Finance is a 2nd class function (at best) and in general has very limited power within the organization. This can make it difficult to make a difference or even be heard outside of the org. Often, those who succeed in finance are those that can please their business partners in Engineering/Product which can cause incredible conflicts of interest (sure, that acquisition looks fabulous and it's only $100M! I can make an analysis that makes it look great ) - even if not explicit the pressure to please powerful VPs in Eng is intense. This is compounded by the hyper-reliance on 360 feedback and networking which means it can be hard to make a change or stand up if something seems wrong.
Finance is primarily full of investment bankers & consultants, with little folks with actual Corp Finance experience. This causes an amazing amount of inefficiency as folks don't understand how to do basic things like create a budget and expect people to stick to it (seriously - within weeks of budget creation no one knows if budget applies anymore or if we're moving to a monthly forecast view instead). At first, I tried very hard to get more Corp Finance folks in the org but now I actually think IBankers do best as folks with actual CF experience tend to be so shocked by the Google processes (or lack thereof) they simply cannot hang.
Work/life balance is dreadful - since the employee base is generally young and former bankers, most folks don't seem to be upset by late nights stretching past midnight but for those with families (or even those that just enjoy their lives outside of work) this can be painful. Especially since most of the time is spent on projects that go nowhere.
Google elects not to use ERP or other established software in favor of developing their own solutions. Then they don't staff these solutions with adequate Eng resources. Result is an incredible lack of data availability with the expectation that finance be "scrappy" to find ways to tease out or completely guess at the data. Upside is that without a data source no one's likely to know if you're completely off base - but this can be unsettling for folks who really want to use reliable info to make business decisions.
There are constant reorgs and reprioritizations at Google - particularly if you don't support the Search / Ads business. Forget about focusing on anything that will take more than 1 Q to achieve.
This is a social/extroverted environment which means that those who are good at networking have an edge over those who don't, even if the folks who don't are doing a superior job. I've taken advantage of it myself but it's not fair.
