Congrats on the offer! I will be a Xoogler as of about 2pm today, so you could say my opinion is at least fresh.
Google is an awesome place, and huge opportunities will open up for you if you do accept the offer. Google is still very highly respected and has a great internal culture. There is very little bureaucracy and a lot of autonomy allowed. My life basically completely changed (for the better) after joining and I'm a way better developer than I was 2 years ago. You can also read Steve Yegge's recent G+ posts about what he thinks of Google - I would say I am about 80% as enthusiastic about it as him ;)
The one thing I will say is that the team you're on matters. Google still has the great "don't be evil" policy which permeates throughout the company, but the teams are free to organize how they want. If you're into TDD and pairing, you may find a team that is into that and have a great time, or find a team who hates it and not. Google is big enough that there are teams doing things very differently. The good thing is that you CAN change teams, and there is an internal application that lets you do just that. It's not really that hard.
If you are deciding between Google and the other big SV players like Facebook, Twitter, etc, then I would just pick the company that seems to fit with your personality the best.
Google is an awesome place, and huge opportunities will open up for you if you do accept the offer. Google is still very highly respected and has a great internal culture. There is very little bureaucracy and a lot of autonomy allowed. My life basically completely changed (for the better) after joining and I'm a way better developer than I was 2 years ago. You can also read Steve Yegge's recent G+ posts about what he thinks of Google - I would say I am about 80% as enthusiastic about it as him ;)
The one thing I will say is that the team you're on matters. Google still has the great "don't be evil" policy which permeates throughout the company, but the teams are free to organize how they want. If you're into TDD and pairing, you may find a team that is into that and have a great time, or find a team who hates it and not. Google is big enough that there are teams doing things very differently. The good thing is that you CAN change teams, and there is an internal application that lets you do just that. It's not really that hard.
If you are deciding between Google and the other big SV players like Facebook, Twitter, etc, then I would just pick the company that seems to fit with your personality the best.