Google: 6 Months In – What I’ve Learned

I received an email the other week congratulating me for moving out of my Noogler (new Googler) faze, which I guess is defined as your first 6 months at Google. It’s hard to believe I’ve already been here for 6 months.

So what have I learned? A lot!

1). I’m surrounded by a lot of really smart people which constantly pushes me to try harder and work smarter
It’s not that I haven’t worked with a lot of smart people before. I definitely have. But it’s really a whole new level which is both exciting and scary. I’m constantly aware that I’m not the smartest (or second, or third) in the room. It’s a challenge every day to keep up (and I’m loving the challenge).

2). Likely a consequence (more like a blessing) of #1, I’m constantly learning
I’ve become a lot more technical these past 6 months. I’ve gotten a lot better at reading javascript, and to a certain extent (with the help of some great spreadsheets/formulas) I’m writing my own javascript. This has made it so much simpler to interact with my devs & engineers to pass them tracking requirements and QA implementations.

3). The importance (and consequences) of cookies
Not that I wasn’t aware before now how important cookies are to analytics tracking. But now I have a much clearer grasp on how they are passed from page to page (or action to action), the potential weight they can carry and the effects of that on site performance, and how that can add up to potentially break the internet (ok, not really, but it’s been a fun exercise to think about).

4). Project Management is a big part of bridging the business-technical gap
I find that a lot of what I do is project management – working between marketing, sales, product teams, dev teams, engineers, etc takes a lot of coordination but is a key part of sitting on the edge of many of these functions (as most analytics roles do).

5). Governance is important!
In such a large organization, governance around analytics & testing practices is vital to ensure all the various groups on various subdomains are playing well together (as far as analytics is concerned).

6). Culture is key
The Google culture has amazed me from day 1. A large part of what makes the goog such a great place to work is the culture (the trust, authority, intelligence, quirkiness, googliness, and fun).

These are just some of the highlights of what I’ve learned. There has been so much. It’s been a great 6 months. I’m ‘uncomfortably excited’ (as Larry Page would say) for what the next 6 months (and more) have in store!

Leave a Reply

2 Comments

  1. I am so happy for you Krista! I am looking forward for more elaboration/expansion on the above lessons. Maybe a detailed post for each lesson ๐Ÿ™‚

  2. Pingback: One year, 365 days, 12 months, 1/10th of a decade… Looking back & forward. | Marketing Insights

Next ArticleGoogle Analytics Blog Guest Post - 3 Tips for In-house Practitioners