At the 3 month meeting, the manager openly admitted that while he managed two teams, he devoted most of his energy to the other one. So in his defense, he was overallocated. His other team was more interesting. But I think he already wanted me gone at that point so that wasn't an option.

They make up those expectations after the fact, of course. Rather than have the decency to say, "I just don't like you, and don't want you on my team" your manager had to build an objective-looking "performance" case and it sounds like he was a total twat about it.

No one gets anything serious done in the first 2 weeks, and you're not expected to. That's what Codelabs (which are very good, and I wish more companies paid attention to that) are for.

One thing I disliked about the Google environment was that, because it's so hard to have a real accomplishment in your first year, whether you "succeed" depends on others' assessments (i.e. politics). I prefer to be in an environment where, after 3 weeks, I can reach the "so good they can't ignore you" state.

I like high-productivity environments better because I can prove, in the first month, that I'm actually worth a damn. Political issues always exist, but they're less threatening when you've already proven that you're good at what you do.