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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

#221

Post by rtpg »

manigandham wrote: post #217
rtpg wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do sometimes get weird effects from top heavy structures like that though. The classic example is Google hiring “super good people” for them to end up doing pretty low level (but important!) ops work To take Amazon as an example, you can hire a bunch of high performing engineers but you still need people actually putting stuff into boxes so they get shipped (robots nonwithstanding)

You can have high performers in every position, not just software engineering.

Sorry, you're definitely right about that.

I guess I was thinking about "ambitious" people who see certain kind of work as beneath them. I feel like if you had a room full of million dollar engineers than a lot of "papercut"-style issues wouldn't get fixed.

There's a rumor that for a while Valve had this problem because to many people wanted to make games, and not enough wanted to maintain Steam

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#222

Post by mattlondon »

I don't have any knowledge of this, but it sounds to me a lot like a typical everyday re-org or "defragmentation" that happen frequently.

Defragmentation example: they have a team with 12 people in California, 5 in New York, 2 in Seattle and 3 in Zurich. They decide to move all roles into one location instead of having the team split all over. If you don't want to move with the role, then you need to find something new.

Alternatively perhaps they just merged some teams and there were surplus folk. In my experience (unrelated to any of this) in rapidly growing orgs, teams/functions often get duplicated/semi-duplicated as different parts independently spin up teams to deal with some need. Ultimately these end up getting rationalised as time progresses.

If they were doing big layoffs of engineers etc, I think we'd have heard about it o we Twitter/blogs/comments/etc by now

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#223

Post by mmmBacon »

stingraycharles wrote: post #205
rurban wrote: post #198

So the new boss is from Oracle, who hired new managers from SAP and Microsoft, they are hiring like crazy and cutting some old jobs. Looks like they are trying to get rid of internal critics, resistance. Interesting wars

Do you have a source for this?

Why is this so hard to believe? Politics is a real force.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#224

Post by martius »

rurban wrote: post #198

So the new boss is from Oracle, who hired new managers from SAP and Microsoft, they are hiring like crazy and cutting some old jobs. Looks like they are trying to get rid of internal critics, resistance. Interesting wars

At Google, resistance and critics live well beyond the boundaries of a product/area.

This doesn't make sense.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#226

Post by caro_douglos »

manigandham wrote: post #214
caro_douglos wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shouldn’t give them much credit on this. It’s not really an approach it has to do with regulations for large companies. This “hr strategy” is just a friendly way to tell an employee to leave or figure out what to do. I wonder if the genius behind this also came up with the term “unlimited vacation”. https://www.edd.ca.gov/Jobs_and_Training/Layoff_Services_WAR...

Well I personally like unlimited vacation policies and it’s been a hit with most teams I’ve worked on. Adding some basic “mandatory” time off usually solves the problem of workers feeling like they shouldn’t take it. It’s really just dependent on office culture.

Vacation is a great thing. Properly setup PTO policies are better. Eventually you reach a point where accrued time ceilings force you to take a vacation. That’s typically too late from a burnout perspective.

IMO unlimited vacation is simply a sugar coated way to not keep track of time off.

Out of curiosity have you kept track of how many days you’ve taken off?

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#227

Post by zelly »

manigandham wrote: post #104
scarface74 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your conclusion is based on?

Like I said, it's double-digit billions product line and has a 10+ year history. And internal metrics show lots of profit margin comparable to AWS, although you'll have to find someone to share that with you in person.

Thanks just bought 100k

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#229

Post by manigandham »

hello_moto wrote: post #220
manigandham wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are a finite resource but the comparison to livestock seems unwarranted. A business optimizing talent isn’t inherently removing humanity from its workers.

If the business is only optimizing one specific focus then yeah it is removing the humanity aspect from the co-operation of its worker and focusing only in resource extraction/consumption.

Specific focus of getting the best workers? Since when is competence divorced from humanity? A business isn’t a family, I don’t see your perspective here.

The alternative seems to be that they keep poor talent because it’s more... humane?

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#230

Post by randomguy-gcp »

Many theories and opinions . Here is an observation from someone involved with GCP more than many of you (especially more than the WSJ journalists) - These job cuts are not an indication of the health (or lack of it) of GCP division. From the familiarity I got as a partner, it's probably the consolidation of the sales function. Inside Sales Reps (ISRs) being moved to Field Sales Reps (FSRs) and some of the ISRs being asked to find jobs elsewhere because the strategy is to avoid duplication of efforts and close more deals.
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