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Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

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Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not blatantly clear that US's salaries are due to lack of developer unions.

On the other hand, the highest paying professions don't have unions, even outside tech.

MD's have unions where I live. They're probably the highest paying profession in the country.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#362
post #188
post #98

I'm surprised to see so many comments here taking layoffs personally, or talking about how layoffs are stupid. Layoffs are not personal, and the corollary to that is that you should never treat your company as a friend. It's a company trying to maximize value. Also, layoffs do work. Almost every large, successful company has done them at some stage. They are an expected, and necessary, part of operating a company and…

Mass layoffs work when there was over-hiring (management's fault) or there was a big revenue downturn (market forces). This time it was because of over-hiring at the COVID mania. People left safer jobs to join FAANGs tempted with higher salaries and a prospect of improving their CV. And now they are dumped back into the toughest tech jobs market in 20 years. This is totally a fault of management and none of them are…

It's wage suppression.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree and I am sad that we're teaching each other to be skeptical and cynical. The company is not your friend and not your enemy, I agree. However, people _do_ develop personal relationship with each other. Sometimes even across the different levels in the company hierarchy. Yes, as with any other relationship, circumstances and interests might override this, but relationships still do matter. People have emotio…

This is just unrealistic. When layoffs happens, whole departments can get cut. They don’t differentiate performers. Likewise, there is a huge bias in hiring against older developers. Getting laid off in your 40s is a death sentence. You’ll never make as much money again, and you’ll be lucky to find employment. Be ready to retire by 50, because anything else is both risky and improbable.

This is totally rediculous, I see plenty of 50+ in tech now and they're going to become more common over time.

Tech skewing young and being ageist is also partially an artefact of tech being a new hot growing rapidly changing field. That is waning over time.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#364
post #347

Google is overrated. It's been obvious for over a decade after they built an interview process that is heavily biased towards those who recently took an algorithms class. You had talking heads yammering about how hard it was to get into Google, which to be honest, made the company even less appealing. Is this a software engineering company or some kind of hyped up nightclub? Yeah, maybe it's a hard interview if you'v…

I think there is some truth to this for sure, it doesn't mean you're hiring practical / driven people, it means you're likely hiring people who are good at rote memorization.

It means you are hiring people who are highly compliant. Which is important when your goal is to scale whatever already works.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#365

> 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.

Yet everyone I know that owned a pixel despises it.

Count me as one anecdote that I love 'em! Best cameras I've ever used, paired with Google Photos means my wife is a happy camper and I get to look like a wizard fixing photos easily right on my phone. I can also install any .apk I want (hint: free youtube premium), why would I ever use a much more expensive, worse product like the iphone?

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#366
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not the individual layoff which is the issue for the people. It is the general feeling that the little man get squeezed under the argument of cost savings and the rich man takes out even more than the year before, independent of the market and company performance. In the past the entrepreneur took the yearly risks and was rewarded or not for it. The variation / risk on the (unrealistic) return is now managed on…

> and products of the company are a shit show I guess we'll see if this turns out to be true. If it does, they'll realize their mistakes, and the competitors that didn't let people go should outperform them. If it doesn't, then it'll show that many tech companies simply overhired, which I think we all know they did over the past few years. I myself work at a telco where business has stagnated over the past decade, du…

> I guess we'll see if this turns out to be true.

https://killedbygoogle.com/

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not blatantly clear that US's salaries are due to lack of developer unions.

On the other hand, the highest paying professions don't have unions, even outside tech.

They have professional associations - the most successful unions ever, not least because they pretend not to be unions. See the medical profession as a good example.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#368
post #42
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what the reality is regarding Pixel's success; they lost me as a customer this year after it turns out the "free" Pixel 2 watch is mostly a paper weight because Fitbit and its new unified Google account requirement doesn't support Workspace custom domains. I pay for Workspaces, I paid for the device(s), but the penny has finally dropped in regards to their real motivations, they can't allow Workspaces to min…

Pissed me off when I realised you could use not Nest cameras nor doorbell if you have a Google Workspace account. (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

The Nest Speaker also pisses me off. It requires a Google account for activating the Bluetooth functionality.

I got one as a gift. It is a good looking door stop, though.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#369
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what you are saying. I am an engineer-turned-EM and you don't know me, so please take everything I say with a grain of salt: > Your job is NOT safe. Nothing will make execs happier than having this line of thought popularized amongst engineers. It will allow them to hire cheaper, and exploit existing engineers more. I think a better way to put it is: "A job is not your family, and a job is not your identity. Yo…

> Nothing will make execs happier than having this line of thought popularized amongst engineers. It will allow them to hire cheaper, and exploit existing engineers more. Why? The lay-offs are so broad, not selective at all. You're just as likely to get cut if you're working hard or not, if you're overpaid or underpaid. It's completely out of the employee's control, so why would it change the employee's behavior?

When companies make broad cuts, especially if they're eliminating projects or divisions they've decided are no longer important, the reality is that they don't do a lot of micro-optimizing at the individual level about who they keep and who they shed.

Sometimes you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time--and maybe it's even the impetus to do something different.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#370
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what you are saying. I am an engineer-turned-EM and you don't know me, so please take everything I say with a grain of salt: > Your job is NOT safe. Nothing will make execs happier than having this line of thought popularized amongst engineers. It will allow them to hire cheaper, and exploit existing engineers more. I think a better way to put it is: "A job is not your family, and a job is not your identity. Yo…

> Nothing will make execs happier than having this line of thought popularized amongst engineers. It will allow them to hire cheaper, and exploit existing engineers more. Why? The lay-offs are so broad, not selective at all. You're just as likely to get cut if you're working hard or not, if you're overpaid or underpaid. It's completely out of the employee's control, so why would it change the employee's behavior?

Depends, in my company layoffs were based on compensation. All the high compensation locations employees were canned.
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