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

651–660 of 1001 posts

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#651

Post by cmrdporcupine »

javawizard wrote: post #396

That was painful to read. I had a very similar experience at Google about a year ago, and the worst part of it was that they did it 2 weeks before I was set to receive a 6-figure retention bonus for sticking around for 2 years after an acquisition. Several other members of my team got the boot at the same time. All of us had come in via that acquisition and were set to receive that bonus, and because of the layoffs,…

That's awful and the most amazing thing you could do now is get together with those ex-coworkers or similar people and compete with Google in whatever business domain it was that made them acquire your former employer.

Because, having been through the acquisition process at Google myself, my general cynical take is: Google acquires companies to get rid of them, to stop them from competing and not to "add your uniqueness to their collective."

Keeping employees on retention bonuses is a way, in aggregate, of stopping them from going off and inventing something that eats their bottom line.

You should look into legal action. And failing that, compete with them.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#652

Post by iooi »

cab11150904 wrote: post #566
Foreignborn wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what happens to you when a less privileged person thinks the same thing about you?

Well as long as they're not a white man, the only 2 privileges that I was afforded on the way up, then they're welcome to try absolutely any punishment they see fit. They're surely welcome to hate me. It is their right.

Since when is racism okay on HN?

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#653

Post by delfinom »

javawizard wrote: post #396

That was painful to read. I had a very similar experience at Google about a year ago, and the worst part of it was that they did it 2 weeks before I was set to receive a 6-figure retention bonus for sticking around for 2 years after an acquisition. Several other members of my team got the boot at the same time. All of us had come in via that acquisition and were set to receive that bonus, and because of the layoffs,…

You guys should have a consultation with a lawyer. It's a little cheaper if you guys just use one lawyer to go after Google for the retention bonus if there is a case ;)

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#654

Post by atotic »

azangru wrote: post #324

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…

Agreed, Adam really is one of the best at what he does. His talks, demos, were always so interesting. My guess is that he'll be at Microsoft shortly.

What Google is saying with this layoff is that they no longer care about web developer relations. Chrome has not been well funded for years.

Firefox did the same thing five years ago, when they fired David Baron, who was one of the top 5 engineers in the world that understood how HTML layout works. He got instantly hired by Chrome.

It is kind of crazy that the core group that moves web standards forward is around 150 people. And most of them did not get rich off it, and have been doing it for decades.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#655

Post by tomjen3 »

hectormalot wrote: post #464
lnsru wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a case every lawyer in Germany would like to take. 500€ for first letter to send to the manager reminding the contract conditions. It is enough for most companies not to go further with shady activities. As a contractor one should know how to deal with the clients.

I don’t think that’s shady? When I was hiring contractors it was always project based with mutual understanding things could end quickly if the project or collaboration didn’t work out. Yes, they get paid 1.5-2x, and that also prices in that it’s not always 100% utilization. Only once had a contractor oppose that, but that was in the context of (severe) underperformance.

In his case, the contract had something different, and they did not pay the actual invoice - that's the shady part.

With contractors, you have more freedom of choice when you write the contracts, but whatever contract you agree on, you still have to honor the contract as agreed.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#656

Post by cmrdporcupine »

Vegenoid wrote: post #622
yojo wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been seeing more of this classist rhetoric on HN and I honestly don’t get it. If you truly care about workers, focus your energy on the corporations and politicians that are producing the system you are unhappy with. Belittling other, higher paid workers doesn’t advance anyone’s cause. And FWIW, the jobless rate in tech is higher than most blue collar jobs and the national average. This guy seems good, but he fa…

> This guy seems good, but he faces a worse landscape for finding new employment than your fictional Joe Everyman. Maybe this is true, I don't actually know. But I'm quite skeptical that someone who worked at Google for a long time, and has work with their name on it they can point to, who can work remotely , will have a harder time finding gainful employment than a physical laborer. I'm not trying to pile on the "sc…

I mean, actually, we're in this world now (for now, esp in the US) where if you work in trades and lose your job you could turn around and get another job pretty easily. It might suck just as much as your previous job, and the pay won't be anywhere close to a SWE salary, but there's just so much work...

But if you're a tech worker, it's really not a gravy train anymore. The number of open positions has dropped, the compensation ranges perhaps as well, and the interview process is more grueling and involved.

