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Google lays off its Python team

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Re: Google lays off its Python team

#461

Post by Arainach »

pjc50 wrote: post #380
Arainach wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> i can no longer edit my post to clarify this, but by "responsible for breakages" i meant that if your new check-in caused any CI tests anywhere within the codebase to fail, even if due to bugs in the other code, you had to stop and fix it, or get the owners to fix it, or find some principled way to temporarily disable those tests, before you could check your code Google engineers hate this one weird hack: just send…

I'm guessing these are related. If every team is potentially responsible for breakages in every product, there's no such thing as a "just chugging along" product and there will be a constant demand to delete products that are not popular within Google .

It has nothing to do with popularity, it has everything to do with teams doing what get them promoted and not having to deal with cross org fallout.

At Microsoft, if there were 12 teams depending on service foo, the team who owned foo had to have a deprecation plan that included sufficient time and support for all 12 teams to get off foo, and directors/VPs would meet and come to terms before the deprecation started.

Google is the opposite. Despite an increasing trend towards top-down direction there's no requirement or support for involving stakeholders. There can be internal products (let's say a data storage solution) and the team who owns it can say "we don't care about this anymore, it's being shut down in 6 months" even if dozens of other teams and millions of end users rely on it, and it's up to those teams to scramble, put other projects on hold, and try to migrate as fast as possible to avoid an outage.

It's frankly demotivating. For the last 18 months, a huge percentage of eng time on my team has gone to either compliance or mandatory migration work i.e. stuff that ABSOLUTE BEST CASE customers don't notice.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#462

Post by infinghxsg »

pabloivan57 wrote: post #304
bbrake wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving things to india sounds like a great idea, except the 13-15 hour difference in communication. it's all well and good until you're in Cupertino and taking an 11:30 pm call because they have 0 hours of overlap... guess you can force them to work US hours, but that goes to culture as well. Are they trying to show that India's workplace is more compliant and they'll just do what corp types will tell them?

I worked at Amazon for almost 10 years and I hate, repeat hate working with India teams. Their quality is subpar, period. No other way to put it

[dead]

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#463

Post by mathstuf »

Arainach wrote: post #112
zem wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the rule at google is if you check any code in, you are responsible for every single breakage it causes i can no longer edit my post to clarify this, but by "responsible for breakages" i meant that if your new check-in caused any CI tests anywhere within the codebase to fail, even if due to bugs in the other code , you had to stop and fix it, or get the owners to fix it, or find some principled way to temporarily d…

> i can no longer edit my post to clarify this, but by "responsible for breakages" i meant that if your new check-in caused any CI tests anywhere within the codebase to fail, even if due to bugs in the other code, you had to stop and fix it, or get the owners to fix it, or find some principled way to temporarily disable those tests, before you could check your code Google engineers hate this one weird hack: just send…

Don't forget to include the standard detailed changelog: "bugfixes and performance improvements".

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#464

Post by alecsm »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #225
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then why not MAAANG?. Much better acronym, but then I just say big N.

We can still call Alphabet Google, just like everyone calls X Twitter. Clunky rebrands don't have to be accepted by everyone. Edit: Personally I'm in favor of sorting by present market cap, so it's MANGAM.

Isn't the Google CEO also Alphabet CEO now because they didn't manage to make them 2 actual independent companies?

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#465

Post by ToxicMegacolon »

crabbone wrote: post #436
ToxicMegacolon wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. India has a vibrant startup ecosystem that is growing everyday and has produced some good companies like Zomato, Swiggy, Meesho, Zoho, Postman etc and their pay is definitely "somewhat" equivalent for the India cost of living. In addition to the Indian startups like the ones I mentioned above, India is also a favored outsourcing destination and, because of the population its a huge market for many companies…

Well, if it's an Indian startup targeting an international market: it's an international company in the making. While you can name half a dozen of them, there are thousands that are nothing like that.

> While you can name half a dozen of them, there are thousands that are nothing like that.

lol Isn't that the story of startups anywhere on earth?

