Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group • Hacker News Board

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#191

Post by manigandham » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

webdva wrote: post #161

Google Inc. is cutting jobs? Is this actually a move by automation’s machinic desire to displace human laborers or human capital? Pieter Levels, an expert in startups, said that “Netflix wants to have less employees, but each one now paid higher. For example, they'll pay one million dollars per year for one engineer instead of paying $300,000 per year for three engineers each.” This is actually making me anxious to t…

I don’t see anything technically wrong with that approach. The top performers are usually outsized contributors compared to the bottom tier or even mid level coworkers. It’s better to keep a very high performing team even if it’s more expensive.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#192

Post by qeqeqeqe » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

joejerryronnie wrote: post #178

scarface74 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven’t heard about Netflix’s policy.... https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664 “We’re a team, not a family.” They “hire, develop, and cut smartly”. It doesn’t seem to have hurt their recruitment.

My brother-in-law works with various Netflix managers. One of them got a negative mark on her performance review for not firing enough of her team members over the previous 12 months. Netflix pays about 20% over market value, but it's like Lord of the Flies over there.

20% over the top of the market value.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#193

Post by qeqeqeqe » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 5:54 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #135

pembrook wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In logic class we called that a red herring fallacy. Google Cloud isn't in the business of selling $1 bills for 90 cents.

The “fallacy” is offering evidence of success by just bringing up revenue. I made no claims on whether GCP is profitable or not.

But we do know AWS's operating margin which is 29%. Spending a little to gain market share in a high margin business seems sound to me.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#194

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 6:04 AM UTC

balladeer wrote: post #189

smt88 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the first world, if you hire 100 people for a 5-man project, people end up to invent and justify 100-man's job. Everyone's role would become their identity, everyone is busy and hardworking. The output is high, they would also have fancy analytics and reports. This is such utter nonsense that it's hard to believe you've worked in any human organization. People in the first and third world are not different speci…

Interesting. There are two contradicting unsubstantiated observations, or let's just say blatant generalisations, one gets downvoted another flourishes.

smt88's post was downvoted because it completely misunderstood the point of namelosw's post. smt88 wrote "A lot of white-collar first-world workers provide no value to their company at all." Well, in my reading of it, that was exactly namelosw's point. That is, the social pressure in first world countries, and the fact that so many have their identity tied up in their job, demands everyone looks 'busy' even when they are not really doing anything of value.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#195

Post by chrisseaton » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 6:06 AM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #156

downerending wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a couple: 1. Google's tech staffers are supposed to be some of the top people in the world, and Google spends a considerable amount of resources hiring them. It seems foolish not to keep them on the bench a bit, unless Google foresees that it will be shrinking soon. 2. The people not laid off will very much notice their colleagues being zapped the moment they're not needed. They will rationally tilt towards le…

> Google's tech staffers are supposed to be some of the top people in the world That ended about 7 years ago when Google decided to expand as rapidly as possible. Alphabet employees over 100k people now. It’s just a younger IBM at this point. There will be thousands of people that will suck and should be laid off rather than kept.

I think you still need to be at the very top of your field to get past that famous interview. It’s completely out of reach for all but the most elite engineers even if they’re already doing brilliantly somewhere else.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#196

Post by notagogloid » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 6:16 AM UTC

qeqeqeqe wrote: post #190

chrisseaton wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does it cost to find and hire a Google-tier worker? Many hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you're talking about financial duty surely their duty is to retain the elite workers they've already got.

Not every employee that is hired is really top tier, there are probably some average people that get through. Also people can get lax and complicit.

Also googlers are sometimes useless outside the Plex. Because of their tendency to religiously reproduce processes that they know so well. And tendency of these processes not to work outside.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#197

Post by laegooose » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 6:20 AM UTC

mav3rick wrote: post #185

ericd wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds reasonable. I was referring more to the gatekeeping type, like a heavy focus on things like balancing trees and recursion for roles that clearly involve neither trees nor recursion.

It's really not that at level. Once at Google you really get the benefit of doubt of clearing a high bar. It's mostly a talk around your work / perf / CLs and then team fit.

what is CL?

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#198

Post by rurban » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 6:29 AM UTC

So the new boss is from Oracle, who hired new managers from SAP and Microsoft, they are hiring like crazy and cutting some old jobs. Looks like they are trying to get rid of internal critics, resistance. Interesting wars

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#199

Post by Despegar » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 6:29 AM UTC

webdva wrote: post #161

Google Inc. is cutting jobs? Is this actually a move by automation’s machinic desire to displace human laborers or human capital? Pieter Levels, an expert in startups, said that “Netflix wants to have less employees, but each one now paid higher. For example, they'll pay one million dollars per year for one engineer instead of paying $300,000 per year for three engineers each.” This is actually making me anxious to t…

That's why Bernie needs to be elected so he can bring the neoliberal age to an end. Your career might be over by the time you're 45, but at least you'll have Medicare.

Re: Google cuts jobs at cloud-computing group

#200

Post by yaitsyaboi » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 6:30 AM UTC

rammy1234 wrote: post #177

Will this ever happen to Amazon (AWS) which is in hiring spree ? when you have surplus, can't they easily cut loose some when plans didn't go the way it was supposed to.

Amazon does this kind of thing all the time. It's very rare with engineers--they just get moved around. But if you have some reorg, you don't need two sets of marketing folks.