People who worked as salaried employees at BigCorps for years making big $$ definitely should have more savings, but they're still on the whole just the same as any other worker: they pay taxes, they don't own enough capital to make them independent of the market, and they are likely some number of months/years away from not being able to pay mortgage/rent/bills/groceries. Just like any other worker.

There are no "jobs" even in tech that give any kind of permanent escape from the need to beg for employment to make ends meet.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#657

Post by knorker »

pjmlp wrote: post #369
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.

How is Internet being "embraced and extended" by Google feeling like as society contribution? It has literally turned into ChromeOS, with exception of Safari, and Firefox meagre 3% hardly matter.

I definitely think that there's a difference in kind about what Google has done and what Microsoft attempted to do.

Microsoft wanted everyone on MSN instead of the Internet. They bullied their browser to be the only one, and then kept it crippled. They tried to own the scripting language (VBScript) of the Internet.

I'm going to try right now: Oh, looks like I can visit any website I want with Chrome. Or Chromium. Or now IE also using Chromium.

Google is of course still driven by capitalism, not altruism. But when you look at their history they've in the vast majority of cases done the right thing arguably for the wrong reason.

And that's because Google's incentives have been aligned differently. Microsoft earns money from Windows and Windows related services (very broad here, where I include Office). Until Bing, every time someone used the Internet instead of native apps, Microsoft basically lost money. Definitely lost power.

Every time someone spends more time on the Internet, Google earns more money, statistically. So Google, in a complete opposite to Microsoft, has been incentivised to help people get onto the open web.

Yes, after Microsoft's surrender the Chromium market share is too big. And it's a problem. But at least thanks to Apple you cannot make a website that only works on Chrome. Especially since Chrome on iPhone uses WebKit, not Chromium, because of Apple app rules.

Another problem with Google is that some important opensource projects have a large set of maintainers be Google employees. But the alternative is that they… not contribute? Didn't we say that big companies should give back to opensource? But of course they'll work on what they need. Though there will be a large overlap.

It's kind of a first world problem that the open source (apache license) Kubernetes has "too many google employees" as contributors.

During Microsoft's domination, this was not the problem. This was not the problem at all.

What can you not do, or need to special case, with Safari+AWS?

Android, OK there Google asserts control. Not total control (see any Samsung phone), but a lot.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#658

Post by z_open »

baking wrote: post #439

Must be a Chrome developer. His blog is frustratingly hard to read on Firefox. I felt like I was going blind in real time.

It is a chrome developer. His claims that he was raising the quality level of the web are particularly hilarious given that he worked at google. Maybe the salary of google blinds people into believing this.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#659

Post by SteveNuts »

_huayra_ wrote: post #576
PaulHoule wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is bad at a lot of things but has a “we’re number one why try harder?” attitude. Or rather you can’t benchmark the performance of anyone there against industry peers because they are protected by a two-sided market. Bazel, Kubernetes and other startup killing tools are developed there because with monopoly services they can hire 3x the number of developers at 3x the rate of other firms and shackle them with to…

Funny how they're bad at this from start to end. Most of these comments talk about the "end" part, but don't forget: Google has a notoriously laggy hiring process with extreme delays and an unacceptably high level of silence on important issues from recruiters. I have been ghosted so heavily from recruiters TWICE at Google when I was literally telling them "Hey I have offers from $x and $y and I need to decide in 2 w…

Totally unrelated, but I was once contacted by an Amazon recruiter and sent him my resume.

He called me to discuss my experience, one of which mentioned that I worked in an environment where my team managed "30,000+ servers". He took the opportunity to say something along the lines of "that's irrelevant, that's smaller than one datacenter in one of our regions".

I honestly have no idea why the recruiters from these places have such a superiority complex that they need to belittle people like that. It's not even the manager of the team you'd be working on, just some recruiter that probably doesn't have any of the skills/background the job they're recruiting for requires. Yet they need to make you feel small and worthless right out of the gate.

Is it just prepping you for how you'll be treated there? Trying to select for people that are okay with being belittled?

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#660

Post by MangoCoffee »

The author listed the tasks that were coming up for him at Google, and yet Google still let him go. It doesn’t matter what your role is or how important your tasks are, a company can always replace you. Management doesn’t care, because you’re just a cog in the machine.
Post reply on HN