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Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

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Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#171

Post by alphabot314 »

ehsankia wrote: post #56
RHSeeger wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to recall Google saying that they don't hire for a specific position; they hire good developers and then find the right position for them. This idea is directly countered by the act of firing developers in a specific position because that position is no longer viable.

Right, that doesn't quite make sense. The previous layoff was all across the board and likely trimming lower rated engineers across the whole company. Wiping a specific team, with potentially top tier talent, makes no sense. Are we sure this is actually general engineers? The headline only says "working on". It could be people doing very specific work, like prompt validation, QA, etc.

> The previous layoff was all across the board and likely trimming lower rated engineers across the whole company.

This is simply untrue for the Jan 2023 Alphabet layoffs. Entire orgs (>200 FTE) were let go regardless of individual performance.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#172

Post by v1ne »

chefandy wrote: post #107
qp11 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use your resume to Move to location where ever they are hiring. Dont worry about "good employer" certifications. That stuff belongs to a bygone era thats never coming back. Large corps spanning hundreds of countries are managed primarily by finance arbitragers who use cross border differences in labor costs/interest rates/tax rates/govt regulations/freebies/tariffs etc to keep the lights on. As they get faster a…

Picking up and moving to the “it” tech city assuming you’ll get hired sounds like a great solution… that is, if you don’t have family obligations, or, really… a family, long-term responsibilities of any kind, a chronic health condition, or lack money to support an expensive interstate/city/country move probably with an increased cost of living while unemployed… and all to assume that your employer is going to cast yo…

Well, maybe there's a deeper truth to qp11's statement:

I completely agree that moving to the tech city _du jour_ caters to the demographic of mid-20 "anywheres". Having a family, long-term friends or obligations such as elderly care rules you out. Or god forbid: A time-consuming hobby or in general something apart from work that gives meaning to your life.

And that's exactly the point! You only get those high wages when you put in the 60–80 hours a week (or 40 very focused hours a week) that you can spend if you live for your work. To the employer, such dependent, driven employees are very valuable. Much more than some family father who comes in for 20 hours a week and is often tired and just wants to get back home to play with his children.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#173

Post by majewsky »

SenHeng wrote: post #167
danjac wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And suppose you have a spouse with a career that isn't so mobile? Language barriers? Work visas? Elderly parents? Tons of reasons people can't just up and migrate at the drop of a hat.

Millions of people leave their spouses, kids and parents to move to another country for work. Most don't even work anywhere adjacent to tech. We call them migrants. If you're ambitious/hungry enough, you'll do whatever it takes.

> If you're ambitious/hungry enough

You spelled "exploitable" wrong.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#174

Post by sulam »

refulgentis wrote: post #120
toomuchtodo wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Made ~$85k/year at the DOE lab I mentioned as a sysadmin, was offered ~$175k/year for a US Digital Service role with ~15 years of infra/sysadmin/generalist experience. YMMV. Imho you’ll top out ~$190k-$200k. Not FAANG money, but also not homeless.

Honestly that's not too far off, Alphabet growth has been stalled since 2021 anyway.

Base salary is a relatively small component of your pay once you've been at Google more than 2 or 3 years. For me it is roughly 30% of my total comp after three years, without any crazy performance ratings or promos. Does the government even give bonuses?

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#175

Post by alephnan »

The finance industry expects people to work way harder then tech, but the E.V. is usually less. Yes, there are stories about quants making 7 figures, but that's exceedingly rare now compared to the early 2ks. The people who had this aptitude and skillset would have thrived in tech anyways. For example, Jeff Bezos used to be a trader.

There was even a window of time where people in finance saw how the grass was greener in tech.

It just happened to be that the finance industry is mature, whereas tech was nascent, with a skills shortage during a period of exponential growth. The pool of graduates studying CS has grown an order of magnitude, while demand for jobs has contracted.

What we are seeing is the tech industry maturing. The golden era of tech is over. Tech will just be another middle class job. Tech will only be slightly better than other middle class white collar jobs, but it will no longer be the be the guaranteed path to being a millionaire after 5-10 years of working.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#176

Post by iamevn »

refulgentis wrote: post #126
resolutebat wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no context on what's happening in this particular case, but Google usually indeed does not layoff straight up: teams get "defragged" and the people working on them have some time to try to find new roles.

