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Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

wsj.com

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Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#121

Post by WoahNoun »

wyclif wrote: post #61
sdenton4 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the couple people I know who have done this, I think it's pretty choose-your-own-adventure... Get paid to look for your new job, with very few actual responsibilities. It's worthwhile to compare this relative downtime to ramp-up time for new hires... who also generally spend a couple-few months being fairly useless (though working hard at it). And googlers being googlers, there's a decent chance that the 'down'…

So...it's kind of like being Big Head working at Hooli? Hanging out on the roof, or building potato guns and piezoelectric sensors?

Lots of networking over coffee. You don't just blindly apply on the internal job board. You talk to people you know in other parts of the company, you schedule meetings with managers with open roles. You reflect on what you actually want to do next. You reach out to mentors on if they know anyone who has interesting open roles or just on advice for next steps.

Also interviewing with other companies. The next best job for you may not be with Google even if you could easily get an internal transfer role. And teams don't just blindly accept you because you already work at Google (although it helps). You still have to go through a somewhat more informal interview loop that you will definitely want to prepare for.

Of course this is up to the individual, you can definitely just screw around for awhile and apply for an interal role with much less care.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#123

Post by bretpiatt »

scarface74 wrote: post #99
petilon wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was pointing to growth, not revenue. A business that doubled its revenue in two years is great to have, even if it is not currently profitable.

So if I sell $1 bills for $0.90, I guess I should be glad if my “revenues grow”?

Do you have any evidence to believe Google Cloud Platform is negative gross profit?

My background in the industry would lead me to believe GCP (just the infrastructure, not the applications) is 70%+ gross margin with the hardware (and data center) cost (depreciation if capitalized) above the gross margin line.

For a business at that growth rate running a GAAP negative net income is easy to do while still building a high quality profitable long term business.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#124

Post by K0SM0S »

formercoder wrote: post #107
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... Like... What do you do in the interim? Not work, look for teams, and still get paid a shit ton of money? Do you do some training on the side? Work on a side project? How long does it take to find the new team?

Keep in mind this is going to screw your performance rating / bonus / promotion situation. You’re incentivized to love fast.

Yes, love fast and make things. An engineer's ethos.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#125

Post by busterarm »

filoleg wrote: post #44
tanilama wrote: post #22

Is this a sign Google is not going to compete in Cloud anymore? Can't see how this is not going hurt customer confidence.

Considering all the things Google has done in the past year to hurt customer confidence in GCP, this one isn’t that bad at all. I definitely couldn’t keep myself from wondering what kind of people run their PR, when they released a post late last year, saying that unless GCP hits the financial target $X by 2023, its funding will be noticeably cut. That was literally a release of a self-fulfilling prophecy in the wild…

As a google cloud customer, the feature request backlog is long, almost everything useful is in Beta and doesn't have an SLA, and the Support is _absolutely useless_.

They still have us by the balls as a customer, because some companies just will not allow you to put their data in AWS...and mostly in places where Azure is still a poor alternative (I'm looking at you, Central Germany).

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#126

Post by busterarm »

scarface74 wrote: post #54
astrodust wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the Vegas odds that they blow the whole thing up if they don't end up #1?

Given Google’s penchant for cancelling projects and their inability to do anything profitably outside of advertising?

Not just that. Google simply doesn't have it in their DNA to deliver the kind of high-touch support required of remaining #1 in this business.

They've been hiring the pushy sales types to deliver one end of it but not the delivery people required on the other.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#127

Post by scarface74 »

bretpiatt wrote: post #123
scarface74 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I sell $1 bills for $0.90, I guess I should be glad if my “revenues grow”?

Do you have any evidence to believe Google Cloud Platform is negative gross profit? My background in the industry would lead me to believe GCP (just the infrastructure, not the applications) is 70%+ gross margin with the hardware (and data center) cost (depreciation if capitalized) above the gross margin line. For a business at that growth rate running a GAAP negative net income is easy to do while still building a h…

I’ve made no statements either way. I was responding to the relatively naive idea that increasing revenue without profit was a measure of “success”.

But, cloud companies don’t just have to worry about hardware and infrastructure. They also have to worry about software engineers, “enterprise sales solution architects” and a whole host of other costs.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#128

Post by busterarm »

manigandham wrote: post #109
tmpz22 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snapchat was (is?) built on AppEngine and they signed a 5 year 3 billion dollar contract with GCP. I wouldn't be surprised if AppEngine is hanging by a thread outside of a few large users as GCP devs have on multiple occasions signaled new projects with the intention of replacing AppEngine (I forget which ones, feel free to verify that anecdote yourself).

AppEngine is just one product in Google Cloud, and the first they released in 2008. Of course there will be new versions and eventually new products that are recommended like VMs, GKE, Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, and more. It's still supported and has plenty of usage so I don't see it as "hanging by a thread" unless you have more data than things that people said but apparently you forgot?

https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/deprecations

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#129

Post by scarface74 »

busterarm wrote: post #126
scarface74 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Google’s penchant for cancelling projects and their inability to do anything profitably outside of advertising?

Not just that. Google simply doesn't have it in their DNA to deliver the kind of high-touch support required of remaining #1 in this business. They've been hiring the pushy sales types to deliver one end of it but not the delivery people required on the other.

Not to mention that Google is so full of “smart people” (tm) that their sales force is made up of people who probably would never stoop low enough to do lift and shifts as phase 1. They would probably want you to move everything to k8s and rewrite your entire stack.

As opposed to MS. If a business has a legacy app that requires a 10 year old version of Sql Server running on a 12 year old version of Windows, they will put that in Azure and probably offer extended support for the OS for free.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#130

Post by pembrook »

scarface74 wrote: post #99
petilon wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was pointing to growth, not revenue. A business that doubled its revenue in two years is great to have, even if it is not currently profitable.

So if I sell $1 bills for $0.90, I guess I should be glad if my “revenues grow”?

In logic class we called that a red herring fallacy. Google Cloud isn't in the business of selling $1 bills for 90 cents.
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