If nothing else, almost everyone I work with is on their second or third career. I'm possibly the youngest guy on my team, and I'm 30. That said, I work out of the Seattle office. Lots of Amazon and Microsoft expats. Nobody around me seems to have any interest in going back.
I'll second that, despite having had a pretty bad experience at Google myself. I can't remember the whole list off the top of my head, but around fifteen of my friends moved over to Google over the span of a couple years, mostly from Microsoft and Amazon. Besides me, only two have left; one had a bad time and another wanted to do a startup.
Perhaps Mountain View is different, but the Seattle office sure seemed to be full of experienced, hard-working, basically contented engineers. It had many of the same faults I have come to associate with any large company, sure, but when the linked article asks "does any of that sound familiar", I have to say, "not really".
If nothing else, almost everyone I work with is on their second or third career. I'm possibly the youngest guy on my team, and I'm 30. That said, I work out of the Seattle office. Lots of Amazon and Microsoft expats. Nobody around me seems to have any interest in going back.