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Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

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Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#61

Post by xenotux »

corytheboyd wrote: post #44
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #11

This was called the TLM role at google. Technical Lead/Manager. You were expected to code and manage a couple of more junior engineers. It’s part of an effort to have dedicated managers and dedicated engineers instead of hybrid roles. This is being sold as an efficiency win for the sake of the stock price but it’s really just moved a few people around with the TLMs now 100% focused on programming.

TLM role has always sounded like a trap to me, I would never say yes to it personally. I’m sure it’s sold as an expected 50% code, 50% management but everyone I’ve talked to who has been near it says the expectation is more like 80% code 80% management.

TLM roles are a trap, but not in that sense. There's no expectation that you do two jobs at once.

It's just a way to ease unsuspecting engineers into management. If you don't suck at management, your team inevitably grows (or you're handed over other teams), and before long, you're managing full-time.

Which means that there are three type of people who remain TLMs in the long haul: those who suck at management; those managing dead-end projects on dead-end teams; or those who desperately cling on to the engineering past and actively refuse to take on more people. From a corporate point of view, none of these situations are great, hence the recent pushback against TLM roles in the industry.

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#62

Post by gedy »

Spivak wrote: post #51
greesil wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads like "get rid of the old experienced people so I can get promoted".

If your position has no upward mobility juniors will change jobs, likely change companies, once they have the experience and all the effort you spent training them will be wasted.

If your position has no authority seniors will change jobs, likely change companies, and all the effort you spent on them will be wasted.

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#63

Post by tayo42 »

godelski wrote: post #55
lanthissa wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we had this in my company it was pretty hit miss. Almost always the 'TLM' was someone who was in the role for a really long time and it warranted a second person, so it ended up being a 1-2 junior reporting in absorbing the knowledge that the tlm had. If you were in a growing domain, and the TLM stayed engaged with the code it worked really well, but as soon as one of those failed it was a bad roi for the company and…

This kinda brings up a question I've often thought about. Why is it that we structure growth in a company to be so biased towards moving into management roles? I mean there is the obvious part of the answer in that managers are the ones that are given the power to define that growth ladder, but I'm not sure this fully explains things. If people are transferring from technical positions to managerial positions then sh…

This hasn't been true in a lot of companies for like my entire career. You can move up as an ic. Titles like Staff, senior staff principal. A Staff and Sr manager would be paid the same

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#64

Post by devcamcar »

xenotux wrote: post #61
corytheboyd wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLM role has always sounded like a trap to me, I would never say yes to it personally. I’m sure it’s sold as an expected 50% code, 50% management but everyone I’ve talked to who has been near it says the expectation is more like 80% code 80% management.

TLM roles are a trap, but not in that sense. There's no expectation that you do two jobs at once. It's just a way to ease unsuspecting engineers into management. If you don't suck at management, your team inevitably grows (or you're handed over other teams), and before long, you're managing full-time. Which means that there are three type of people who remain TLMs in the long haul: those who suck at management; those…

Usually it means you have to manage people but you have no real input on their career trajectory, and in the worst case, if they need to be fired you do not have the power to do so.

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#66

Post by surajrmal »

AIPedant wrote: post #53
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #11

This was called the TLM role at google. Technical Lead/Manager. You were expected to code and manage a couple of more junior engineers. It’s part of an effort to have dedicated managers and dedicated engineers instead of hybrid roles. This is being sold as an efficiency win for the sake of the stock price but it’s really just moved a few people around with the TLMs now 100% focused on programming.

It sounds to me like Google is moving to a more typical "technical lead" model where leads have substantial authority and some mentorship responsibilities, but they're essentially an IC and someone else up the chain actually handles proper management. Informally, tech leads can gently chew out less senior devs, but if someone actually needs to be disciplined then the lead needs to talk to the manager. TLM is an odd r…

By make-up I think most TLs at Google had no reports even before this change. The idea of ICs in leadership has always been a common occurrence at Google. If anything I don't really see it as commonly outside of Google.

