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JEFF MOORE: Hi, everybody.
This is Jeff Moore.
I'm a lead in Google's recruiting organization, doing
a Hangout on Air today with a bunch of folks from our gTech
organization, really excited to be here.
And before we get started, I wanted to actually start off
with Ben from the team.
Ben, if you want to introduce yourself and just tell us what
the gTech org does, that would be great.
BEN: Yeah, sure.
Hi, my name is Ben Saitz.
I'm based here in Mountain View, California.
And we're here to tell you a lot about
what's going on in gTech.
So gTech is a global team that works with all of Google's
many partners and customers, both consumers and businesses,
to help make sure that their experience working with Google
is really world-class.
So we try to leverage lots of tools and products to help
make sure that, whether it's a consumer using one of our
consumer products, one of our business partners using our
business products, that much like we all experience Google
products to be really amazing and magical, that their
service experience with us is equally as magical.
So we're really working very hard to deliver a very
Google-level experience for our customers.
Really excited to talk to you guys more
about that here today.
JEFF MOORE: Awesome.
And now you guys touch both the technical
and the sales side?
Is that right?
BEN: Yeah.
We work with a lot of different kinds of customers
of all different sizes.
And we're trying to help make sure that their technical use
of our products works as expected.
And if it doesn't, then we want to be here and have a
very, very responsive, intuitive way for them to get
assistance.
JEFF MOORE: Awesome, very cool.
Yeah, I think it should be fun to learn a
little bit about this.
I guess we'll start going around the room and
introducing everybody.
Anwar, if you want to start, that will be great.
ANWAR AKRAM: Sure.
Hi, everyone.
My name is Anwar Akram.
I lead our consumer operations team.
And I've been with Google about six years now.
JEFF MOORE: Ben, you already introduced yourself, so you
don't have to go twice.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I'll go next.
My name's [? Qi ?]
[INAUDIBLE].
I've been at Google for almost nine and a half years.
And I manage the partner solutions team.
So we focus on, as Ben mentioned, support.
We work very closely with our product and eng teams, as well
as BD and sales.
And we focus primarily on partner onboarding, technical
onboarding, and ongoing support across about 40-plus
Google products, primarily the consumer products, but just on
the partner side.
So we're kind of the flip side of the coin to Anwar's
organization.
We focus on the partner, and he focuses on the user.
JEFF MOORE: Cool.
And Meagan?
MEAGAN: Hi, my name is Meagan Pi.
I've been at Google for 10 years, and I still love it.
And I manage a team that focuses on publisher business.
We're partnering basically with Ben's team.
They're focusing on the advertisers, and we're
focusing on the publishers.
We are working with publishers to
reinvent the digital business.
BEN: Yeah, I didn't add that also.
I've been here five years.
And my team focuses on largely display business for Google,
so whether it's on the Google networks or YouTube, helping
make sure that our users have a really good experience with
our ads and our advertisters have a really good experience
using our systems to reach their audiences.
JEFF MOORE: Awesome.
So it sounds like you guys work a lot together, or your
teams interact a lot together.
Could you guys give me a quick take on how you guys interact,
not only with each other but also with clients and in
collaboration?
[? Qi, ?] maybe you want to kick us off?
FEMALE SPEAKER: Sure.
So as I said, Anwar and I focus on a lot of similar
products, but he focuses on it from a slightly
different user base.
So the clients that he's working with are really our
end users, whereas we focus on the partner.
We really then both our with product
organization very closely.
So what we want to make sure is that we work together to
make sure that when we put in requests for things,
improvements we need to [? see ?] that are better,
that the relative prioritization of those
feature requests are balanced.
And then Anwar and I have pretty frequent conversations
about how we can make sure that we have more of a
cohesive message back to the corresponding product
organizations.
But then there's areas where we don't necessarily overlap,
where, for example, I do focus of working with our BD and
sales teams.
Because our partners tend to be more on the not pure
business side, because we work with groups like transit
agencies as well as non-profits.
But we're focusing more on that side of the house,
whereas Anwar, again, is focused more on the user side.
