Google NYC is not a specialized engineering operation, its 300 engineers work in teams of three on the full gamut of Google products and services. Currently, Google NYC engineers are working on about 100 different projects.
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Of Google’s 8000 employees worldwide, approximately half are engineers. Warren stressed that Google pro-actively seeks to keep an engineering-centric culture and does all in its power to avoid undue influences from the likes of biz dev, VC and marketing folks.

The Google agile development process begins with “upfront ideation,” Rechis said, and “story creation” follows. Once “stories are in place,” a highly managed “weekly sprint” development cycle is set in motion, with multi-functional teams working to meet supervised deadlines. Development teams typically are comprised of a Project Manager, a User Experience Engineer and a Technology Lead prioritizing workflow. Project schedules are set and reviewed for compliance in regular and frequent team meetings:

Engineer finishes task, Produces build for User Experience approval, Engineer releases into build, Build QA’d. Build stage for release…

The Google “weekly sprint” methodology enables flexible iteration integrating user feedback during the development process, Rechis indicated. As is the Google rule, he concluded, “focus on the user and all else will follow.”