Sharon Yang, a Chromium developer who has worked at both Google and Igalia, presented at FOSSY 2026 on her experiences comparing the two companies' development environments. She highlighted the differences between Google's large corporate structure and Igalia's employee-owned cooperative model.
Yang, who interned at Google and later worked there full-time for six years on the Chrome browser (based on the open-source Chromium project), now works on Chromium at Igalia. She noted that she works in the same repository and with many of the same people at Igalia as she did at Google.
She contrasted the two companies in terms of size, with Google having around 180,000 employees and Igalia around 180. Financially, Google's revenue is in the hundreds of billions of dollars, while Igalia's is under a billion. A key difference is ownership: Google is owned by institutional investors, while Igalia is employee-owned. Compensation also differs significantly; Google has a wide range, while Igalia pays all employees the same.
Despite these differences, both companies have teams working on common projects, including Chromium, accessibility, and web standards.
Yang explained that Chrome is a Google product, while Chromium is the open-source project that forms its basis. Chromium lacks proprietary components like DRM and certain codecs found in Chrome. Many other browsers, such as Microsoft Edge and Brave, are also based on Chromium.
She described her experience transitioning from Google to Igalia. While the initial onboarding was similar, Igalia uses a suite of open-source tools. Differences emerged in areas like build systems, where Google employees have immediate access to faster build systems, while external contributors may need to request access. Access to bug reports also presented friction, with some bugs being visible only to Google employees due to a past tracker migration.
Yang also noted that information readily available to Google employees might not be shared publicly due to Google's internal documentation systems. Tools for bug tracking are maintained by Google, limiting external feedback or feature requests.
She found that after a month at Igalia, many aspects felt similar to her previous job, including communication channels and the fact that some of Igalia's work is funded by or indirectly related to Google.
The nature of projects differed significantly. At Google, projects were often driven by management's priorities, focusing on new features or metrics for promotions. At Igalia, projects are typically initiated by technical staff and focus on code health and technical debt, such as componentizing the Chromium codebase or improving web-platform-test interoperability. Yang observed that many Google engineers who care about code quality would prefer to work on such projects but lack the opportunity.
She praised the welcoming and inclusive nature of Chromium developers at both companies, allowing her to maintain relationships with former colleagues.
Yang contrasted the hierarchical structure of a typical company, where engineers are at the bottom, with Igalia's intentionally flat organization. At Igalia, there are no managers, and all employees participate in company decisions, such as project selection and headcount. This cooperative model means decisions are made by those affected by them, unlike in standard companies where layoffs, for example, are decided by upper management.
While this flat structure requires lengthy meetings for decision-making, Yang considers it a minor price to pay for a more equitable system. She highlighted the absence of promotions as a key difference, as everyone is paid the same. This removed the stress and effort associated with career advancement in corporate environments and eliminated concerns related to gender or visa status, fostering trust and collaboration.
During the Q&A, Yang clarified that project direction at Igalia can come from clients or the Igalia team itself, depending on the project's nature. She explained that Igalia's clients require various Chromium-related work, including testing improvements and customized browsers. The hiring process involves company-wide approval for headcount and team-based candidate selection. Regarding the challenge of scaling a flat structure, she mentioned that Igalia is exploring potential models, possibly inspired by honeybee swarming. She also noted the synergy between open source and cooperatives, with discussions about releasing internal tools as open source. Yang confirmed that teams within Igalia make decisions about projects, coordinated by product managers who lack inherent managerial power. She recommended a video by Valerie Young for more details on Igalia's assembly process. Regarding performance monitoring in a flat hierarchy, she explained that feedback comes from coworkers and mentors, with a collective assessment of an individual's work. The discussion also touched upon the cooperative movement's diversity and the potential for a dedicated coop track at future FOSSY events.
