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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

#31

Post by JCM9 »

mikestew wrote: post #2

The 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?

Fewer than 3 people? That almost never makes sense. Right on Google to sort that out but I’d have a lot of questions for whatever leaders allowed such nonsense to develop on their watch in the first place.

Also 35% is way too low if it’s really less than three. Should be more like eliminating 95% of those scenarios.

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

#32

Post by LambdaComplex »

toast0 wrote: post #26
mikestew wrote: post #2

The 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?

IMO, overseeing 0 people is great. I'm not likely to take any position where I have to oversee more or less than that; although I'm willing to compromise and oversee one person where they're actually independent and I don't have to do much overseeing.

> overseeing 0 people is great. I'm not likely to take any position where I have to oversee more or less than that;

I would have so many questions if I got an offer for a position where I had to oversee less than 0 people

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

#33

Post by AnotherGoodName »

floren wrote: post #12
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #11

This was called the TLM role at google. Technical Lead/Manager. You were expected to code and manage a couple of more junior engineers. It’s part of an effort to have dedicated managers and dedicated engineers instead of hybrid roles. This is being sold as an efficiency win for the sake of the stock price but it’s really just moved a few people around with the TLMs now 100% focused on programming.

Do you have any opinion on the success/value of the TLM role?

Doesn’t work when headcount stagnates because the teams never grow to full teams and the junior reporting engineers eventually become peers in a too small team.

Simple as that. It’s fine during times of growth but that’s not happening right now.

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

#34

Post by [deleted] »

floren wrote: post #12
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #11

This was called the TLM role at google. Technical Lead/Manager. You were expected to code and manage a couple of more junior engineers. It’s part of an effort to have dedicated managers and dedicated engineers instead of hybrid roles. This is being sold as an efficiency win for the sake of the stock price but it’s really just moved a few people around with the TLMs now 100% focused on programming.

Do you have any opinion on the success/value of the TLM role?

[deleted]

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

#35

Post by QuadmasterXLII »

mikestew wrote: post #2

The 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?

In some circumstances it can be an effective way to lose efficiency in exchange for velocity- basically there are large tasks that can’t be developed by a team any faster than by an individual ( mythical man month) because they are fundamentally sequential not parallel. In these cases there are often parallel subtasks, so you can buy some speed by having one individual forging ahead as if they are the only one on the project, and then rope in the team for parallelizable subtasks. Instead of any amount of decision-making or communication overhead, everyone jumps when the team lead says jump – this is the step that bounds performance to not be slower than a solo project.

Being the team lead in this sort of structure is grand fun, of course, but being a team member is brutal on the ego, and requires enormous skill to be a boost to velocity instead of a drag. Thus, it requires ridiculous compensation, even if you’re mostly sitting idle when the project is in a serial phase. it’s the sort of play that I could believe 2012 google could profitably execute and 2025 Google can’t.

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

#36

Post by nvarsj »

floren wrote: post #12
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #11

This was called the TLM role at google. Technical Lead/Manager. You were expected to code and manage a couple of more junior engineers. It’s part of an effort to have dedicated managers and dedicated engineers instead of hybrid roles. This is being sold as an efficiency win for the sake of the stock price but it’s really just moved a few people around with the TLMs now 100% focused on programming.

Do you have any opinion on the success/value of the TLM role?

This is a funny question to me, because my entire career (mostly small companies/small tech depts) I've never reported to an EM. It's only when I moved to big tech that EM-who-doesn't-code became a thing, and it took some adjustment for me. All prior roles had TLs (aka TLM) which led the team while being the expert - aka the "surgeon model" from Fred Brooks' book.

As far as I can tell, the main function of an EM is to enforce the company policy. I'm not sure there really is a need at a smaller place.

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

#37

Post by oceanparkway »

nostrademons wrote: post #21
floren wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any opinion on the success/value of the TLM role?

Former TLM that was involuntarily reclassified as an EM because I had too many reports. I'm from old-line (pre-2011) Google, so was an engineer back when the TLM role was one of our unique competitive advantages. I have a lot of thoughts on this. IMHO, it's appropriate for the state that Google is in now , where it is a large mature conglomerate, basically finance & managerially driven, built around optimizing 10-K r…

Brutal

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

#38

Post by mkoubaa »

mikestew wrote: post #2

The 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?

It's only inefficient if the manager only had management responsibilities, which I doubt is the case in most of these situations.

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

#40

Post by deltaburnt »

mikestew wrote: post #2

The 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?

When I started, I was told that one of the easier ways to get promo at L5 was to become a manager. I don't know how true that was at the time, but I think this could be a consequence of that sort of local optimizing. I think now they don't even allow you to be a manager at L5 unless you're grandfathered in?
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