital roles that frinds play -

Builders - Those who motivate you to achieve more

Champions - Loyalists who stand up for you

Collaborators - with similar interests

Companion - classic frinds who you call first with your news

Coonnectors - who introduce you to others

Energisers - who give you a boost when you're down

Mind openers - who expand your horizons

Navigators - who you go for advice

One friend might not be able to play all roles , but they all are needed . Remember , in spite of resistance from CEO's , Gallup insisted on having this question in thier famous Q12 surveys.
" Do i have a best friend at work ?"

Inspired from : the Corporate dossier - December 22 , 2006

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WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE ORGANISATIONS ?

WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE ORGANISATIONS ? - Azim Premji, CEO- Wipro
Every company faces the problem of people leaving the company for better pay or profile. Early this year, Mark, a senior software designer, got an offer from a prestigious international firm to work in its India operations developing specialized software. He was thrilled by the offer. He had heard a lot about the CEO. The salary was great. The company had all the right systems in place employee-friendly human resources (HR) policies, a spanking new office,and the very best technology,even a canteen that served superb food. Twice Mark was sent abroad for training. "My learning curve is the sharpest it's ever been," he said soon after he joined.

Last week, less than eight months after he joined, Mark walked out of the job.
Why did this talented employee leave ?

Arun quit for the same reason that drives many good people away.

The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called "First Break All The Rules". It came up with this surprising finding:
If you're losing good people, look to their immediate boss ..Immediate boss is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he 's the reason why people leave. When people leave they take knowledge,experience and contacts with them, straight to the competition.

"People leave managers not companies," write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.
Mostly manager drives people away?

HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave,but a thought has been planted. The second time, that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he looks for another job.

When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information. Dev says: "If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don 't have your heart and soul in the job."

Different managers can stress out employees in different ways - by being too controlling, too suspicious,too pushy, too critical, but they forget that workers are not fixed assets, they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit - often over a trivial issue.

Talented men leave. Dead wood doesn't.
"Jack Welch of GE once said. A company's value lies "between the ears of its employees".Tweet

MIS SELLING - Continued

Hi , I was surprised by this one. I got 7 mails on the subject from different parts of the country and 1 from London as well . I never though this to be common phenomenon . For the un initiated , we are talking about MIS SELLING by organisations / employers to thier prospective / current employees . I identified 2 very common areas :

Job Content
Perks

But getting mails that this is only tip of the iceberg , keep sending your thoughts / post comments about other common / un common areas of MIS SELLING to employees .

PS. have removed the restriction on posting comment , you may comment anonymously .Tweet