Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Googler... ex-Googler

nerdy.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 1001 posts

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#321

Post by perching_aix »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #176
throwaway2037 wrote: post #156

First, this is pretty rough what happened to the person. My condolences. Second, completely tangential to the content of the blog post: Was anyone else surprised by the number of comments/"mentions"/likes/reposts? I haven't seen so much activity on a single blog post in years . Normally, blog posts that accept comments have 10 or less comments. This one has hundreds .

It looks like a Bluesky integration which will get a lot more engagement than a blog post. The author was a "CSS advocate" at Google, which implies a strong emphasis on networking.

I guess this also explains why the site is so fancy that I can't scroll it without my phone lagging horribly lol

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#322

Post by ajb »

ahtihn wrote: post #288
ajb wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are companies that support billions of economic output in countries which require a notice period. If they thought it was a risk that they would be taken down be a rogue employee, they have the option of putting them on 'gardening leave' during the notice period. This is extremely rare; they know the risk is insignificant so they are more keen to get any remaining value from the relationship (work, handover). I…

> they have the option of putting them on 'gardening leave' during the notice period. This is extremely rare That must depend on the country. In Switzerland it's standard that employees don't work during the notice period when they're laid off.

Must do. I wonder if that's because of the wide access to weapons? Although I thought I'd heard that there still wasn't much gun violence in Switzerland.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#323

Post by dreghgh »

asadalt wrote: post #157
apexalpha wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, as someone from Europe I've never experience anything else. Layoffs here are always done in conjunction with the unions. People are moved to different jobs, helped with training etc... Only in very critical jobs they'd walk you out immediately but then you still get the pay.

that’s very business hostile tbh. I wouldn’t start a company there.

Not even building and exporting widebody aircraft?

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#324

Post by azangru »

I've skimmed through the comments; and seen that most people have commented on the cog in the machine thing, or on layoffs in general and how they suck.

To me, the shock from this blog post was about seeing a Chrome developer relations engineer whom I have grown to admire and who has been doing a stellar job educating web developers on new html and css features, get the sack. He was one of the best remaining speakers on web topics at the Chrome team (I am still sad about the departure of Paul Lewis and Jake Archibald); and produced a lot of top-notch educational materials (the CSS podcast; the conference talks; the demos).

What does this say about Google's attitude to web and to Chrome? What does this say about Google's commitment to developer excellence?

I understand that this is a personal tragedy for Adam; but for me personally, this is also a huge disillusionment in Google.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#325

Post by mcherm »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #300
eloisant wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France you can't layoff people on the spot, there is a 3 months notice. And I've yet to hear about employees going rogue. Maybe in US laid off employees can go rogue because they're treated like shit in the process?

US laid off employees also get 3-6 months of full pay and benefits. They just lose access to the building and their work devices immediately. I imagine it's no different in France.

> US laid off employees also get 3-6 months of full pay and benefits.

Some employers may decide to give a few months of pay and benefits to laid off employees (although 6 months would be unusually large) but it is definitely not required and is not always done. Mass layoffs of 100+ people need to be announced 60 days ahead (but without naming who will be laid off) but there are no requirements for any kind of severance.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#326

Post by gnfargbl »

yodsanklai wrote: post #318
Scandiravian wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having experienced layoffs in both US and EU companies, the difference is massive. In my experience there is very little respect for "the human" being laid off in US companies People literally would just disappear day to day. I've had several instances where I only found out a colleague had been fired because I tried to write them on Slack only to find that their account had been deactivated Personally I felt constan…

> I don't want to work for another US company again if I can help it You can work for a US company in the UE. They have to follow the local rules like anybody else.

Well, sure, but unless the US company is willing to set up an EU subsidiary and employ you via that then you'll be working as an independent contractor. That status gives you zero employment rights, because you're explicitly not an employee.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#327

Post by knorker »

Freak_NL wrote: post #248
knorker wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically you're statistically very likely to be writing this comment in a browser based on chrome. And Chrome really helped save us from an Internet "embraced and extended" by Microsoft. We were heading for Microsoft succeeding in their (not first) attempt at owning the Internet.

Someone extremely critical of Google is likely to not just use Firefox? That doesn't sound statistically likely.

Well, two points to that: 1) If this person doesn't use Google products, then they are going out of their way to avoid Google. They are then very aware that their values are overruling technical benefits. 2) Surely if they are this invested in Firefox then they know who's been funding Firefox for years?

I'm typing this from within Firefox, which I switched to over the adblocking changes. But I'd say that claiming Google has contributed nothing to society is silly.

There's also the AI stuff with transformers, running the deepmind work with alphafold, alphago, alphazero. And GSOC.

And the papers on bigtable, spanner, mapreduce, etc… bootstrapping modern big data, spawning many opensource copycats.

And Android? I used a linux based Nokia N900 before Android, but clearly the world preferred Android.

Hell, Google Search itself was once a paradigm shifting improvement over alternatives.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#328

Post by FirmwareBurner »

Aeolun wrote: post #294
331c8c71 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Layoffs here are always done in conjunction with the unions. Europe is vastly diverse and your experience is not representative of all Europe.

It sounds representative of every part of Europe I’ve experienced.

You probably never worked in Austria.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#329

Post by hnlmorg »

icemelt8 wrote: post #319
oblio wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it, really? Aren't US tech interview notoriously difficult? Many rounds of interviews, background checks, etc.? Most purely European companies don't do that. Actually, unfortunately, some of them do, because of American influence. But for sure they didn't use to.

What he meant is that the whole capitalist culture, less regulations, creates a more thriving economy which creates more jobs and hence more options to go to.

I've heard this type of comment a lot but in my experience there isn't any shortage of tech companies in the EU.

What EU regulations hamper isn't job creation, it's employee and customer exploitation. The distinction between "job creation" and "employee exploitation" is important.

What the former means in practice is that there is a massive contractor market in the UK and EU. So if companies need temporary staff, they'll hire a contractor. If they need permanent staff then they'll hire an employee. And contractors in the UK & EU are paid significantly more than their employee peers. In fact their pay is much more equivalent to US employees. So companies will make constant tradeoffs between more expensive labor for short-lived projects vs cheaper staff and knowledge retention but stricter employment laws. It's a fair trade most of the time.

So a more accurate way of comparing US vs EU businesses in terms of employees would be US employees vs EU contractors. Things then begin to look a lot more equivalent.

Post reply on HN