ANWAR AKRAM: I would just add in there that generally at
Google it's difficult to draw clear distinctions between
customers and partners, and being users versus just
general consumers.
So we all need to work together.
Because somebody who could be a paying advertiser is usually
also a user of Google's products.
And so that necessitates us working together to make sure
we bring the best that we can of Google for each customer,
partner, user, so on.
JEFF MOORE: Cool.
Meagan, so you must interact with these guys, too.
I'm doing this visual thing.
But how does your team fit into things?
That's interesting.
MEAGAN: It's interesting.
As I was listening to Anwar and [? Qi, ?]
I was thinking about the ways we're working with them.
In [? Qi's ?]
case, we are working on, for example, in [? Qi's ?]
world, where things are a lot more nascent and things are
getting incubated.
And when things are catching publisher business, when
things are getting mature, and things will get probably
migrated from her world to a publisher business into a
standard business role.
And in Ben's world, we are sort of two
sides of the same coin.
And they are the digital advertisers and media
advertisers in display business.
We are the digital media business on
the publishing side.
Without these two teams, our teams that work together, the
whole ecosystem would just break down.
And then in Anwar's world, just like Anwar said, a lot
times these fine lines between consumers and publishers and
partners and customers really are getting blended together.
And his team supports consumers who use
a lot of our products.
And we work with a lot of larger partners, like with
integrating these service products
into a consumer world.
So we do have a lot of
overlapping in working together.
JEFF MOORE: Cool.
And Ben, how do you fit into this whole thing?
BEN: One other thing which is interesting is that we
actually have a lot of folks move within our teams.
So what's really good is people come to Google.
They'll learn maybe one of our businesses, in terms of
working with publishers or partners or consumers or, in
my case, advertisers and agencies.
And then over time, they might want to take that experience
and skill set and try that in a different light.
So one of the other things that's really good about being
in this organization is people actually will
move through the teams.
So you get a chance to take that knowledge and apply it in
a very different direction, which is great.
JEFF MOORE: Very cool.
Obviously, we wouldn't be doing a Hangout on Air with
someone from recruiting hosting it
if we weren't hiring.
That would be kind of ironic.
But what are we looking for as far as
people to join the teams?
Anwar, I don't know if you want to kick us off, but what
kind of folks are you looking for, and skills and
that kind of stuff?
ANWAR AKRAM: Obviously, when we hire at
Google, we hire for Google.
And so all of those things around passion and being
incredible and amazing, all of those things apply.
I think specifically for my team, what we're looking for
primarily is people who are passionate about the consumer
and doing what's right for the consumer.
And I love that about Google in general, that we really
think about--
we're not thinking about necessarily what is the
cheapest way, although being responsible stewards of
Google's resources is important.
But what we're really fired up about is bringing along
magical support for the magical
products that Google has.
And so one thing that I always look for in interviews is,
does this individual really have passion for customer
support and for working on that side of the business?
And then on top of that, quickly, I think the other two
things are usually you don't have to be technical, but a
little bit of tech savvy is a good thing-- because we do
work closely with our products; obviously that's
what we support--
and then operational effectiveness.
JEFF MOORE: Anwar, before I kick it to the other folks,
I'm going to go one question deeper on technical skills.
When you say technical's good, do you mean a little bit of
programming experience, just comfortable with technology?
How technical are we talking?
ANWAR AKRAM: There's definitely a spectrum of that
within the consumer operations work.
Clearly, the more technical skills are much more
specialized.
But in general, what we're talking about is being a
passionate user of the technologies
today is a good thing.
If you're not a power user of Gmail or, in general, products
like that, that's an issue.
Also just being able to understand current technology
trends and whatnot--
that's generally what I'm thinking about when I think of
some tech savvy.
JEFF MOORE: Awesome.
Ben, how about for your part of the org?
BEN: One thing I would add to that, just agree with
everything Anwar said, it we want people who are really
good at solving problems, and really, solving
problems at the root.
