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Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

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Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#101

Post by xenotux »

gdbsjjdn wrote: post #94
devcamcar wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually it means you have to manage people but you have no real input on their career trajectory, and in the worst case, if they need to be fired you do not have the power to do so.

This was my experience in a TLM role - you have to manage down to your ICs but you have little lateral or upward power. You're basically just conveying whatever your manager decides to do with your team, but with all the additional responsibilities of a staff engineer.

In big FAANG-style workplaces, I don't think that middle managers without the TL- prefix have the kind of influence or leverage you're talking about here. It changes at VP level, but ultimately, most of the corporate management hierarchy is just spreadsheet misery.

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#102

Post by nextworddev »

BobbyJo wrote: post #87
gttalbot wrote: post #86

The way the execs talk down to employees now is really depressing to read about. That's a really unfortunate culture change since I was there.

I was there 2013 to 2017 and it was a pretty big shift start to finish just in that window.

Google was actually cool to work at pre 2011

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#103

Post by lallysingh »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #11

This was called the TLM role at google. Technical Lead/Manager. You were expected to code and manage a couple of more junior engineers. It’s part of an effort to have dedicated managers and dedicated engineers instead of hybrid roles. This is being sold as an efficiency win for the sake of the stock price but it’s really just moved a few people around with the TLMs now 100% focused on programming.

I remember TLMs being considered a bad idea in 2010. Looks like the pendulum took a full swing in the mean time.

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#105

Post by icedchai »

Aurornis wrote: post #49
whatever1 wrote: post #9

Around 5 is the correct number for a first line manager of a technical team. Go to 10 and it’s impossible to keep track of things. The day has only so many hours. Managing takes time. For bigger teams (10+) you either need individuals who are very independent and driven, or have dependable line managers.

> Go to 10 and it’s impossible to keep track of things. The day has only so many hours. Managing takes time. I've actually had better experiences with higher employee:manager ratios for this reason. When the manager can't possibly be involved in everything they're forced to let go, delegate, and skip the management busywork. My worst experiences have been at companies with one manager per 2-3 employees and skip-level…

Same. With so few reports, those "managers" don't have much to do, so they invent nonsense and start aggravating the actual people doing the work. In one case, the guy was totally not receptive to my feedback about the performance issues of other team members. "I'll talk to him."... and literally did nothing. I was more experienced than everyone on the team, including the "manager." He's gone now.

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#106

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

I'm curious, what did the management part of the TLM role entail?

As someone who used to be an engineering manager, I was always surprised at how inefficient the division of responsibilities seemed to me. I mean, when I was an eng. manager, a substantial portion of my time was just taken up by logistics - like when we did a move to a new office building, a huge time sink was stuff like seating charts. Perhaps a company as big as Google has more folks taking care of stuff like this, but I still think the following breakdown makes sense:

1. A "technical mentorship" role: someone who codes, but is also explicitly responsible for skills growth and technical feedback of ~5 junior engineers. This person would not be responsible for stuff like salary/raise negotiations, promotion decisions (but would obviously feed into that, more on that below), logistics questions, etc.

2. A "directing manager" (obviously that name kind of sucks, but I didn't want to confuse this with other "director" or "manager" terms). This person explicitly does not need any technical skills. They are responsible for all logistics/salary negotiations, etc. They would be responsible for around ~5 technical mentors, so then up to 25 people under that. Promotion decisions, for example, would be made amongst the 5 technical mentors, deciding who on the team is most deserving to move up. But then the actual salary decision would be made by this "directing manager".

I'm sure this could be tweaked, but the overall idea is to separate technical vs. non-technical skill sets more efficiently.

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#107

Post by ezfe »

whatever1 wrote: post #9

Around 5 is the correct number for a first line manager of a technical team. Go to 10 and it’s impossible to keep track of things. The day has only so many hours. Managing takes time. For bigger teams (10+) you either need individuals who are very independent and driven, or have dependable line managers.

I've never directly reported to someone who had that few people reporting to them. Team sizes of ~5 work well but managers can have multiple teams. They don't need to be involved with most people on a day to day basis.

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#108

Post by icedchai »

hankchinaski wrote: post #81

can someone with experience doing this shine some light? i have been offered this type of role from engineer to 50/50 (as i feel it) or 80/20 (as they say) IC and managing. in a series C startup. i feel like it’s never good to context switch. i never seen a tech lead or manager who did well both roles at once. am i crazy to think that the tech lead or manager role should be 100%? either go the IC track or the manager…

At early startups where people are focused on building and you have self motivated, mostly senior+ engineers or hands-on founder types, the 80/20 thing can work. The problems happen when you bring in a lot of other roles, less experienced folks, and more and more distractions build up. The 80% will become more like 30%.

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#109

Post by bushbaba »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #11

This was called the TLM role at google. Technical Lead/Manager. You were expected to code and manage a couple of more junior engineers. It’s part of an effort to have dedicated managers and dedicated engineers instead of hybrid roles. This is being sold as an efficiency win for the sake of the stock price but it’s really just moved a few people around with the TLMs now 100% focused on programming.

A TLM reduction isn’t any middle management reduction. It’s an IC role still.

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#110

Post by dhx »

B-Con wrote: post #82
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #11

This was called the TLM role at google. Technical Lead/Manager. You were expected to code and manage a couple of more junior engineers. It’s part of an effort to have dedicated managers and dedicated engineers instead of hybrid roles. This is being sold as an efficiency win for the sake of the stock price but it’s really just moved a few people around with the TLMs now 100% focused on programming.

GOOG has made a systemic push to eliminate the role starting ~3 years ago. At that time my M was a staff level IC TLM with 4 reports who was forcibly converted to EM. In those last 3 years I've only seen TLMs used to assist an overloaded EM. The pattern I've seen is something like: Principal EM |- Staff EM (7 reports, project A) |- Staff EM (8 reports, project B) |- Staff IC (projects A, B, C) |- Senior IC (projects…

Do you have a mapping to roles/levels[1], for example:

Principal EM - USD$1.3m/yr per https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...

Staff EM - USD$664k/yr per https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...

Staff IC - USD$557k/yr per https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...

Senior IC - USD$410k/yr per https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...

Mid IC - USD$290k/yr per https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...

levels.fyi doesn't appear to use the term "Technical Lead". There is "Technical Program Manager" and "Technical Account Manager" that sound like they'd be similar (someone technical transitioning into a full-time non-technical role). And then roles such as "Product Manager" and "Program Manager" seemingly for those who are currently 100% non-technical in their work.

Does the change mean the most competent solution architect who has successfully designed and implemented many complex systems from scratch is capped in salary package because they're not doing the important job of demanding those around them fill out TPS reports all day?

[1] https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...

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