21 Lessons from 14 Years at Google
When I joined Google ~14 years ago, I thought the job was about writing great code. I was partly right. But the longer I've stayed, the more I've realized that the engineers who thrive aren’t necessarily the best programmers - they're the ones who’ve figured out how to navigate everything around the code: the people, the alignment, and the ambiguity. Here are my 21 lessons.
This blog post by Addy Osmani, a former Google engineer, shares 21 lessons learned over 14 years at the company. Osmani emphasizes that success in engineering is not just about writing great code, but also about understanding users, navigating team dynamics, and making deliberate choices about technology and processes. Key takeaways include the importance of user obsession, collaboration over individual correctness, bias towards action, clarity over cleverness, and focusing on what can be controlled. Osmani also highlights the value of admitting what you don't know, the power of networks, and the fallacy of chasing performance wins through cleverness instead of removing unnecessary work.