It's really good to be able to respond in a very responsive
way and put out fires and so on, but we really are trying
to crack problems to the core and really think about how to
unlock those kind of things in a big, big way.
With the amount of people that we touch, in terms of whether
it's publishers or advertisers or consumers, everything is in
a very big magnitude here at Google.
So people who can really think through problems and come up
with really innovative solutions, I think that's
really something that we expect from anybody on our
teams to contribute.
JEFF MOORE: Yeah, I think that's a really important
point that you touched on, the size and scale and scope of
the sorts of things you guys are doing.
We're not talking about four users using Gmail in a corner.
We're talking about major systems.
And that's a big part of the challenge and
the fun, I'm guessing.
BEN: DB, [INAUDIBLE]
writing the product, they think about a product that's
going to potentially be used by people all over the world
in different languages, and how is it
going to look for them?
How's it going to work for them?
How do we make sure that every customer has an equally
magical experience?
And that takes a lot of good
problem-solving skills to crack.
JEFF MOORE: That's really cool.
[? Qi, ?] how about on your team?
What do you look for on your team?
FEMALE SPEAKER: I think what you'll find in general is that
across gTech, we do hire similar profiles of people,
just in terms of background and experience.
I think the thing that's very--
and I don't know how different it is-- but in particular the
thing that we really make sure that we focus on is trying to
bring in folks who can deal with change well.
As Meagan said, we work on a lot of emerging products, so
products that haven't launched yet or are new to the market.
And as a result, it's a really fast evolving landscape.
You may go from just a handful of partners 1,000 to 10,000 in
a very short period of time.
The people who can wear a lot of different hats, one day
deal with a client, the next day think about how we scale
out a product or really think at large how do we tackle big
problems, but then also be able to dig into the detail
and deal with the fact that the product may take a
90-degree turn tomorrow.
And so people who can be flexible, it's really the key
for people who are very happy and successful my
organization.
It's not total chaos, but there's not as much stability
as you might find in some of the other teams.
I think you have to have the right attitude to really like
that kind of environment.
BEN: I think it's a really good point,
just to jump in there.
It's not about what the job description says.
It's what the need of the day is, what the need of the
business is.
And anybody who watches Google on the news, you can see we're
doing all kinds of new things on an ongoing basis.
And people who can quickly respond and be agile will be
much more successful here.
JEFF MOORE: Absolutely.
I think I've told many a candidate that if you're
looking for really straight and narrow, it's probably not
what you're looking for.
Meagan, what's it like in your part of the yard?
MEAGAN: Can you guys hear me?
The frames were frozen for a bit.
BEN: Yeah, I can hear you.
JEFF MOORE: Yeah, you sound great.
MEAGAN: I see that gTech is really the technical arm in
the business organization at Google.
And we are the business arm in the engineering organization.
So we look for two different kinds of people in my
organization, and I think it probably applies to gTech as a
whole as well, to some extent.
So we look for engineers who enjoy solving problems for
clients and who enjoy working with clients.
And equally we like to find people with a lot of client
skills, but with a lot of passion in solving technical
problems or business problems for our clients.
So we find a good blend of people who enjoy being in a
[? quasi ?]
world, connecting the dots with technology and business,
and speaking with clients and solving problems, and hide the
complexity and offer simplicity to the clients.
JEFF MOORE: And now, when you look for engineers, Meagan, do
you look for hard-core C++ and Java engineers?
Scripting languages OK?
At a really high level, what kinds of
engineers do you need?
MEAGAN: I talk about two kinds.
If you're looking for engineers who
enjoy talking to clients.
And those people would need to be able to actually be a
programmer.
The [? nodes ?] and-- we don't need to [INAUDIBLE]--
[DOG BARKING]
MEAGAN: --machine learning algorithm, but we do need them
to be able to solve problems and [INAUDIBLE].
But we also enjoy having, looking for people who
[INAUDIBLE]
are rich with client experience, so we have a lot
of resources and programs we can use to train people who
want to hone their technical skills, so we
can train them up.
JEFF MOORE: OK, cool.
