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Googler... ex-Googler
491–500 of 1001 posts
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#492[flagged]
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#493Earlier quoted context omitted.
It probably just didn't have enough economic value for the company, from your explanation of the role I'm not sure I see the value either. The guy probably earned enough money in a few years that would take me 15 years of work, I'm not sure this as a "personal tragedy".
Completely agree. What is a tragedy though, is that if Google treats their most hardworking engineers like this they are creating a culture of minimal effort. If this is "just a job" as you can expect to be laid off at a moment's notice with no care for the value of your contributions, then what is the point in doing anything more than what the job description entails. It's just incentivizing people to treat their jo…
> If this is "just a job" as you can expect to be laid off at a moment's notice with no care for the value of your contributions, then what is the point in doing anything more than what the job description entails
I guess the half million dollars yearly (I'm assuming he made) and the fact there aren't tons of other places he can get that kind of money and prestige for doing that kind of job. I'm not saying I'm loving any of this, but yeah the system we've built treats all of us like replaceable cogs. During good economic times we don't really feel it, but we are now in a rough patch and we see the capitalist economic reality for what it is.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#494Earlier quoted context omitted.
That I don't know. But the contractor market in the US is very different to the contractor market in the UK and EU. And from hiring in both US and UK, my experiences have been that US employees are more comparable to UK contractors in terms of rights and pay.
> US employees are more comparable to UK contractors in terms of rights and pay did you account for rsu value too or just basepay/hours . now that i am a perm employee a big share of my comp comes from rsu.
I think they suggested that in the US employees are paid better than contractors, but have low job security.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#495Right, okay, let's look at their most recent SEC filling to see how much money they lost in 2024 to justify layoffs... right, they made 350 billion in revenue (the highest ever in their history from what I can see) with a 100 billion in net income. Yep, this checks out, they definitely need to lay off people, can't afford them.
They're not a charity. What do you want them to do? Hire $100Bn worth of engineers until their net income is 0? The possibly difficult truth at Google is that there's probably <1% of the company that is really essential to their monopolistic search business. The rest are either working on other projects which might be strategically interesting but not essential, or are working on the core product but not in a way tha…
This is an important point.
Especially overt the last two (three now?) years, it's become pretty apparent many software jobs are superfluous, even those that are ostensibly "skilled" or "difficult."
I do wonder what the actual "needed" number of technical staff these companies would have in a perfectly "efficient" environment. Let's hope we don't have to find out.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#496Earlier quoted context omitted.
It probably just didn't have enough economic value for the company, from your explanation of the role I'm not sure I see the value either. The guy probably earned enough money in a few years that would take me 15 years of work, I'm not sure this as a "personal tragedy".
> from your explanation of the role I'm not sure I see the value either Google has traditionally had a fair number of developer relations engineers. Chrome team alone has several. The current devrels include Una Kravets, Bramus van Damme, Rachel Andrew, possibly Jecelyn Yeen, Oliver Dunk, Matthias Rohmer, probably some others... They help prioritise new browser features through developer feedback, document new featur…
> Google has traditionally had a fair number of developer relations engineers
I wish them all well, but things can change fast depending on how the economy is doing and where the company is headed priority wise.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#497Earlier quoted context omitted.
Layoffs in particular are like this because they're planned very quickly by very small groups of people. Rumors of impending layoffs obliterate morale, so the people in charge do everything they can to maintain secrecy and minimize the time between people hearing about layoffs and the layoffs taking effect. This basically always translates to random-seeming decisions - priority 1 is to cut costs by X amount, choosing…
> Rumors of impending layoffs obliterate morale Granted, but it seems like the current way of salary-first, performance-blind cutting obliterates it even harder.
Any style of layoff is going to be bad for morale, but rumors floating around tank morale for as long as those rumors exist, and then moral takes another hit on the actual day. In that way it makes sense to just rip the Band-Aid off.
Of course, if you ask me, a more sensible plan to keep morale and lower costs would be getting rid of a few executives, but what do I know? I'm just a number on a spreadsheet.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#498Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I recommended learning how to separate your value from your employer. This is a very recent development. Through the entirety of human history you'd keep working for the same employer for your entire life, which means it was very much worth it to cultivate that relationship, it's only now that we change jobs every two years. A friend of mine has a company in a very small town, and was complaining about an employee…
> Through the entirety of human history you'd keep working for the same employer for your entire life Hardly. This type of arrangement was short-lived and anomalous. It was roughly true in rich economies during a few decades of the post-war era. Never before, and not for most people around the world. Relationships are worth cultivating any time, of course, but one shouldn't mistake a job for a life. The idea that a j…
In the days of yore, didn't a decent chunk of people literally have their name come from a family profession? I.e. John Smith, Jan Schmidt, Carl Maria von Weber.
As in it wouldn't be just your worth tied to the profession, but N generations of your parents, etc.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#499> But I was also immediately ripped away from my calendar, docs, code, and more. Layoffs are never easy. I've been through a few myself and it really takes the wind out of your sails. That being said, this sentence made me pause a bit. None of these things mentioned are actually yours. They are the property of Google. One thing that helped me immensely in my career is understanding that my relationship with a company…
Companies will always remind you it's "just business" when it suits them - so it's healthy to keep that same energy in return
yup. embrace being a cog. enjoy your cog work as much as you can, but recognize it for what it is. don't tie your identity to it.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#500Layoffs are a difficult thing for employees and their managers. I have seen people (one was a VP of Engineering) escorted out of the building, sent in a cab to home along with a security guard (this was in India), not allowed access to computer or talk with other employees. But, recently have had a very different experience. The current company I work for announced 30% layoffs. The list was made public within one hou…
As it should be, but emotional people make emotional choices. The trusted and valued employee yesterday can turn on a dime and become malicious when they feel they have been wronged regardless of whether that is independently true. Their resulting actions can include anything from theft of IP to hand over to a competitor, to destruction of records or property. Worse, it is impossible to tell when someone will choose to feel they have been wronged, even when the employee could have had chronic absenteeism or underperformance that they justify with personal excuses. (I’m not suggesting there shouldn’t be compassion, rather that most people will almost always make mental excuses to justify their behavior regardless of whether that reasoning is sound.)
Companies generally don’t become militant about a subject unless they have experienced the other side of the equation. It’s not just with layoffs, it can happen with protecting source code, licensing, network security, etc. I concede that a company could replace destroyed property and should be able to recover deleted data, then prosecute/sue to recover damages which could cost tens or hundreds of thousands(or millions depending on the level of access), but the disruption to business can be significant in some cases. Moreover, it is impossible to put an IP cat back in the bag.
For me, it seems easy to understand both sides on this one; compassion vs risk.