I feel like a good explanation for all this is that tech giants saw this as an opportunity to collaborate to reduce wage inflation. I feel like that explanation squares better with the fact that, during many of these layoffs, employee performance has often appeared to not factor in as strongly. In fact, the opposite seems to be true in many cases.
What is Google doing with its open source teams?
181–190 of 339 posts
Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?
#182I would think that such senior guys with so much experience
will find it easy to find new jobs.
(Unless they demand to work on only open-source software then it may take a bit longer)
Still: IBM/RedHat should hire right?
Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?
#183[deleted]
Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?
#184There's no story here beyond well-known people on the open source team getting laid off and botching the layoffs with people learning their badges don't work. One is a valid strategic decision, the other is sloppy, neither is evil, or even all that interesting.
Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?
#185I feel like a good explanation for all this is that tech giants saw this as an opportunity to collaborate to reduce wage inflation. I feel like that explanation squares better with the fact that, during many of these layoffs, employee performance has often appeared to not factor in as strongly. In fact, the opposite seems to be true in many cases.
If the sector believes that it can do just as well with 10% fewer employees, I'm not sure if that's the same as collusion to suppress wages. Surly some greedy player would be saying "no, I can make more incremental revenue by hiring these people." The story that tech overhired during the pandemic makes more sense.
Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m no expert, but the “eco” routes don’t usually pass the smell test with me. I’ll be routed away from a thoroughfare that’s mostly flat/downhill to take a slightly-shorter side street that’s a steep incline. It just seems like half-baked greenwashing.
The net altitude change is the same for all routes between two points.
Even with a car with regenerative breaking, going up then down is less efficient than staying flat/just down
In the extreme case, one route might take no fuel at all vs one that climbs a mountain before dropping
Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?
#187I would think that such senior guys with so much experience will find it easy to find new jobs. (Unless they demand to work on only open-source software then it may take a bit longer) Still: IBM/RedHat should hire right?
(Putting this note under here instead of at root level…)
FTA:
> It has been widely reported that … those fired included staffers who had just received high performance reviews … with annual compensation packages of $500,000 to $1 million. … Many … were the best of the best in Google's open source program office (OSPO) and other open source efforts.
FWIW, we are actively hiring a handful of engineers in this competency+range, into a well funded (founder funded, not VC backed) startup. We are doing interesting things and intend to release generally useful patterns as open source. It's also an entrepreneurial change of pace for builders/makers after an enterprise, even an SV enterprise.
My username at the freemail owned by the company in the article.
Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?
#188I feel like a good explanation for all this is that tech giants saw this as an opportunity to collaborate to reduce wage inflation. I feel like that explanation squares better with the fact that, during many of these layoffs, employee performance has often appeared to not factor in as strongly. In fact, the opposite seems to be true in many cases.
If the sector believes that it can do just as well with 10% fewer employees, I'm not sure if that's the same as collusion to suppress wages. Surly some greedy player would be saying "no, I can make more incremental revenue by hiring these people." The story that tech overhired during the pandemic makes more sense.
Then why wouldn't they simply lay off the new hires instead of company veterans?
Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?
#189Current Googler, I have no insider info at all, found out about this the same Friday morning as everyone else. Everything expressed here is speculation based on my own observations and conversations with HR leaders at Google and other companies involved in this round of industry layoffs.
It's unfortunately not surprising that some current and rising stars in the open source world were impacted by this. There's an important factor in layoffs that is poorly understood and almost never underlined in reporting: layoffs _must_ be done without regard to performance, because otherwise they aren't layoffs, they are mass firings.
Layoffs have important legal and personal implications. They need to be applied broadly, either across the entire company or across divisions within the company that are unsustainable. They can't consider performance as a primary factor, since doing so both necessitates a lot more paper trail and makes unemployment insurance much more complicated. They can't be contested by individuals, since they don't count as termination in the legal sense.
On the plus side, because they are not tied to performance it gives impacted employees an honest, blameless justification for why their role ended. The fact that there's public outcry about high performers being impacted provides air cover for everyone else.
All that said, I agree with the posters who have called this out as being a fuck-you, know-your-place gesture from the wealth class to the professional class.
Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?
#190I would think that such senior guys with so much experience will find it easy to find new jobs. (Unless they demand to work on only open-source software then it may take a bit longer) Still: IBM/RedHat should hire right?
> For example, Chris DiBona, who founded Google's OSPO 18 years ago, was let go.
Sibling comment excepted, there aren't many companies hiring for this. 18+ years also makes it challenging because for the last two decades, you've only known Google, and it's not clear if you can operate in another environment.