Very cool.
I apologize for the dog in the background there.
So we actually have some user questions that have come in.
We've got about five minutes left or so.
I know everyone's probably got other meetings, so we'll
quickly jump through the questions that came in.
The first one is a good one.
It's from Puja in Kansas City.
And [? Qi ?] or Meagan, it's probably a
good one for you guys.
It's, what kind of soft skills do you guys look for beyond
just the technical skill?
I know we talked a little bit about it, but are there really
specific skills like presentation skills or
analytic skills that are relevant?
What sort of stuff are you looking for?
FEMALE SPEAKER: I think this as Meagan mentioned, or as we
both mentioned, a lot of the folks that we have in the
organization, we work very closely with partners or
publishers or external folks.
And so I do think soft skills, like presentation skills, I
think there's things about how you manage client
relationships.
Because oftentimes we don't always have answers that maybe
our customers want to hear.
And so people who can be empathetic and know how to
manage tricky client situations
is always very helpful.
And then Ben managed some of that basic problem solving,
which isn't pure technical, but the ability to jump into a
situation and figure out what can I do to turn this
situation around and not just turn it around here, but
figure out how I turn it around across the board so
that we don't have the same problem again.
I think those types of skills are really important.
Meagan, I don't know if you want to add anything.
MEAGAN: [INAUDIBLE] actually.
I mentioned that we hire people who have rich client
experience and who want to learn technical skills, we can
train them.
We do the same for technical folks who are from an
engineering background but have less client experience.
We also have programs that can train people in these soft
skills as well.
JEFF MOORE: OK, cool.
So you guys can really take a broad spectrum of folks and
have them be productive.
That's really great.
We have another question that came.
I think Anwar, this one's probably for you.
And the question is, is technical support going
anywhere in terms of further integration and ease of use
with Google products?
If so, where can we expect to see them?
I don't know if we can answer that piece of the question,
but at least, what's the integration look like from a
user standpoint?
ANWAR AKRAM: I mentioned how what we're really striving to
do is to make our support experiences as magical as the
Google products are.
And I think there's two trends that
we're basically targeting.
One is to make support more predictive for you, so help
you before you know you need help, help you be aware of new
products or new tools that will actually make it easier,
make your day-to-day life easier.
So the predictive angle is one.
And the other that goes hand in hand with that is the
personalization.
So as you use your devices for more and more things, being
able to give you the support that is tailored for you
specifically and not you having to go through page
after page in the health center or thread after thread
in a forum, that's what we're trying to do, is to make the
stuff that's relevant to you be apparent and ready for you
much more quickly.
FEMALE SPEAKER: The one thing that I'd add, and it may not
be clear, part of the reason we're all part of gTech is
even though we serve slightly different constituents in many
cases, we have the same approach.
And so what Anwar's talking about doesn't just apply from
a user perspective.
We apply it to all the users that we support
across all the products.
So it's a general philosophy and approach that we're trying
to take across the board.
JEFF MOORE: That's really cool.
If you guys can figure out the predictive
stuff, it'll be exciting.
I'm happy to be a beta tester.
I'm a disaster.
All right, so we have one more question that
came in, from Amir.
And he'd like to know what sort of things he can do to
study, to get into Google and get a job at Google.
So I'll take that one.
There are a ton of resources online, on the Life at Google
page, on the Google Careers site for someone who's looking
to get a job here at Google.
And then, me being a recruiter, I always recommend
networking as another great way to get a job at a place
like Google.
And "who do you know?" is the end of the question there.
It's actually the end of our time together, guys.
I know it's been really fast.
But I just want to thank you for taking the time to chat
about gTech.
I certainly learned a lot.
And Anwar, I might follow up with you, a question about
iGoogle later.
My father had one.
I didn't know who to ask!
So I think I know where to go now.
But I really appreciate you guys taking the time.
And I'm sure I'll chat with you all soon.
Thanks a lot.
BEN: Thanks for having us.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Thank you.
JEFF MOORE: Bye, guys.
BEN: Bye.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Bye.