It's not like that anymore sadly, so pathetic. Like it kinda is: you can "find a new role". But you're locked out of everything except Grow. Everything. No chat, no email. And everyone has negative headcount anyway, there's no roles on Grow. It's not the cool old school kind where you had opportunities to pick from and legit month(s) to find the right spot, with encouragement to take your time

> But you're locked out of everything except Grow.

A friend who's role has been cut says they were locked out of everything except Grow, Meet, and email and has 60 days to find a new role. Can't even get in the building to access the food onsite.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#177

Post by baq »

rsanek wrote: post #47
matrix_overload wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High interest rates. If Fed dropped them to 0 overnight, everyone on the list would have happily hired everyone back. But then the grocery prices would start growing faster than SPX.

The timing is surprising if this was the main motivation. Rates have been flat for nearly a half year and are projected to come down later in 2024 -- https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch...

rates market only somewhat accurately prices the next fed meeting, after that it's anyone's guess and the far out rates are priced to basically fed inflation target anyway. that doesn't mean the price isn't accurate now, it's just not necessarily what it'll be when the fed meets.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#178

Post by vineyardmike »

hulitu wrote: post #158
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pretty strongly disagree. First, from an accuracy perspective, Google Assistant has gotten much better. It almost never misunderstands me, even when I'm mumbling and I'm surprised it can understand me. I do agree that the set of actions I use Google assistant for is pretty static and are the same ones everyone else uses it for: What's the weather? Set my alarm? What's the first item on my calendar? Play XYZ on Spot…

> I do agree that the set of actions I use Google assistant for is pretty static and are the same ones everyone else uses it for: What's the weather? Set my alarm? What's the first item on my calendar? Play XYZ on Spotify... But I don't see this at all as a "failed experiment" So since 10 years, all it can do is play some music and tell the weather, all of this only online, so it is not a failed experiment. /s

Yea!

A product that has become pervasive in most households in America, that does it's one task, and tries to do it well. The problem is that companies built out these organizations and marketed these products as the next step of computing after mobile, and it's just not that easy to monetize.

My washer/drier, "all it can do" is spin clothes around and apply heat. I paid a lot more money for that "failed experiment".

I think Apple really should have made the HomePod earlier, and all this could be avoided. They were heavily criticized for not supporting 3P "skills" when it came out. Today, Apple is one of the better sellers, and has properly managed their products expectation from the start.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#179

Post by sulam »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #74
neilv wrote: post #22

So what's a good employer now, now that Google has been losing the reputation for treating employees well? (Multiple rounds of laying off people isn't treating only those people poorly, but also increasing stress for the people who remain, knowing they can suddenly be laid off as well.)

I retired from Apple a few years ago but still follow the company. I am not aware of any layoffs at Apple. Others have pointed out that Apple didn't go on the same hiring boom that other companies did during Covid.

My friends at Apple say they avoided layoffs because they didn't hire as much during the pandemic. Sounds great, right? Except instead they just worked more hours. Dunno which approach I prefer.

Re: Google lays off hundreds working on its voice-activated assistant

#180

Post by sulam »

tdb7893 wrote: post #127
bogomipz wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this has been a theme for the last year - big tech companies with big profits doing mass layoffs. We've seen Microsoft, Facebook, Goggle, Spotify etc all do this. It's this whole obsession with the word "efficiency" and the phrase "doing more with less." It really makes you think these CEOs are all a bunch of sheep. See: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/11/techs-new-business-model-do-...

The craziest thing to me is that the employees at these companies are some of the most sought after people yet when push comes to shove they seem to have all just rolled over and not raised a fuss with layoffs. These companies are some of the most profitable companies of all time. It's not like I think everyone needs to run out and join a union but the seeming complete lack of torches and pitchforks internally is a h…

You answered this yourself. These people got new jobs. What's to raise a fuss about?
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