Anyway, I don't think you understood my point. All I am saying is that there are "somewhat equivalent" options for job seekers in India. And that the market in US and India is not that different and Indian market is certainly not like eastern european market.

> Well, if it's an Indian startup targeting an international market: it's an international company in the making.

Well technically one can get to a Billion users without ever having to think of the international market.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#466

Post by bwhillers »

emodendroket wrote: post #285
jck wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that UK isn't as left wing as I'd like, but there is really a huge difference between what's considered right wing between the UK and the US. For instance, the NHS. Poor or unemployed people get the same access to healthcare as I do. In my personal experience, there is also less stratification and less overt racism or bigotry. However, they're pioneering new and clever bigotry against trans people now and tha…

> For instance, the NHS. Poor or unemployed people get the same access to healthcare as I do. Sure, and the Conservative Party, who has enjoyed a very long period of uninterrupted rule, has been gradually sabotaging it with the obvious hope that is falls apart and market reforms can be implemented. Most of these differences have more to do with the legacy of the post-War period than anything about the current politic…

See what you did there? You conclude that because UK is "whiter", it means they are not "less bigoted". That's weird and I hope you understand what your brain did there.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#467

Post by bwhillers »

jck wrote: post #282
emodendroket wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel like the UK is in an especially strong position to look down at the US for being too conservative or doing too little for its poorer citizens but I'm glad you've found a place that suits you regardless.

I agree that UK isn't as left wing as I'd like, but there is really a huge difference between what's considered right wing between the UK and the US. For instance, the NHS. Poor or unemployed people get the same access to healthcare as I do. In my personal experience, there is also less stratification and less overt racism or bigotry. However, they're pioneering new and clever bigotry against trans people now and tha…

Can you give an example of new and clever bigotry?

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#468

Post by bwhillers »

Sleepful wrote: post #252
bitcharmer wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can call me bigoted or racist, I don't care. The fact is with moving technical roles to India quality plummets. But I can totally see how in some beancounter's narrow mind this makes perfect sense.

That's not bigoted or racist. There are two forces when it comes to pricing labor: 1. The forces that dictate the lowest price. 2. The forces that dictate the highest price. These are completely orthogonal to each other. Lowest price is based on cost of living, you can hire the cheapest person as long as you pay them enough for them to keep on eating. That's it. Notably this lower-end is going to have a lot of varian…

very nice reply. Along these lines, one problem many founders face is when professional management (new investors, board members) focus mono-maniacally on repeatability, unit economics, and generally ultimate fungible staffing. One way this is achieved (sometimes even deliberately) is to buy the cheapest, most easily replaceable inputs and do anything necessary to make the new configuration work. Staffing is a key tactic come hell or high water. This can cause obvious cultural issues.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#469

Post by jck »

I_AM_A_SMURF wrote: post #412
jck wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, and also, if I choose to permanently live in the UK, or EU, the path to citizenship is deterministic with a known timeline. In the US, the time from Green card to citizenship is unbounded. people from India and China are pretty much never going to become citizens till they exploit some loophole like having an American baby.

The problem is getting a green card not citizenship. From a green card you can naturalize in 3 or 5 years.

Apologies, you are correct. I haven't considered emigrating to the US for years and forgot the specific details. Most of my recent knowledge just comes from my friends who live there.

Iirc you can indefinitely keep getting renewals on your h1b while waiting on the green card queue - and this queue is many decades long for people from certain countries like India and China.

Re: Google lays off its Python team

#470

Post by zrn900 »

chimp_brain wrote: post #333
pabloivan57 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Amazon for almost 10 years and I hate, repeat hate working with India teams. Their quality is subpar, period. No other way to put it

Racist much? I work out of Europe and manage teams both in India and Europe. My experience have pleasantly gotten better with Indian teams. If the quality is sub-par then perhaps you're not a good manager? perhaps failing upwards?

Nah. Its probably a case of 'you get what you pay for'. They pay for cheap teams, and those teams give them what they pay for. Good talent is expensive in all countries - even if it is relatively cheaper in India compared to SF. The MBAs don't even want to pay that much. They want dirt cheap.
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