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#67

Post by nostrademons »

mandevil wrote: post #43
nvarsj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a funny question to me, because my entire career (mostly small companies/small tech depts) I've never reported to an EM. It's only when I moved to big tech that EM-who-doesn't-code became a thing, and it took some adjustment for me. All prior roles had TLs (aka TLM) which led the team while being the expert - aka the "surgeon model" from Fred Brooks' book. As far as I can tell, the main function of an EM is t…

As someone who has worked in companies from 100k, I would say that what an EM does is more about communication. Think of a company with m employees as a m by m matrix, with a 1 where there regular communication and a 0 where there is no communication and a 0.5 for those hallway meetings which our CEO's assure us are why RTO is so important. In a small company (let's say anything under Dunbar's Number), you have a ver…

That's a large part of it.

Probably the best description I've heard of the EM role is that "It's a large collection of part-time roles, all with disparate skillsets, that together are responsible for ensuring the success of the project."

Communication is a huge part of that - downwards (telling reports the information they need to be successful), sideway (getting information from cross-functional partners and managerial peers so you align your projects with theirs), and upwards (managing expectations and asking for direction at the appropriate point so upper management doesn't freak out).

But other skillsets involved are: playing therapist (managing anxiety, morale issues, resentment, and misconduct); coaching (both technical and interpersonal); splitting up vague exec mandates into subgoals; prioritizing; hiring; managing performance; serving as a point of contact for whatever random problems your reports bring you; negotiating; setting team structure; developing expertise among your reports; managing their careers so they get promoted; ensuring that they're recognized for their accomplishments; helping people have fun in the office; modeling a culture of respect; selling new product initiatives; and yes, enforcing company policy.

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#68

Post by BoorishBears »

mi_lk wrote: post #19
floren wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any opinion on the success/value of the TLM role?

speaking from personal experience, it's not that good to have TLM as your manager because in some ways you're competing with your manager on technical scope, and you'll lose

The is funny to read because it captures my feelings on this exactly: when you're a company of passionate people driven by a mission from the top down (very important this alignment is genuinely top down), the drawbacks of the TLM-like position are totally workable: the org gives some grace and flexibility to everyone involved knowing that the TLM is sacrificing some effectiveness as an IC, those under them are losing some room for direct impact. It all works out as long you're able to "grow the pie" and make up for the smaller slices by executing.

Once you're late stage though, that's done. TLMs are probably being held to 100% of IC standards and manager standards, people under them are jockeying for "impact" and don't want to compete with their manager, etc.

I totally see why it wouldn't work at today's Google. Honestly maybe it's a positive sign they recognized that.

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#69

Post by [deleted] »

mikestew wrote: post #2

The 35% reduction refers to the number of managers who oversee fewer than three people, according to a person familiar with the matter. If you oversee 0-2 people, in most cases that’s probably not an efficient ratio. How did Google get so many folks in that position in the first place? And I assume the other 65% take up the slack to fluff their teams? Or what? Leave the other 65% managing 0-2 people?

[deleted]

Re: Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

#70

Post by sershe »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #11

This was called the TLM role at google. Technical Lead/Manager. You were expected to code and manage a couple of more junior engineers. It’s part of an effort to have dedicated managers and dedicated engineers instead of hybrid roles. This is being sold as an efficiency win for the sake of the stock price but it’s really just moved a few people around with the TLMs now 100% focused on programming.

Not at Google but I'm in such a role right now and I really dislike it. Can't really get much focused coding in because you constantly have to jump in to review something or help fix something or handle a live site juniors cannot handle, or update some TPS report on what everyone is doing, or some PowerPoint or whatever. I dislike all of these to start with, but getting my own (expected) features in is an exercise in frustration. And when I ignore people and try to have uninterrupted time it feels like I'm neglecting all this other stuff. I wonder who thrives in such a mixed role...
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