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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

#181

Post by johntiger1 »

aix1 wrote: post #147
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…

> At that time my M was a staff level IC TLM with 4 reports who was forcibly converted to EM. I am obviously not disputing your experience, but wanted to mention that this was not the standard pattern. The standard pattern for forced conversion at L6 (Staff) was either 6 or 7 reports (I don't remember exactly). > Principal EM I don't want to be overly pedantic, but there's no Principal EM on Google eng ladders and so…

Yeah principal EM is confusing here. Wouldn't EM I report to EM II? At Meta it's typically M1 -> M2

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

#182

Post by pfannkuchen »

aix1 wrote: post #154
pfannkuchen wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search and ads, at least, had the L6 requirement for manager going back as long as I’m aware. I was under the impression that the requirement was relaxed at some point in some of the less revenue critical orgs, but that the L6 restriction actually goes back a long way.

FWIW I was L5 manager (on the SWE ladder) in two PAs. The L6 requirement did exist but in my experience was quite soft. All that my management had to do was justify to the VP that I was capable of doing the job and would soon be ready for promo to L6 (though the first org got nuked and the promo took a long time).

Interesting. Where I was I never saw an exception to the L6 rule.

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

#183

Post by integralid »

greesil wrote: post #133
jakevoytko wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a devil's advocate (I don't work in Google or in a similar role) but if the requirements for engineering promotion are similar for technical managers and engineers, while the first have to manage people then this is just how the system is set up. In this case I think blaming the system more than people is justified, and Google decided to dismantle the role for some reason.

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

#184

Post by tgma »

johntiger1 wrote: post #181
aix1 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At that time my M was a staff level IC TLM with 4 reports who was forcibly converted to EM. I am obviously not disputing your experience, but wanted to mention that this was not the standard pattern. The standard pattern for forced conversion at L6 (Staff) was either 6 or 7 reports (I don't remember exactly). > Principal EM I don't want to be overly pedantic, but there's no Principal EM on Google eng ladders and so…

Yeah principal EM is confusing here. Wouldn't EM I report to EM II? At Meta it's typically M1 -> M2

I think L5 Manager at Google is EM1 which is what Facebook calls M zero. So L6 manager (vast majority of line managers) would be EM II at Google.

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

#186

Post by shermantanktop »

Managing dev teams is a tough job and I respect the ones who find a way to add value.

The good managers I know have been good in spite of all the incentives that surround them. The rest have mostly been going with the flow and responding to the environment they are in, and the result is usually a whole lot of upward management and little real value—just more TPS reports delivered on time.

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

#187

Post by bitpush »

tho23i423o4j23 wrote: post #143
jjtheblunt wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gemini and transformers in general from Google Brain might say "hold my beer"

Google Research/Deepmind is a different thing altogether. Product wise, Perplexity has them beat by a mile - that said PPLX doesn't quite have the same ads buy-in (or all the Chrome-tricks Google plays to keep tracking alive).

If "beating" is just bleeding money then yes. This is the same playbook that Uber had. Offer an exceptionally good service, until you have to make money. Then it becomes shitty.

So nope, it isnt hard to do what Perplexity is doing. The question is, when the music stops will Perplexity be around.

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

#189

Post by integralid »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #178
kelnos wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a good thing. Every time I've seen people in dual tech/management roles at any company, they've always been incredibly stressed about their job, and always have way too much to do. I've also never really liked the idea of engineering managers who are technical enough to approve/veto tech decisions that team members make, since there's a power imbalance there. Even if your TLM is pushing a bad technolo…

>always been incredibly stressed about their job, and always have way too much to do. So, no different from any other dedicate IC or manager at these companies? >I've also never really liked the idea of engineering managers who are technical enough to approve/veto tech decisions that team members make, since there's a power imbalance there. How is this different from any other manager or higher up making decisions? I…

>How is this different from any other manager or higher up making decisions?

Non-technical managers usually don't have strong opinions about which framework or database to use. Among engineers these decisions are usually made in a meritocratic way (weighted by who is the loudest sadly), but if your manager says "let's use X" it has a different weight than if your peer does.

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

#190

Post by gambiting »

kelnos wrote: post #177
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…

> There's no expectation that you do two jobs at once. I laughed out loud when I read this. I've never seen anyone at any company in a hybrid tech/manager role that wasn't expected to do two jobs at once. Or at least they felt like they were, which is still the same problem. 80% coding & 80% management for that role sounds about right.

I've been a TLM at two big companies and in my experience there was no expectation to do two jobs at once - I did majority of management with very very little hands on coding. More like frequent pair programming with more junior staff, code reviews etc. My last manager told me explicitly when I started - there is zero expectation on you to do any hands on work, you need to make sure your team performs and keeps going in the right direction first and foremost.
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