Are these the coolest jobs in Ireland?

Claire Walsh, Google

IF you think that people who work at zeitgeisty tech giants such as Google spend a fair chunk of their day playing Xbox, de-stressing over table football and thunking the office drum kit ... well, you’d be absolutely correct.

“There are great perks,” says Claire Walsh, head of online sales for Google in Ireland and the UK. “There are games rooms, a music room and a full-time masseuse. The benefits are fantastic. You work hard and are rewarded well. ”

She isn’t naive enough to believe Google, the world’s largest internet search provider with annual revenues in the range of $40 billion, lays on all these treats out of the goodness of its electronic heart. There are sound economic reasons for doing so.

“The environment at Google inspires innovation,” she says. “We want people to be happy in their jobs. If you are happy you are going to be more productive. You are going to have more good ideas. Google really does value their employees. They support your work-life balance. For instance, new parents get a parenting allowance. ”

A native of Drimnagh in Dublin, Walsh is part of Google’s 2,000-strong Irish workforce, distributed between three buildings at what amounts to a mini-campus close to Grand Canal Dock in Dublin (it recently paid Nama €99m for Montevetro, the city’s tallest commercial building, at nearby Barrow Street).

Cynics will tell you Google is here for Ireland’s 12.5% corporate tax and to take advantage of complex book-keeping manoeuvres such as the infamous ‘double Irish’. But one of the major attractions, says Walsh, is the flexibility and initiative of its Irish workforce. Established by two 20-something post-graduate students in the late 1990s, at Google, self-starters are held in high regard. It is a company that values individuals rather than drones. Apparently, that’s a good description of Irish graduates. “We like people to be fully rounded,” says Walsh, who rescues stray animals in her spare time. “Obviously your academic background is important — at Google you have to have a degree. However, it is also about really strong initiative. You would want to have other interests, to show you have personal goals. Maybe things like photography or running a marathon. Stuff that shows you are going to fit into the Google environment.’

Briain Curtin, YouTube

WHEN he was interning at a corporate bank in America, UCC graduate Briain Curtin found himself going for lots of coffee breaks. It was the best way to clear his head after an especially taxing meeting. Now that he works at the Dublin base of online video site YouTube, the 27-year-old still finds himself sitting around a board room table, discussing sales figures and performance targets. What’s changed is the way he works the stress out afterwards.

“I play table tennis most days,” he says. “Coming down and playing for 10 minutes helps you refresh your mind. We are moving into new offices after Christmas and there are rumours there might be a swimming pool. That would be just amazing. I’ve been to YouTube headquarters at San Bruno in California. They have a 25-metre swimming pool. It is just amazing.”

With a gym, massage area, and Xbox and Playstation room, YouTube Dublin is hardly the poor cousin, however. Indeed, it was this corporate commitment to a happy, stress-free environment that attracted Curtin to the organisation in the first place.

“You have bean-bags, table football. There are mini kitchens with snacks and drinks,” he says. “It creates a great atmosphere.”

He joined four years ago straight out of college, initially working with Google (which paid $1.65bn for YouTube in 2007). He is responsible for sales and advertising content for YouTube throughout Europe. You get the sense he is too busy enjoying himself to be overwhelmed by the responsibility.

“There are two sides to the business end of YouTube,” he says. “There is the partnership side. We partner with content producers that create videos. We show ads against their content and split the revenue. Then there is the advertising side — we work with our network of advertisers who want to show ads against content and who are trying to each a target audience. We want to show them most relevant ads in terms of content so that there is a good user experience.”

Aaron Goodliffe, Simply Zesty

YOU don’t have to tell Aaron Goodliffe how lucky he is. A 20-something creative industry worker with a good job, he’s perfectly aware of his good fortune. Many of his friends would, he says, kill to be in his position. As head of the video team at Irish social networking consultancy Simply Zesty he is responsible for conceptualising and shooting original video content for clients wishing to reach customers virally on the internet.

The company follows emerging trends on internet communication tools such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook and then plans and executes marketing campaigns that chime with what is popular among web users. It’s a bit like using the internet to predict the future, then creating an online ad to match.

“Recently we made an iPhone out of fruit for [nutritional website] TopFruit which got about 100,000 viewers. Because we work in social networking we have an insight into what is trending. ”

Much of his working day consists, he says, of “sitting around and messing”. He isn’t being flippant. Many of the company’s best ideas emerge from this semi-casual brainstorming sessions. “If someone doesn’t have a job on, they’ll be discussing what’s trending, looking at video sites and seeing what’s coming down the line. It can be pretty chilled out, though obviously there are times when we are swamped as we have a lot of deadlines. There’s an ebb and flow.”

Like many dream jobs, Goodliffe landed his largely by happenstance. “I studied sound production in Ballyfermot College. I wanted to get into film and music video but didn’t want to be a runner on a film set. I needed to be making money. So I got a camera and started dong freelance things. I shot Belfast Fashion week — stuff like that.”

From there he started working with web entrepreneur Niall Harbison on Irish start-up iFoods. The company provided online cooking lessons and also worked with industry clients. When the latter side of the business began taking off, iFoods became Simply Zesty.

“Jobs in my line of work are quite rare at the minute,” says Aaron. “So I really appreciate what I’m doing.”

Keith Redmond, Redwind Software

WHEN someone asks Keith Redmond what he does for a living he produces his iPhone and shows them the latest game he helped design.

“Working on apps for phones has a sexy factor where people are a bit more interested,” says the 28-year-old from Glasnevin in Dublin. “I’ve worked in systems development, stuff that was quite internalised. This has a lot more street cred.”

Based in Dublin, Redwind produces a variety of iPhone and Android applications, including quiz games in partnership with companies such as Heineken and Bacardi. This puts them in the novel position of being an Irish company more or less immune to the woes bedeviling the economy.

“It’s recession-proof at the moment. A lot of our clients are in America so the problems here don’t really affect us. Also, everyone has a smartphone and even if they don’t have a lot of money, an app only costs one or two euro. People aren’t afraid to spend money on an app because it’s a bit of craic.”

The working environment at Redwind is, he says, pretty chilled. “Instead of going after clients, the first things start-ups do is go out and buy beans bags and games consoles,” he says. “It encourages everyone to stick around the office a bit longer than you might if you were in a grey place. You might want to get home as soon as possible. Here, it’s fun to be at work. You want to hang around.

“The great thing is you might be getting stuck into something for two, three hours. Then you have a break and play some Xbox. Everyone is laughing and joking and putting ideas forward. People are less nervous about putting things out there than they might be in a traditional environment.

“We don’t really operate on the basis that anyone is more important. People are plugging away and getting stuck in. It’s great fun. But also, you get the best results.”