A little birdie told me that most denials were for specific roles (eg some entire departments were not going to let employees go remote, mostly not engineering). In engineering the bird told me most denials were due to being very junior, working on something that needed physical access, or poor performance
I find it very hard to believe that in the next month like half of the company is going to apply for remote positions. We didn't see this happen the last time we were within 30 days of a planned return (on Jan 3).
I wouldn't accuse Google of having an effective management culture.
They tend to promote from within and along the engineering track, which results in engineers reasoning from "What would I (a high-performing engineer) do?" and not necessarily what's best for the team.
