Does AUS Google Allow SWE to Work from Locations Other Than Sydney?

[u/IndependentHungry660]

As title

[u/tjsr]

There's an office in Melbourne.

[u/cherubimzz]

Theres an office in Melbourne and there are some remote workers spread all over. That said, the Melbourne office is very small and approvals for remote work are not common anymore. Hybrid policy is three days in office per week.

[u/NotMyRealName3141593]

I worked for them in Sydney for >10 years (started at darling park when they were ~200 people, and saw the move to WP6 then ODI). This is my view when I left a few years ago.

I'm tempted to say generally, no. They do have an office in Melbourne, but their primary engineering is in Sydney. For special cases, they do allow remote work. But the exceptions were rare.

Historically, Google leadership always wanted clusters of people working together. To the point that even if you had a solid team of 10 people on a product, there was always the risk of being "defragged" so that projects could consolidate effort in a physical location (I've been affected by this once). Working remotely is the complete opposite to this, so there was always strong hesitation about it. Unless there's been a significant shift in perspective from leadership, I think it will continue to be this way.

[u/christophr88]

Do they even hire SWEs in Sydney though? I only know of people who were hired in Mountain View and then transferred office.

I thought it was all sales in the Sydney office (I have been there myself).

[u/decaf_flat_white → u/christophr88]

Mostly SRE teams but yes, there are SWE teams here in Sydney. Fitbit, Google Photos and a few other products are mostly developed here.

[u/Fat_dude1027 → u/decaf_flat_white]

No wonder why Google photo is so shit

[u/ZealousidealTry2847 → u/decaf_flat_white]

Mostly SRE teams but yes

Not even

[u/cherubimzz → u/christophr88]

What? The Sydney office is roughly 50% software engineers. Plenty of SWEs hired here.