After having many conversations with the great folks at gTech, I made this post to summarize what I’ve learned for both myself and my family and friends, who’ve had as many questions as I did about gTech. I hope this may better clear the fog! (Post is based off of only conversations with existing gTech employees)

1. What is gTech Engineering?

As described in their ‘gTech Software Engineer’ job description, “gTech Eng[ineering] sits at the heart of Google Technical Services (gTech), a group dedicated to providing technical and product services to Google Users, Advertisers, and Partners through all phases of the Sales cycle.” In other words, gTech Engineering is a group under the Google Sales division that coordinates with Google product teams and Google’s partners. gTech engineers, known as Technical Solutions Engineers (TSE’s), may have responsibilities related to:

  • Managing and building upon systems that monitor the life cycles of Google products and help integrate Google products with their partners’
    • Example: Monitoring revenue streams or server uptime, or helping channel their partners’ data for use in Google Maps
  • Creating internal tools for Google engineers
    • Example: Collecting data on the type of user devices being utilized to use a Google product, or automating internal hiring processes (e.g. populating the offer letter)
  • Collaborating with Google product managers and sales engineers

As of recent, gTech was reorganized from Partner Solutions Organizations (PSO), Consumer Operations, and a variety of other teams in Google Sales. There are about 1500-2000 employees at gTech in total and 110 TSE’s worldwide in areas including Mountain View, CA; London, UK; Boulder, CO; and Tokyo, Japan; 40 TSE’s of which are at the headquarters in Mountain View.

2. Can I get a sense of what other projects TSE’s work on?

Sure, there’s such a wide variety of projects and tasks that it can be difficult to have a homogenous picture of what TSE’s actually do. Here are some additional examples.

  • One TSE’s Noogler (New at Google) project included ramping up on database operations: pulling data, performing operations on the data, and storing the results
  • Working on a web-based dashboard that presents metrics to directors in regards to how much money is being made from a multitude of products (e.g. YouTube and AdSense)
    • Making the dashboard extensible to displaying more products at once
  • Giving special promotions on ‘google.com’, such as recommending users who haven’t already to set their homepage to ‘google.com’
    • Maintaining a quick load time of ‘google.com’

  • Converting code to Go programming language
  • Analyzing the usage of Google services: who uses them the most and who doesn’t use them at all?
  • Understanding advertisement placement

3. Are the titles ‘Technical Solutions Engineer’ (TSE) and ‘Software Engineer’ (SWE) used interchangeably at Google?

Mostly yes. TSE’s are hired to the same engineering standard as SWE’s, have the same freedoms and basic training as SWE’s (transferring teams, 20% time, orientation, code labs, etc.), and are given similar compensation packages. However, TSE’s differ from SWE’s in that, being in the Google Sales division, they report to a Sales VP, and their skill sets are less focused on creating the actual software (hence, an SWE’s title). Additionally, the career profile/ladder differs from that of an SWE (there are less total levels to climb for a TSE).

4. What’s the workplace like (in Mountain View)?

Like other workplaces at Google, several people share the same space (including the product manager you may be working with). It’s an open floor where you are in shouting distance of 60-100 gTech people, not just from engineering, daily. There’s a kegerator, and foosball and Ping-Pong table out for use.

5. Can you describe the team dynamics (in Mountain View)? What sort of teambuilding activities do they have?

Because of the open floor and relatively small size of the gTech team, practically everyone knows everyone, and it’s not uncommon to have relations in gTech around the world. In fact, there’s a program at gTech that allows their employees to spend one-month intervals at several of their offices. In addition to many teambuilding events, there’s a happy hour every Thursday as well as an annual trip to Monterey Bay.

What I think is most interesting is that gTech employees come from a wide variety of backgrounds: other technical companies including eBay, Microsoft, Intel, and Apple; some were professors in applied math and physics; some have completed an MBA program and some were once sales engineers; and in some ways, people in gTech are more well-versed and possess further social skills because they are required to regularly deal with Google’s partners. This can lend to a more social and tight-knit community compared to a that of a product team at Google.

6. What are some pros and cons to working at gTech Engineering specifically?

Pros

  • You have the opportunity to work on impactful projects (that directly contributes to the success and direction of Google products)
  • gTech Engineering possesses a ‘self-initiative’ culture; one gTech employee turned a weekend hack into a full-time commitment
  • There’s always fresh ideas to work on because gTech reacts to the needs of their partners and the market
  • Engineers get immediate feedback on their work because they are organizational-facing
  • Ship code every month, and there’s work being done to decrease the period to weekly
  • TSE’s are centrally positioned at Google, allowing them to have a broad experience in both the technical and sales areas
  • TSE’s get to work on more projects on average compared to SWE’s because of the quick shipping-cycle and the many, new projects on-demand

Cons

  • There’s a fair share of legacy code, and improving it is a priority before focusing on v0 tools
  • The skillset you gain from working in gTech Engineering is less catered to the software development cycle than a SWE may experience
  • There’s a large number of systems and tools to learn, and accordingly, an expected ramp-up session of 2-3 months before managers expect any worthwhile results

7. How do other teams at Google view gTech Engineering?

They generally have good feelings because gTech is the one that gets their products into the hands of customers, takes care of communicating with Google partners, as well as provides them a lot of metrics as feedback. They count on gTech to make business deals and successfully integrate their products with Google’s partners.

8. Do many people stay at gTech? Where are former gTech Engineering employees now?

There are a growing number of new-hires (gTech is putting in some effort to grow teams) as well as employees that have been in the team (formerly PSO) for 10 years. “I’m still growing and there’s still so much to learn”, gTech employees have commented in reply to whether or not they would want to move teams. Many gTech employees who have left have joined startups (one of which, became a startup’s first technical employee).

9. What are some take-away skills from working at gTech Engineering?

  1. Standard engineering practices: coding practices (syntax, comments, etc.), coding reviews
  2. Higher opportunities, in comparison to other teams at Google, to tech-lead projects
    • Learn how to encourage, motivate, and leverage the skills of other engineers
  3. Get a front seat in understanding the relations between Google and it’s partners
  4. Working with big-data, data-mining, and web-applications
  5. Creating scalable and extensible systems

10. Anything else I might want to know?

Depends on who you are! Here’s an incomprehensive list of additional information:

  • Currently, gTech engineers are not required to have any background in sales to start out; there’s tons of training to get you ramped up in addition to the standard new-hire orientation at Google
  • Some existing teams include ‘Business Intelligence’ and ‘Platforms’; there are specific teams for ‘Google Maps’ and ‘Google Wallet’ as well
  • Projects are assigned a few months before your start-date; the Director of Engineering of gTech matches your interests and preferences with the open roles. Because gTech is moving to expand, there’s quite a few roles to fill
  • Unlike many other teams at Google, the recruiter for gTech Engineering works closely with the new-hires, acting as a source of information and networking point for TSE’s alike; he has an office both at HR and on the open floor