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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

#451

Post by ragnot »

ctvo wrote: post #401
The_Colonel wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> It's completely out of the employee's control, so why would it change the employee's behavior? Employees don’t have visibility into their peers actual performance. They see a silver of it and infer. This makes layoffs look random. Then, we rely on publicly reported “I was given a great review and still let go!” posts — which are all self-interested. No one wants to hire or refer someone who was doing poorly so ther…

Layoffs that don't target whole teams are always a mix of politics and performance. The lie that they aren't is what people tell themselves to feel better.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#453

Post by lgleason »

throwaway13394 wrote: post #442

I work in Core Eng at google. Woke up this morning and saw my director - who we all loved and had been at Google for 20 years - is gone. One concerning thing that I haven't seen reported is that my leadership chain is almost entirely Indian, all the way up. And they've announced that they are starting to offshore entire core products to India, primarily in bangalore IIUC.

I think it's safe to say we are on the downward slop of peak Google.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#454

Post by whatever1 »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #143
taopai wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? You think they'll outsource work to foreign countries?

Why would they continue to hire in the most expensive labor market?

Because it also happens to be the best talent pool. And because US happens to be the market that every company dreams to dominate.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#455

Post by xtracto »

hiq wrote: post #384
ken47 wrote: 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…

> 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. What would you do instead? Threads about tech interviews are always the same: we all complain about the process with no real alternative when you want to hire at that scale. In particular about: > Just about every other skill that is needed to be a good software engin…

I've been interviewing people for Software Eng jobs for more than 10 years an I haven't used leetcode style problems for like 8 of those years.

Leetcode interviewing is lazy interviewing. It's for when you don't want to put an effort in your interviewing process to check if the candidates have the skills you need for the position you are filling.

For example. My interview process nowadays is one web API interaction challenge: Https://challenge.bax-dev.com (in Spanish, so you may have to do a Google translate. Use with curl)

In that untimed challenge the candidate submits their code and email. They arrive to my email and I check the code quality of submissions with my morning coffee.

Then in the ONLY 90 minutes Interview with me, we talk 30 mins about experience in their resume, 30 mins about our company and the position, and we code the "server" side to the web client they created .

We do it pair programming style. The questions I achieve to answer are: would I pair program with thus guy? (Like, is she cool to work with?) And does she know what she is doing?

I've had very good results with this method.

And, from the code exercises I am sure anyone can guess what skills am I looking for.

There was a great circlejerk on reddit in one of the outages where people asked whither Google engineers have inverted enough binary trees to bring their systems online. Basically saying that the skills they hire for are for Algirithm competitions, not for building enterprise software.

And I say this as a CompSci PhD who did his good share of data structure and algorithms during my time in academia.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#456

Post by sbrother »

Madmallard wrote: post #203
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 problem with this is if you leave awful companies after not working there for very long then new companies will not want to hire you. It doesn't work both ways. They only get the benefits. You do not.

This is why the logical conclusion of this culture change is for anyone who can to move toward independent contracting. Like I mentioned in a different comment, I’ve had my best clients longer than any single job. But for the ones that didn’t work out, no one bats an eye at a 3 month contract.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#457

Post by deelowe »

happytiger wrote: post #314
oaiey wrote: 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…

It’s one metric: revenue per employee. In a more capital expensive market, such as our current one, this metric is the one corporate managers are focusing on. For example, Google: https://fourweekmba.com/google-revenue-per-employee/ Ultimately it’s about something called austerity, which is taught in mba-jargon filled economic theory as a way to keep the working classes inline. Since the 1920s, western countries have…

Wow... This all seems a bit cherry-picked...

- The google metric doesn't make sense. In fact, the graph tells sort of the opposite story. Revenue per employee shot up and then they did layoffs in response... huh? My guess is that this graph is missing the forecasts that are being used to make these decisions. Google likely has a similar chart, but one that goes out 5-10 years and is showing a concerning trend (that was certainly the case when I worked there).

- Austerity is a government thing. I'm not connecting the dots between deficit reduction and corporate layoffs...

- I thought the money supply calculations changed recently which is why the metric shot up in recent years.

- How are you getting Microsoft was rewarded with 9.8M per employee for their "layoffs?" They cut 10k people, so wouldn't this mean if they had laid off 1 person, they would have earned 98B per layoff? This metric doesn't make sense.

- The "other CEO" you link to runs a company with 200 employees. I'm not sure this is comparable to a company the size of Google.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#458

Post by mc32 »

paxys wrote: post #452

Are layoffs becoming an annual thing in tech now? Last year there was the "macroeconomic conditions" excuse that every company used. How are they justifying this round?

It’s still macro.

The media has been peddling the idea that things are rosy economically but that’s not people are seeing and experiencing. December’s CPI is through the roof. The economy has been soft and with ZIRP gone, things are adjusting accordingly.

We’re now paying the piper —a little.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#459

Post by xtracto »

mindwok wrote: 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…

If you don't want to be laid off, don't get hired. It's just part of the process. Or get a government job. I hear people can last dozens of years in those.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#460

Post by fendy3002 »

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.

Yeah correct, my experience is just locally, and the healthcare isn't that bad here.

US is just simply has a system that's very cons for employees, especially with visa and right to work law.

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