Pros
Google has a lot of perks, financial incentives, and other benefits that make being a Googler enjoyable. If/when I leave, I'll definitely miss the ways that my life is easier because of them. One of the things I enjoy most is listening to the founders (Larry Page and Sergey Brin) talk at large meetings (especially David Drummond, when he shares news). They're both funny and intelligent, and I think their reputations as visionaries are probably mostly accurate.
Cons
My experience here is limited, but most of the people I know who started around the same time as me have identical complaints: Google doesn't want thinkers for the majority of their engineers, they want short-order cooks and yes-men. In all my career, the only place I've worked that was even comparable to Google was Wells Fargo (which was a ridiculously unfulfilling place to work as an engineer). Additionally, the culture at Google is very snobby compared to other places I've worked. Managers love to reiterate lines like "we hire the smartest people in the world", and a lot of people seem to eat it up. One could argue that this is harmless placating, but the level of groupthink present all over the organization is appalling. Many even consider "not invented here" a legitimate reason to build something from scratch, even when there's more robust free software out there (I've been pressured into doing this several times, since the approval process for 3rd party code is so painstakingly bureaucratic). Lastly, I don't feel valued, respected, or even acknowledged by managers. I end up working nights and weekends every week because of clear organizational mistakes being made by managers or other teams. I have been told personally by a manager that a reason for me being pigeonholed into a role I hated was because I didn't go to a top tier school (since another placation they often throw around is that Google is way harder to get into than an Ivy League school, this does once again seem irrelevant). The worst part is that most people don't listen about these things; the times I've told people that we are underorganized and it's going to cause problems later, the general response is to ignore it and/or not be proactive.
