Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

Post by fg137 » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 11:40 PM UTC

justinwp wrote: post #37

anon84873628 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would help if you clarify whether you followed the OSS release process guidelines, which are very clearly documented. "Fired for making a thing" is different from "fired for not following the rules".

To clarify, I was on the Google Workspace Developer Relations team, the majority of my work was that exact OSS release process. It is not clearly documented and always changing. You can read some of it here, https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/releasing/... , but like I said it is always changing. Relevant: https://www.theregister.com/software/2023/01/27/what-is-goog...

Post by collabs » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 11:42 PM UTC

stogot wrote: post #59

collabs wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally speaking, I have seen a change in behavior even from early 2024. I was in a meeting (online) with a few people from Google shortly before Google IO about something fairly small. The technical engineer actually spoke(!) and he talked about revenue and stuff. I was dumbfounded that technical engineers at Google would ever care about "moving the needle".

Are you sure it wasn’t a “customer engineer” role?

Post by frollogaston » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 11:42 PM UTC

cdata wrote: post #153

frollogaston wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is it normally allowed to publish a non-Google-affiliated repo under Google's brand? This seems weird to me, and I can't understand why he didn't just do it under his own name. I did work at Google until a year ago, when I quit and sold my stock, but not in a team that remotely deals with open source so idk how this works.

Simply put: all work published to Google repos is implicitly affiliated with Google. In my team's case we would include expectation-setting language in the README.md so that it was clear that the project was not an officially-supported Google product. As far as I know, no-one ever lost their job for failing to set that expectation. A gentle correction from legal was sufficient to set the world right.

Post by djmips » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 11:44 PM UTC

cs702 wrote: post #34

Looks like a textbook example of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy .[a] People like the OP, Justin Poehnelt, who build cool things out of self-motivation that others find interesting and want to use, are now at the mercy of those inside Google who care more about the company's internal bureaucracy and their own role and importance within it. To them, the fact that the OP's project was an instant github hit meant no…

Post by gerdesj » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 11:45 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #140

gerdesj wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is that OP is or wants to be an old school disruptor working at what used to be an exciting and disruptive employer (but isn't any more - its just a boring old money maker). OP crank out a pretty decent and well received, by the community, product and get absolutely canned because they are well out of touch of how Google now works. You don't do risk (without reward) at Google and you certainly don't…

> what used to be an exciting and disruptive employer (but isn't any more - its just a boring old money maker). I feel sorry for this person, but I would be surprised if this would have been okay at Google in the past 20 years. It wouldn't have been okay at any company I've ever worked at, big or small. I think there's a valid argument that this started as a simple DevRel script or trick, but due to the way you can w…