Most Google projects are not written in GWT for the frontend, they are written in Javascript using Closure and the Closure compiler, that includes Gmail, Search, G+, Docs, Drive, etc.
Really, it sounds like this guy got put onto a team project he didn't like, but Google has very large codebases in C/C++, as well as JS, and there is ample opportunity to work on non-Java stuff. Chrome and Android (non-userland) in particular.
Any company with a team of people is going to have to place limits on polyglotism and have standards for readability and coding. I like Scala too, but the idea that a company is going to allow anyone to just pick any PLT research languages that they personally like sounds far-fetched.
Really, it sounds like this guy got put onto a team project he didn't like, but Google has very large codebases in C/C++, as well as JS, and there is ample opportunity to work on non-Java stuff. Chrome and Android (non-userland) in particular.
Any company with a team of people is going to have to place limits on polyglotism and have standards for readability and coding. I like Scala too, but the idea that a company is going to allow anyone to just pick any PLT research languages that they personally like sounds far-fetched.