...and has them replaced by AI?
Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
241–250 of 292 posts
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everytime I see such charts and explanations it helps me understand how Musk could fire 80% of Twitter with no visible effect on product.
I've always been perplexed when I see 100s-1000+ people work on software product development and very little happen with the product for YEARS while there are tons of obvious (to me) improvements possible. Only tiny bug fixes released on a pretty slow release cycle. Then I also just think of the twitter/X example. Occasionally one reads stories of how people get paid pretty hefty salaries to mostly just work very cas…
Many large organisations inadvertently, with reasonable intentions create a structure with a powerful bias towards inaction.
It's reasonable, when a company is looking into buying a new SaaS product, that the legal team review the contract.
It's reasonable for legal to ask for variations in the contract, if there's something in it they can't approve.
It's reasonable for the product to be reviewed for compliance with our privacy laws, before we order employees to start using it.
It's reasonable that the information security team get to be consulted before a new product is adopted, we don't want insecure products sneaking in.
It's reasonable that we want single-sign-on from our vendors, that's good for security. And we want SOC2 compliance if possible, as we're trying to be SOC2 compliant ourselves.
It's reasonable that a vendor have a record in our finance database, so we can pay them and know who we've paid what.
It's reasonable that, before approving a vendor, we get a statement from them that they do not use slave labour in their supply chain.
It's reasonable that every expense be attributed to a project or department within the business.
It's reasonable that the project or department's budget have an owner, who has to approve major expenditures.
It's reasonable that the work above is split across quite a few teams, and that each team have a queue of work where non-emergency requests can take a week or two.
But take those reasonable policies together, and it takes 3-6 months to adopt a new SaaS product - so it's a heck of a lot easier to stick with an under-performing, over-priced vendor than it is to get a new vendor approved.
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Statistically you should charge companies. Even if you get promoted, you’ll make less than someone hired in at the same level. Even if you like the company, it’s best to “boomerang”
Its tricky to use statistics for personal decisions. In general something might be correct but not for your specific subgroup. I know many people who changed for worse. If you are in a bad position then change, but if you like the company and role, don’t take it for granted and think carefully. This advice is consistent with the broad statistic if more than half of the sample is currently in “bad position”.
Since we are talking about BigTech, I can’t imagine to a first approximation any IC up to and including senior or a low level manager being at any BigTech company for a reason besides wanting to maximize their income via cash and RSUs.
Does anyone stay in the same position/team for more than two or three years even at the same company?
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#244Earlier 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…
>> 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).
I think you're both saying the same thing. By "forcibly converted to EM", I think B-Con was saying the person was given more reports.
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#245Around 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…
That's an interesting perspective and not one I've heard before, but it resonates with me. Thanks
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#246Honestly as an outsider this is the not the most important role for them to have eliminated. I have interacted with google a couple of times in the last few years and the company I work for are considered a priority account that they want to do more business with. In every meeting, they put forward one engineer (who is usually quite capable) and 6 or 7 spreadsheet-trackers who all come from McKinsey or straight out o…
"seem to have no function other than to consume the oxygen in the room"
I have a nice phrase for these people - oxygen thiefs.
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article is mostly about first level managers. I’ve never had any “manager” that really has any power over raises more than 3-4% or any real control over budgets. When I was being hired as a strategic hire for startups - and was being interviewed by the director or CTO - I specifically asked would I be reporting directly to them or another manager. I actually refused one job because I saw that the expectations the…
>The article is mostly about first level managers Maybe for faangs. At every company I have worked at with a manger title from 2019 to present, this was expected of people with "director" in their title and below. You are not a manager if you do not get to decide where capital is deployed, without your boss's approval. For anyone reading this comment, if you think you are a manager, ask yourself this question "If I d…
I've worked at places where the "senior executives" couldn't do any of these things without CEO approval. Even if they claimed to "have budget" for something, it still needed sign off.
There's tons of title inflation out there, especially at smaller firms.
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everytime I see such charts and explanations it helps me understand how Musk could fire 80% of Twitter with no visible effect on product.
How was there no effect on product? What has 'X' even been able to launch since the acquisition? All he showed was you can an existing thing running with 20% of staff.
Furthermore, a bunch of functionality was entirely deleted, and the effect on the quality of discourse has been... Profoundly negative.
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#249The 35% reduction refers to the number of managers who oversee fewer than three people, according to a person familiar with the matter. If you oversee 0-2 people, in most cases that’s probably not an efficient ratio. How did Google get so many folks in that position in the first place? And I assume the other 65% take up the slack to fluff their teams? Or what? Leave the other 65% managing 0-2 people?
I work for a startup with an engineering team size of about 6, and I manage one person. I agree it's not an efficient ratio but it works for now.
I don't think mature enterprise companies should have managers of 0-2 people though.
Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year
#250Around 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.
> For bigger teams (10+) you either need individuals who are very independent and driven, or have dependable line managers. that described internal Apple hardware teams i was on for years, as having as flat as possible an org was a priority to prevent bureaucracy and fiefdom forming middle manager nonsense
Interesting! How many people were you? There weren't any other informal power structures emerging?