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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

#251

Post by StopDisinfo910 »

Google is probably doing what everyone else is doing. The entry level managerial positions are being eliminated by pretending the people doing the work are not actually manager and are therefore paid less.

It’s reached ridiculous proportions in some companies I have worked for. I have seen transversal project managers and delivery leads in charge of up to 80 persons sometimes with an intermediate level of management actually reporting to them but not directly attached to them be paid as IC.

It gets even more funny because some positions in said companies doing a lot less management but occupied by people who suck up a lot are actually considered managerial.

Most modern big companies are completely f* up. The only reason we don’t see more disruption is regulatory capture.

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

#252

Post by xenotux »

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 in engineering, TLM, and management roles in multiple companies. In terms of output, TLMs are not held to the same standard as full-time engineers at the same level, period. Their engineering contributions are dissected only if their performance as a manager is in serious doubt.

In any role, there are some folks who push themselves too hard, and there is no one to tell them "stop", but that's their choice.

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

#253

Post by tayo42 »

jjav wrote: post #203
tayo42 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hasn't been true in a lot of companies for like my entire career. You can move up as an ic. Titles like Staff, senior staff principal. A Staff and Sr manager would be paid the same

> This hasn't been true in a lot of companies for like my entire career. You can move up as an ic. You can, but it's a dead end ultimately. I've been a distinguished engineer which is about as far as one can go (some companies have Fellows, but it's just a few people so basically impossible). If you have any desire to grow beyond that, management track is the only possibility. Also, moving to management from a DE lev…

Your making 7 figures? What is left in career growth. You beat the corporate game at that point.

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

#254

Post by utyop22 »

brainzap wrote: post #216
utyop22 wrote: post #83

Im convinced the big tech firms are so overly bloated simply because they do not possess high-quality leadership at the top who are able to clearly distill a vision of where they want their sub-ordinates to go. That's not to say it's easy - its absolutely not. But Apple is living off of Steve Job's visionary prowess and continues to do so.

high-quality leadership is actually so rare in general

I agree. What's worse is, the upper layer and middle layers of management are filled with bozo's looking out for their own interests and have no desire to find those with potential and hone them.

Business school is a terrible proxy for future business leaders.

It boggles the mind how these firms have bloated to the size they have - it's the cost of ill-disciplined management from the top.

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

#255

Post by [deleted] »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #195
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…

Everytime I see such charts and explanations it helps me understand how Musk could fire 80% of Twitter with no visible effect on product.

[deleted]

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

#256

Post by ElevenLathe »

kelnos wrote: post #175
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…

Wait, so you have ICs who work on multiple projects, and report to a different manager depending on the project? That sounds like a nightmare. Having one manager to manage is usually enough work...

It's chaos. This is standard corporate management in 2025 though.

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

#257

Post by iamleppert »

“I don’t think they have a VEP at Meta by the way,” Cicconi said.

This was said in response to having a month sabbatical at Facebook after 5 years. The Google exec seems to think having a "voluntary buyout" program is good enough and makes them competitive.

At this point, what is the purpose of Google hosting these town halls? It's a waste of time, just send the employees an email with whatever updated policies have been decided and dispense with the pleasantries.

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

#258

Post by _DeadFred_ »

DanielHB wrote: post #218
andriesm wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 I worked in an org with about 60 engineers all working on the same product and I have to actively _not_ fix small issues to keep my sanity. Whenever I see a small issue I would have: 0) If it changes anything visible to the user discuss it with…

Thanks. This explains Android. Because the only other explanation would be no dev at Google actually uses it day to day as their phone because it has so many dumb little infuriating things.

Example: Why does my kitchen bluetooth, that I connect to the most, and that I am located nearest to, always go to the bottom of my bluetooth list, meaning I can't select from the quick screen and have to unlock and pull up another screen (when my hands are kitchen dirty)? I consume media on bluetooth the most showering and in the kitchen. The devices used should be 1 and 2, but they never are. EVERYTHING on Android is this 'devs must not actually use this' unfriendly. I still can't use the timer function using voice because if I don't wait for my phone to repeat back all the timer info and I touch something it just blanks out my timer, so I've learned I can't trust it after ruining too much food. These are my two most common use cases for my phone and where it ads value to my life, and both are needlessly annoying on Android causing me to hate the platform because in 2025 these little details should work. Someone at Google must cook things that need timers. Someone at Google must listen to music/audiobooks and have enough devices they spill over to the secondary screen. If feels like Android has zero actual world love/care from the devs or these daily annoyances would bubble up instantly.

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

#259

Post by insane_dreamer »

> The 35% reduction refers to the number of managers who oversee fewer than three people, according to a person familiar with the matter. Many of those managers stayed with the company as individual contributors

So a lot of these people weren't actually managers, but engineers without a manager.

But if you do have a "manager" who only oversees one or two other people, that does seem like an unnecessary layer -- unless that "manager" is actually a full-time dev who just happens to have a "manager" title tacked on.

The unanswered question is whether they eliminated the _people_ or just eliminated the "manager" _titles_.

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

#260

Post by lokar »

Jensson wrote: post #211
skylurk wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that number picked? 7 people with one manager seems fine. It could go up to 10 maybe, but that's just my own vibes. 7 layers thick of management feels like too much to me. You'll get a company full of professional middle management who's jockeying define the company culture and strategy. Is that the point? Vibes seem off though. Is there a more scientific approach?

> 7 layers thick of management feels like too much to me Yeah, so having more than that was banned. They didn't say you need 7 people between employee and CEO, just that there shouldn't be more than 7 people between them. When you ban something you want to allow reasonable levels so you take a reasonable level, pad a bit, and ban that unreasonable level, so you agree. But, also note for large companies, like 100k peo…

yeah, max 7 layers. And I don't think it applied to interns :)

And the company was much much smaller.

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