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Google to reduce workforce by 12k

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Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#731

Post by [deleted] »

nvarsj wrote: post #570
softwaredoug wrote: post #509

The last recession - if you were a software developer, or in tech, you had a great deal of immunity. I remember having spending power when everyone else was unfortunately suffering and taking time to find jobs, etc. Now it feels like the same is true of machine learning. And to some degree other specialist roles within software engineering. If you're a generalist software developer, you're in a vulnerable position. I…

Specialisation is a risky long term bet though. The amount of companies a good generalist software engineer can work at is orders of magnitude more than an ML engineer and I imagine it will remain like that for a long while. Same thing for more extreme niches like compiler engineers - the number of opportunities is substantially less.

[deleted]

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#732

Post by nmca »

rumblefrog wrote: post #586

In the dawn of rounds and rounds of layoffs in the tech sector. How would one advise a new CS BS graduate to tread? I've been told that young engineers are still in demand, and to look for opportunities in small startups, but seemingly out of the applications, merely no one has moved forward or replied back.

Do a PhD at ETH Zurich

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#733

Post by cutenewt »

afandian wrote: post #9

> Pivoting the company to be AI-first years ago That seems like a weird thing to throw in there. Does anyone else read it as a hasty "we were doing AI before ChatGPT was cool"?

This is definitely tone deaf.

Who cares if you were held the lead in the first leg of the marathon?

All that matters is who's in the lead now and who's in the lead at the finish.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#734

Post by shepherdjerred »

charles_f wrote: post #656

> I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here When an incident occurs in prod and it affects the livelihood of 12.000 people (or more if you include family), you'd expect at the very least a post-mortem. I've never seen a company produce one after that. What was the root cause? crazy hiring, massive wage war Could the current situation be anticipated? hell yeah, out of a pandemic, war raging in Euro…

>> I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here

Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u48vYSLvKNQ

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#735

Post by hourago »

ifyoubuildit wrote: post #699

> Pivoting the company to be AI-first years ago led to groundbreaking advances across our businesses and the whole industry. > Thanks to those early investments, Google’s products are better than ever. Does he really believe this? Maybe I'm just biased towards the parts that are annoying and I end up missing the good parts, but search seems worse every day. I worry about using google products for anything essential d…

> Maybe I'm just biased towards the parts that are annoying and I end up missing the good parts, but search seems worse every day.

Google product is not the search, but the advertisements. I can believe that Google has gotten better at showing more ads to more people. The services like mail or search are just a way to get people to see that ads.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#736

Post by pb7 »

justin_oaks wrote: post #728
clint wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say you are an extreme outlier. Most people use all these Google products with no problems nor do they seem to share your fears.

While "extreme outlier" is probably true, here on HN many of us are extreme outliers. So while true, at least he's in good company. I am on the road to de-Google my life, or at least add some backups in case of Google locks me out of my account. On HN I've seen articles about people who have been locked out of their Google accounts based on 1) taking a picture of a boy's genitals intended medical purposes, 2) submitt…

Even on HN, you’re in the minority. If you took HN as a representative sample, you’d think Linux was the #1 OS by a long shot even though it’s a rounding error for personal usage. There’s a big old bubble here.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#737

Post by thanhhaimai »

ifyoubuildit wrote: post #699

> Pivoting the company to be AI-first years ago led to groundbreaking advances across our businesses and the whole industry. > Thanks to those early investments, Google’s products are better than ever. Does he really believe this? Maybe I'm just biased towards the parts that are annoying and I end up missing the good parts, but search seems worse every day. I worry about using google products for anything essential d…

> but search seems worse every day.

Search is a reflection of the internet.

The internet has had exponentially more content recently. There are good content, but there are also exponentially more spammy and downright bad content. It's actually incredible that search can still be functional in such an adversarial environment filled with garbage.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#738

Post by justin_oaks »

charles_f wrote: post #656

> I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here When an incident occurs in prod and it affects the livelihood of 12.000 people (or more if you include family), you'd expect at the very least a post-mortem. I've never seen a company produce one after that. What was the root cause? crazy hiring, massive wage war Could the current situation be anticipated? hell yeah, out of a pandemic, war raging in Euro…

Yup, the "I take full responsibility" reminds me of people I know who cause me grief and say "Sorry" with no intent of making any changes. How sorry can you be if you don't intend on avoiding it in the future?

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#739

Post by zer0tonin »

softwaredoug wrote: post #509

The last recession - if you were a software developer, or in tech, you had a great deal of immunity. I remember having spending power when everyone else was unfortunately suffering and taking time to find jobs, etc. Now it feels like the same is true of machine learning. And to some degree other specialist roles within software engineering. If you're a generalist software developer, you're in a vulnerable position. I…

This has not been my experience. I have seen plenty of people with generic backend/full-stack keep their jobs, while my Linkedin is full of impacted infrastructure, security and data engineering specialists. Although I do agree that the developer world is becoming increasingly commoditized, I do not think that specialization is really the way to escape it.

Re: Google to reduce workforce by 12k

#740

Post by brightball »

ifyoubuildit wrote: post #699

> Pivoting the company to be AI-first years ago led to groundbreaking advances across our businesses and the whole industry. > Thanks to those early investments, Google’s products are better than ever. Does he really believe this? Maybe I'm just biased towards the parts that are annoying and I end up missing the good parts, but search seems worse every day. I worry about using google products for anything essential d…

> Chat (whatever it's being called that month) is always changing, and not for any benefit that I can see.

I'll actually vouch for the current state of Chat. The Google Chat and Spaces functionality included in the office suite is a great addition. It still has a ways to go to be anywhere close to the level of Slack, but what they have so far is extremely useful for customers that don't want to deal with an outside service. It's improved a lot in a short period of time.

I've seen 2 companies I consult with adopt it and it's currently "good enough" to bypass a need for Slack without all of the pain points of equivalent MS Teams.

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