Google is a name that has become synonymous with the internet today. There is not a single aspect of our lives that Google does not find its way into.
If you want to do anything online, it is mostly through Google.
According to the latest studies the number of people that use Google daily amounts to three billion.
And, Google’s search engine is only one among numerous products and services offered.
From Google Search to Google Docs, and Google Chat to Google Drive – the list goes on and on.
In line with the number of products and services that Google offers, you can imagine how many people are involved in running these operations.
How many software engineers does Google have? You may wonder. Let’s take a glimpse at this aspect of Google.
Number of Software Engineers with Google
Although there is a direct answer to the question “How many software engineers does Google have?” There are many variables involved.
Studies reveal according to Google’s reports that across all departments globally, it has 27,169 software engineers on the rolls.
But then, there are according to other reports a total of 26.9 million software engineers working in other companies on Google-related projects.
In 2018, a report shows that 20 million software engineers were working on Google projects in some capacity or the other.
There are different aspects to the number of software engineers at Google. Let us take a quick look at each aspect.
Number of Software Engineers in Google’s Research & Development (R&D)
According to a survey carried out by Ohee.net, in 2021 there were 18,593 software engineers on the rolls of Google’s R&D department.
The work of these employees would typically be creating software programs in Google’s R&D departments.
When we talk about how many software engineers does Google have in its R&D departments, the figure of over 18,000 software engineers includes different countries where Google employs its software engineers in addition to the United States which are South America, India, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Australia, Singapore, and Israel.
Number of Employees in Alphabet
Google also goes under the name “Alphabet” wherein Statista revealed that in 2021 156,500 employees were working for Alphabet worldwide.
This is a considerable increase from the 61,814 people employed by Alphabet in 2015.
Two other good ways of estimating the number of employees with Google are getting information from its annual report to its shareholders or its SEC filings. Both of these sources are public knowledge.
In Google’s annual report it stated that in 2014, 53,600 employees were on the rolls with 20,832 being engaged in R&D.
7,637 employees worked in operations, 1,7621 were in sales & marketing, and 7,510 in general and administrative capacities.
Google says that across their operation in numerous countries they have work councils where they have to show statutory representation and all the US employees are not represented by a labor union.
Google further states that the competition is high among various companies for qualified personnel, particularly technical staff, computer scientists, and software engineers.
How Many Developers Work at Google?
This is a question that comes up many times and is discussed across various online communities about how many software engineers google has or developers in its organization.
The number of developers has not been officially announced.
But if you take information coming from different sources, there is a rough estimate of over 18,000 engineers engaged in software out of which about 7,000 are likely to be engaged in R&D activities.
On a scale of 1 to 5 Google LLC is considered to be among the five tech companies in the world.
With the internet-related products and services that Google offers it understandably employs tens of thousands of engineers.
A technical report in 2013 revealed that Samsung employed up to 275,000 electronic engineers.
It is a much higher figure than the number of engineers working at Google at that time.
Samsung is estimated to employ over 40,000 employees engaged in making software.
Google has 18,593 R&D people who probably work in creating software.
Interesting Statistics about Google Employees
As of the end of 2021, 156,000 full-time employees were registered with Alphabet. As of 2015, this number represented Google employees.
When Google was restructured at the time of creating Alphabet, several other subsidiaries emerged like Sidewalk Labs, CapitalG, X, and, Calico.
Since its inception in 1996, this California-based company rose from strength to strength.
Today, the company is so huge that it even has a mention in the Oxford English Dictionary.
The company is considered one of the most desirable employers in the world.
There are many reasons for Google’s popularity as an employer, including the perks it offers like free food, community development programs, healthy work-life balance, flexible employment terms, and of course, the best salaries offered in the industry.
By 2022, Google and Alphabet combined have over 70 offices across more than 50 countries.
Some of the countries where Google has a presence in addition to the United States are Canada, Germany, the Czech Republic, New Zealand, Mexico, Turkey, and Finland.
The company’s headquarters in Mountain View, California is called “Googleplex.” Other than California, Google also has US offices in Washington D.C., Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Georgia.
Conclusion
Whichever way you look at it, all this data is subject to interpretation. When we talk about engineers working at Google, you need to consider the difference between full-time and part-time employees.
The entire workforce of R&D employees comprises full-time employees. It is not the same for sales and administrative employees.
Then again, there are many software engineers engaged in administrative functions, and there many employees who do not have engineering degrees but do the work of an engineer.
So, how many software engineers does Google have? A ballpark figure that we can assume is 27,169 today.
But the figure is much more when you consider the 26 million-odd employees working on Google-related projects across the globe. So, it’s a matter of interpretation.
We hope that this information gives you a clear picture of the software engineers hired by Google and other interesting facts about this global company.