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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

#131

Post by JustExAWS »

xenotux wrote: post #127
JustExAWS wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the huge perk of management is leverage. If you're technically competent and credible, and want something to happen, your team will see it your way. If you're a random "ideas guy" in an IC role, that's not a given. There are three levers of power in an organization - relationship, expertise and role. Role power is by far the least effective. If you can’t get team buy in for your ideas or they believe you’re an…

> Role power is by far the least effective. To be frank: it sounds nice, but I don't think that's really true. It's the power of "who's going to decide my promotions", "who is going to advocate for my team and get us more resources", "who approves my expenses", "who is going to protect me if something goes wrong", etc. This doesn't give the manager a pass if their ideas are objectionable, but if they're credible, it'…

> Being very visibly anointed by some VP helps, but that's essentially tapping into the exec's leverage - an illusion of IC influence.

Of course that’s the play. Even a lind manager can’t get major initiatives through without getting the buy in from their manager. When I was working for startups, the director (1st company I had influence at) and the CTO at the second had been convinced of my idea and gave me the authority to pull who I needed to get it done.

Fast forward past BigTech to where I work now - a third party AWS consulting company, after convincing the powers that be of the market, I had it escalated to be one of the companies initiatives for the year.

But more so in BigTech, promotions aren’t completely on your manager. At least at AWS you had to have recommendations by I believe two or three people one level ahead of you and it had to go through a committee.

From talking to a couple of L4s that I mentored when they were interns and when they came back, they were both complaining about the promotion process even though their manager supported them.

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

#132

Post by jtfrench »

AIPedant wrote: post #53
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.

It sounds to me like Google is moving to a more typical "technical lead" model where leads have substantial authority and some mentorship responsibilities, but they're essentially an IC and someone else up the chain actually handles proper management. Informally, tech leads can gently chew out less senior devs, but if someone actually needs to be disciplined then the lead needs to talk to the manager. TLM is an odd r…

Yeah, that helps put this in perspective. At first the headline sounded like a somewhat jarring and sudden staff cut, but if we're essentially just seeing Google migrate TLMs to TLs, that actually makes sense.

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

#133

Post by greesil »

jakevoytko wrote: post #125
xenotux wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLM roles are a trap, but not in that sense. There's no expectation that you do two jobs at once. It's just a way to ease unsuspecting engineers into management. If you don't suck at management, your team inevitably grows (or you're handed over other teams), and before long, you're managing full-time. Which means that there are three type of people who remain TLMs in the long haul: those who suck at management; those…

I mostly found TLM a disservice to people who reported to TLMs. They didn't have to earn a promotion as both an engineer and a manager at the same time, so many optimized for their own engineering promotion and any managing they did was out of the goodness of their hearts.

People that selfish shouldn't be managing people.

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

#134

Post by itsanaccount »

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.

its called the straw boss.

as in "and the strawboss said well a-bless my soul, you load 16 tons.."

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

#135

Post by nostrademons »

frollogaston wrote: post #128
corytheboyd wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLM role has always sounded like a trap to me, I would never say yes to it personally. I’m sure it’s sold as an expected 50% code, 50% management but everyone I’ve talked to who has been near it says the expectation is more like 80% code 80% management.

TLM is fine. TPM is the awkward one. I don't understand what hierarchy (if any) there is to TPMs, they kinda float around and ask people to do stuff. Some projects get passed around to different TPMs like hot potato. The skilled TPMs stick around and make things happen, but even then idk how that works because they lead people without having any actual reports.

That is the point of a TPM. They're supposed to be the neutral third party that makes sure you're doing the work, and can explain to upper management why the work is not getting done. As such, they don't have any decision-making power on what the work is or how long it's going to take. Generally the manager and IC negotiate back and forth on what needs doing and on what schedule, they set their own deadlines based on the realities of the project, and then the TPM holds them to what they committed to.

Much of the reason the TPM job exists is simply so your manager can be an advocate rather than a nag. The nag job is offloaded to the TPM, but the TPM has no decision-making power, so you don't get perverse incentives where the manager burns all their relationship capital making you do your work, or sandbags the deadlines so they don't have to.

In many orgs TPMs are also in charge of goodies like fun events or device/swag distribution, as a way to offset the negative emotions that come from them basically being nags.

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

#136

Post by brokepresubmit »

nostrademons wrote: post #21
floren wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any opinion on the success/value of the TLM role?

Former TLM that was involuntarily reclassified as an EM because I had too many reports. I'm from old-line (pre-2011) Google, so was an engineer back when the TLM role was one of our unique competitive advantages. I have a lot of thoughts on this. IMHO, it's appropriate for the state that Google is in now , where it is a large mature conglomerate, basically finance & managerially driven, built around optimizing 10-K r…

As a current IC, +1. I don’t know if it’s the case globally at Google, but I certainly know it’s also this way in my org.

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

#137

Post by greesil »

nostrademons wrote: post #50
lanthissa wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we had this in my company it was pretty hit miss. Almost always the 'TLM' was someone who was in the role for a really long time and it warranted a second person, so it ended up being a 1-2 junior reporting in absorbing the knowledge that the tlm had. If you were in a growing domain, and the TLM stayed engaged with the code it worked really well, but as soon as one of those failed it was a bad roi for the company and…

I wouldn't actually say that, but I would say that the TLM role works at a very specific stage in a company's lifecycle, and many companies that use it (including Google itself from around 2010 onwards) have long since past that point. IMHO, the conditions where a TLM role is appropriate are: 1.) You need to be in the company growth phase where you are still trying to capture share of a competitive market, i.e. it ma…

If you don't mind me asking, why did your team get bigger? Did your scope increase?

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

#138

Post by lovich »

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.

> This was called the TLM role at google. Technical Lead/Manager. You were expected to code and manage a couple of more junior engineers.

Ohhhh this explains so much. My career is pretty much entirely at b tier companies who try to implement what faangs/mag7 type companies do but always fuck it up because they don’t understand the fundamentals or are unwilling to part with any of amount of power or money even if they got more after all was said and done.

Anyways post covid all of a sudden every company was expecting me as part of the Software Engineering Manager roles I was getting, to have 7-10 direct reports, do 30 hours of project management per week, _and_ simultaneously be better versed in every single project my direct reports were working on or at least be the initial architect for the project.

I just ignored it and kept my people productive since that was an impossible ask of me, and for 5ish years that was good enough for companies but I guess if the faangs are wiping that role clean I better switch career niche again

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

#139

Post by hliyan »

corytheboyd wrote: post #44
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.

TLM role has always sounded like a trap to me, I would never say yes to it personally. I’m sure it’s sold as an expected 50% code, 50% management but everyone I’ve talked to who has been near it says the expectation is more like 80% code 80% management.

A few thoughts:

(1) As an engineer, I prefer to be managed and guided by someone who actually knows what I work on, preferably better than I know it.

(2) A manager who actually understands the tech is often better at unblocking the team.

(3) Since senior IC openings tend to grow very thin as you become older, TLM path might be a viable career path for at least some.

Can this role work if we don't expect IC output from the TLM beyond what they themselves take on for their own satisfaction and growth?

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

#140

Post by BobbyTables2 »

dhx wrote: post #110
B-Con wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Hell, I’d happily be Lundberg for $1.3M/year. Shoot, I’d probably even do it for just $1.0M — and the Bobs would be pleased!

It also sounds like the 10x developers are underpaid by a factor of 100!

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