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Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

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Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#101

Post by toomuchtodo »

photonbeam wrote: post #95
toomuchtodo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal government. No equity, but stability. Best place to take shelter during economic uncertainty or bearish conditions imho. Rode out the 2008 GFC at a DOE lab. https://www.usajobs.gov/

Q: whats a realistic salary a SWE or SRE who is 10-15 years deep might expect? I do understand it’ll be lower, but the GS pay system isn’t that clear to outsiders

Made ~$85k/year at the DOE lab I mentioned as a sysadmin, was offered ~$175k/year for a US Digital Service role with ~15 years of infra/sysadmin/generalist experience. YMMV. Imho you’ll top out ~$190k-$200k. Not FAANG money, but also not homeless.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#102

Post by bogomipz »

sytelus wrote: post #13

Wow... What is going on it tech? We are just 10 days in the new year and every day there has been surprise layoffs! Unity Twitch Several startups And now.. Google! This is at the same time when stocks are almost all time high :).

Also Amazon Prime Video. https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazon-lay-off-employees-...

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#103

Post by snotrockets »

wilg wrote: post #38
neilv wrote: post #22

So what's a good employer now, now that Google has been losing the reputation for treating employees well? (Multiple rounds of laying off people isn't treating only those people poorly, but also increasing stress for the people who remain, knowing they can suddenly be laid off as well.)

In your opinion what is the proper way to do a layoff? Or if any layoff is a problem, how do you prevent companies from hiring too quickly or whatever?

Start at the top.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#104

Post by sokoloff »

modeless wrote: post #33
aspectmin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would counter that voice assistants are not a failed experiment. I would suggest that Amazon and Google’s execution of said experiments have failed. I am extremely excited about the potential of projects like the Rabbit R1 and Humane.

I agree, I just think these new projects based on LLMs should be considered a different category, AI agents or something. The traditional grammar-based voice assistant architecture used by Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, Bixby, etc is an abject failure, and not for lack of trying.

If the Alexa/Echo-category of devices are meant to be some widely flexible and pervasively useful device from Star Trek, they're a failure.

If they're meant to be a usable $30 kitchen timer and music player, they're pretty great.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#105

Post by bpye »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #74
neilv wrote: post #22

So what's a good employer now, now that Google has been losing the reputation for treating employees well? (Multiple rounds of laying off people isn't treating only those people poorly, but also increasing stress for the people who remain, knowing they can suddenly be laid off as well.)

I retired from Apple a few years ago but still follow the company. I am not aware of any layoffs at Apple. Others have pointed out that Apple didn't go on the same hiring boom that other companies did during Covid.

I looked at Apple a long while ago - and whilst they certainly have teams doing interesting work - relocating to California will always be a hard no for me… They have positions elsewhere but much less varied.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#106

Post by stock_toaster »

sytelus wrote: post #13

Wow... What is going on it tech? We are just 10 days in the new year and every day there has been surprise layoffs! Unity Twitch Several startups And now.. Google! This is at the same time when stocks are almost all time high :).

Section-174[1] maybe?

[1]: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/section-174/

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#107

Post by chefandy »

qp11 wrote: post #72
neilv wrote: post #22

So what's a good employer now, now that Google has been losing the reputation for treating employees well? (Multiple rounds of laying off people isn't treating only those people poorly, but also increasing stress for the people who remain, knowing they can suddenly be laid off as well.)

Just use your resume to Move to location where ever they are hiring. Dont worry about "good employer" certifications. That stuff belongs to a bygone era thats never coming back. Large corps spanning hundreds of countries are managed primarily by finance arbitragers who use cross border differences in labor costs/interest rates/tax rates/govt regulations/freebies/tariffs etc to keep the lights on. As they get faster a…

Picking up and moving to the “it” tech city assuming you’ll get hired sounds like a great solution… that is, if you don’t have family obligations, or, really… a family, long-term responsibilities of any kind, a chronic health condition, or lack money to support an expensive interstate/city/country move probably with an increased cost of living while unemployed… and all to assume that your employer is going to cast you side when they’re done with you so you’ll have to do it all over again?

You’re either wealthy enough to not realize how infeasible this is for most people over 25, or you’ve got a serious case of tech industry Stockholm syndrome. I’ll continue to vet my employers.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#108

Post by everfrustrated »

sytelus wrote: post #13

Wow... What is going on it tech? We are just 10 days in the new year and every day there has been surprise layoffs! Unity Twitch Several startups And now.. Google! This is at the same time when stocks are almost all time high :).

Possibly these companies decided to make redundancies late in 2023 but deferred announcements until after Christmas

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#109

Post by kaashif »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #90
wilg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your opinion what is the proper way to do a layoff? Or if any layoff is a problem, how do you prevent companies from hiring too quickly or whatever?

I had an interesting thought: what if hiring were like bringing a child into your family. No, no layoffs ever. It's the equivalent of disowning your own child. If the company begins to sink, so be it, the whole family goes down together (or flee as they see fit). It would make a company hesitant to hire — they would have to think very long term making a decision like that. Perhaps companies would train (re-train) the…

Then that country would become an extremely unattractive place to hire employees. Massive incentive to do whatever you can to only use contractors or whatever. Somehow classify your employees as self employed, something like that.

Maybe it wouldn't even be a loophole: everyone would just have to actually go freelance and have no employee protections.

I wonder if any country has anything close to layoffs being illegal and how that went.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#110

Post by mlyle »

sokoloff wrote: post #104
modeless wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, I just think these new projects based on LLMs should be considered a different category, AI agents or something. The traditional grammar-based voice assistant architecture used by Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, Bixby, etc is an abject failure, and not for lack of trying.

If the Alexa/Echo-category of devices are meant to be some widely flexible and pervasively useful device from Star Trek, they're a failure. If they're meant to be a usable $30 kitchen timer and music player, they're pretty great.

Yup, as far as something that can turn on a light, run a timer, convert some units, tell me the weather, and have an -okay- shot at some categories of random questions instead of me getting out my computer-- the google assistant is just fine.
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