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Google lays off its Python team

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Re: Google lays off its Python team

#21

Post by pjmlp »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #8
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #2

The post suggests their jobs were offshored. Is this a common practice versus just closing the roles? I feel like US legislators should do more to protect domestic jobs from domestic companies, or else they’ll face the same eventual collapse as in manufacturing.

This might be my prejudice but when someone talks about offshoring a role, moving it to Munich isn't the first thing that comes to mind. It may be slightly cheaper than California but not by so much that if expect it to be the main reason for doing so.

There are tons of people in Europe working as offshore resources for American companies.

Being the same Western culture helps a lot versus other areas favoured for offshoring.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#22

Post by pjmlp »

darth_avocado wrote: post #5
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #2

The post suggests their jobs were offshored. Is this a common practice versus just closing the roles? I feel like US legislators should do more to protect domestic jobs from domestic companies, or else they’ll face the same eventual collapse as in manufacturing.

Looks like the new roles in Munich, if I’m reading the thread right? Could be more than just offshoring? Why not do India or some other cheaper place instead of Munich which isn’t cheap and has relatively strong labor protections?

Less cultural clashes, and still cheap versus US.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#23

Post by vineyardmike »

peppertree wrote: post #19

I believe this is just a product of US corporate tax laws and high interest rate but I would like to hear other takes on it. Corporations don't want to bring overseas profit home and be double taxed, so they borrow domestically using oversea cash as collateral. High interest rate and strong USD make it less attractive to hire in US.

This is definitely true, but Google pays US employees very well. Layoffs dramatically increase profits. That’s been a meaningful driver of their growth and margin in recent earnings reports lately.

There are, of course, many benefits to US hiring - a strong talent pool, maintaining a team in the same region/timezone, etc. Google can easily hire back Americans in a few quarters if they need to.

Join the alphabet workers union if you’re a Googler who cares.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#24

Post by vineyardmike »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #2

The post suggests their jobs were offshored. Is this a common practice versus just closing the roles? I feel like US legislators should do more to protect domestic jobs from domestic companies, or else they’ll face the same eventual collapse as in manufacturing.

Yes it’s common. At Google and across America.

When Google did its massive 12k person layoff they moved a lot of those roles to places like India. They had another tranche of layoffs that were “delayed exit” to train those Indian employees.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#26

Post by cynicalsecurity »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #7
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #2

The post suggests their jobs were offshored. Is this a common practice versus just closing the roles? I feel like US legislators should do more to protect domestic jobs from domestic companies, or else they’ll face the same eventual collapse as in manufacturing.

How do you "protect" a job?

You start a business.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#27

Post by zem »

i got caught up in this :( really sad about the whole thing; this was by far the best job i've had in my 20-year career (including other teams at google), and i do not know if i will ever have another one as good. we were a chronically understaffed team supporting a large part of the python ecosystem at google, and we did some amazing work over the years.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#29

Post by fargle »

nineplay wrote: post #13

> It's almost like capitalism isn't actually good and you shouldn't want to live in the US Strong words from a FAANG employee. Does he think there's another economic system which would give him the same extraordinary compensation package?

agree. i can tell it was a bad day for the author and it sucks. but it's irritating to sit there and blame the exact system and company that gave him the exceptional job and pay in the first place.

everyone who works in FAANG, if you are drawing an enormous salary and bonus, compared to the average guy, i hope you realize the how fortunate you are. i hope you are putting away, saving, investing, at least 1/3 or 1/2 of it. when and if this happens after a few years, unlike the average guy, you can simply choose to retire or take some time off and travel rather than the normal option of loosing your home and being completely ruined.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#30

Post by filoleg »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #3

Outside of the ML groups, Google really doesn't like Python and there's very little of it in the codebase. This move isn't surprising in that light. Also, Google is IBM at this point, so I would expect a lot of IBM-like moves.

Correction, outside of the ML groups and anything related to CI/infra. Especially if you remember that Starlark[0] is a dialect of Python.

And that’s without going into all the outside-of-g3 code (of which there is a metric ton, especially if you worked with any teams that deal with hardware or third-party/acquisition stuff).

0. https://github.com/bazelbuild/starlark

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