Google Chrome Developers/Google Developers Youtube channel has great content on Frontend optimisations by Paul Irish and others. They teach you what to measure and how. You might want to check that if you are interested in Frontend Engineering.
When your site has a large audience, every microsecond counts. Especially when you don't have someone bankrolling for your traffic. Speed plays an important part for SEO and UX.
I’m quite familiar with Paul’s work. He’s not really saying anything new in those talks either. It’s good technical info but again - a pointless micro-optimization in most cases.
There are so many other, bigger, better, wins to focus on first.
Considering anything Google does as useful for the average developer - even at a reasonably large company - is like thinking pizza delivery guys should emulate UPS: it’s a misunderstanding of context.
When your site has a large audience, every microsecond counts. Especially when you don't have someone bankrolling for your traffic. Speed plays an important part for SEO and UX.