I have been at Google about 12 years now and had a three year stint in Payments until somewhat recently. Out of all of the organizations, projects, and products I worked on (6 projects, 12 managers, 5 offices, 2 continents), Payments is the least Google-feeling of them all with the worst management and politics (frankly it was fucked). The rest of Google was a dream in comparison. Had I known Payments was in bad shape, I might not have joined it originally.
Before leaving, try somewhere else. I recently founded my own team elsewhere build software for distributed system infrastructure, and I cannot tell you how fun it is. The joy is still at Google, but Payments is a blackhole. I can't believe the rest of the leadership tolerates that hostile black sheep of an org.
Google is largely what you make of it.
