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Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

nytimes.com

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Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#301

Post by collyw »

RishabhKharyal wrote: post #36

AI has increased productivity which might be a reason for it

I have only used the free version of ChatGPT and I'll admit that it has been helpful, but only for maybe 50% of the stuff In ask it.

Maybe 15% of the time it has been a hindrance by making up stuff. It's basically a faster version of Stack Overflow / web search.

A lot of IT work is maintenance work, and it knows nothing about those systems. It's good for me for JavaScript as I spend 80% of my time on the backend. I know enough JavaScript to debug other peoples work, or to add some simple jQuery / vanilla JS to an HTML page (which is all that is needed in the majority of cases), but if I was to build a React App from scratch, it would likely look like beginner level stuff.

Has anyone had experience with the paid version of ChatGPT? How does it compare?

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#303

Post by lawgimenez »

HackerThemAll wrote: post #40
NorwegianDude wrote: post #6

> laid off employees who worked on ... the Pixel phone. That sounds weird to me. Pixel phones has grown very fast in the last years and I don't se how it can be seen as anything but a great success.

Pixel is not officially sold and supported in a substantial number of countries. It results in many issues, such as 5G not working when traveling from country to country. Or in case of Chromecast dongle, 5GHz Wi-Fi not working. Which makes my head explode, considering that they employ only "top talent" and has considerable resources to properly catalogue and implement all radio frequencies of the world. Google cannot…

I have been waiting my whole career to get a hold of their previous Nexus line. Then their Pixel line. Still no luck. It has been over a decade. Now it’s too late my whole family is now deeply invested in Apple’s ecosystem.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#304

Post by eloisant »

ur-whale wrote: post #272
sinuhe69 wrote: post #127

Seriously, why people in tech are opposed to unions? In Europe, unions and Betriebsrat (works committee) are the norm. Why not in the US?

> Why not in the US? How many large tech. companies has Europe produced ? Why would (or even: could) anyone start/build a cutting-edge tech. company in Europe given the hell that labor laws are over there ? Labor laws in Europe are a giant hindrance to economic growth. People in most European countries have made a political choice: safety and stagnation over wealth and growth. That's their choice, fine, they're free…

It has nothing to do with labor laws, it's more about lack of investors.

Many tech companies started in Europe, got successful then moved to US because they could not longer find big enough investors in Europe.

Google only did layoffs very recently so I don't see how be able to fire people at will helped them grow.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#305

Post by badpun »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #284
fendy3002 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this goes both ways, employees can go out as they please. The opposite party usually get hurt when it happens (either the firing or employee go out), and usually coworkers / existing workers that get the bad things. So in my experience, don't get too attached to company (or coworker either), and go out if things start to go south or if there's better opportunity out there.

> And this goes both ways, employees can go out as they please. Spoken like a man who never needed healthcare, who never had dependents, who never lived under the cage of a visa.

Presumably, you leave to go work for another company, so none of these are a problem.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#306

Post by collyw »

ndepoel wrote: post #46
RishabhKharyal wrote: post #36

AI has increased productivity which might be a reason for it

AI has increased the perception of productivity to unwitting managers, which is a dangerous pit to be falling into. It's like a lot of those fabled 10x engineers that I've run into over the years; they may seem like they're incredibly productive and managers love them, but in reality their work is so riddled with issues and rushed half-baked ideas, that they end up costing the other engineers on the team 10x the amou…

I have come to the conclusion that a lot of the 10x developer stuff is basically down to the 10x person being the original author of the code.

Every other developer on the project has to do at least 3 times as much work, they have to read through the original code and try and understand what the original person was thinking of when writing it before even getting to solving the problem at hand.

A true 10x developer would write code good enough that every other developer could maintain it as easily as the original author.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#307

Post by odiroot »

lobsterthief wrote: post #261
odiroot wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My only experience dealing with an union as a SWE, in Germany at that, has been a negative one. It shaped my opinion on the topic.

What about it was negative?

They didn't want me to negotiate my offer, after I went through the whole interview process. Passed the message through my prospective boss: "take it or leave it, you can't have it better than people already at the company".

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#308

Post by collyw »

wegfawefgawefg wrote: post #80
RishabhKharyal wrote: post #36

AI has increased productivity which might be a reason for it

I feel I am one of those developers that codes 100 times faster since ai tools came out. I was not slow before by the way. But now I can take a well defined interface and class example, ask gpt4 for a new well defined variant, and out it comes. one tweak and a test later its done. Some things that would have taken me weeks take days. And some things that used to take days take 1-3 hours. Novel work can't yet be autom…

How much better do you find ChatGPT 4 compared to the free version?

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#309

Post by cebert »

refurb wrote: post #211
jillesvangurp wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better put, the relationship you have with your employer is a business relation ship. It's not personal. They are not your friends, nor your enemies. It's simply a convenient arrangement between the two of you for as long as that lasts. And it might become convenient for either side to change that arrangement at any point. The more you earn, the higher the risk that at some point somebody decides that they want to sp…

> The more you earn, the higher the risk that at some point somebody decides that they want to spend less / smarter. And it applies to everyone up to the CEO. At my company a new CEO came in to much fanfare. A year later they were unceremoniously turfed out because the board decided they weren’t up to the “new direction” the company needed to go. And not to mention the people under the CEO who road her coattails. The…

> If the company starts to look wobbly, be the first out the door, not the last.

For individual contributors leaving isn’t always that easy as most interviews now require Leetcode prep. If you haven’t already been practicing, it can take a few months to get prepared for the grind. This is even worse for folks who work and have obligations outside of work such as children or sick family members.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#310

Post by badgersnake »

teitoklien wrote: post #145
sinuhe69 wrote: post #127

Seriously, why people in tech are opposed to unions? In Europe, unions and Betriebsrat (works committee) are the norm. Why not in the US?

You add unions in tech, and then wonder why dev salaries in EU and the UK are so abysmally low.

Unions are pretty rare in tech in the UK also. I don’t think that’s the reason.
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