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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

#691

Post by lgkk »

ngcazz wrote: post #587
lgkk wrote: post #183

It’s just business. And it’s not like swe aren’t making 400k or more at least in bay area. People need to understand that just because you have a little bit of RSUs and a 200k base doesn’t mean you’re God. You’re an asset like a machine. And you’re expensive to the bottom line. This is literally explicitly laid out now with section 174. If you’re taking this personally ask yourself why you’re even working for arguabl…

That salary is a reflection of market forces. The fundamentals remain the same: they are workers who support families of arbitrary needs and complexities and not just themselves. Are they expensive to the bottom line? Good -- they _allow_ the bottom line because they are the ones generating value. Not the shareholders and upper managers calling for layoffs to maximize their stock prices who you seem to appreciate mor…

I’m just pointing out reality. Sorry I know it’s not “kind” or whatever. Just true though.

If someone makes a Faustian bargain, it will have consequences.

You make a deal with the devil (biggest capitalist empires on the planet - I don’t think they’re evil btw I’m just making analogy) and the devil will come for you.

For them, it’s just business. That’s their whole point of existence, to run their business and grow even at their stage. I don’t work for these companies but I do hold positions in them through my 401k.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#692

Post by steveBK123 »

hoffspot wrote: post #616
steveBK123 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be loyal to people, not to companies. Companies will cut you in a random layoff at the drop of a hat. I've seen this enough times in my career. It doesn't matter if they promise its the only/last/whatever cutoff, or it was for performance only, or whatever.. People in your network will pick you up and refer you / hire you on at the next gig. My prior employer just did a wave of deep cuts and the stories I heard out o…

Excellent advice. Time invested in cultivating your relationships and network is invaluable for generating opportunities. If people have a good experience working with you and understand what you are capable of, they will bring opportunities to your door throughout your career.

It's also more genuine too.

I have ex-coworker friends I've gotten regular drinks/meals with for close to 20 years now. Our average tenure at any shop meanwhile is 5 years. Who cares what company name is on the door.

You wouldn't catch me dead at any sort of company sponsored drinks/social thing.

I would also observe that some of the people most slavishly "living the brand", reposting stuff on LinkedIn, joining all the work social groups, etc.. were some of the first to get whacked in the last few rounds of layoffs at the old shop.

Which way does the causality go is a good question, but their time would probably have been better spent on having an organic network of people in the industry they genuinely enjoy the company of.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#693

Post by [deleted] »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #385
collyw wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see this comment going down well here regardless of how much truth there may be to it.

Probably won't go down well because it's clearly overly simplistic. If taken at face value, software companies should simply have 0 software developers.

[deleted]

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#694

Post by thefourthchime »

kabdib wrote: post #328
nly wrote: post #35

My firm made billions last year too and just laid off hundreds of engineers (a decent %) Some of the best engineers, those that I respected the most, went. People who make no sense. After last year's layoffs they told us they were "done" and it was "all behind us". Last year then turned out to a better year financially than 2022 (we have access to the top line numbers) You can't trust anything anyone above you in the…

Software guy with 40+ years in the biz here. Your job never has been safe. Well, not in "big tech firm" territory anyway. I've not gone more than 3 years without seeing some kind of downsizing or shift in strategy or whatever. I swear that companies are like dogs, they roll over and scratch every once in a while, and have layoffs. Sometimes it's just a distant boom over the horizon ("I hear they're getting killed ove…

"I've nearly always switched jobs and technologies after five years anyway."

I'm another long-termer too, not as long but I aspire to! I haven't thought about it, but staying current, and switching techs is probably why I still love it and think I'll be ok in the next round of layoffs.

Right now it's cloud and serverless in python, next, I bet it's LLMs or something in that space. Before that, it was protocol-level C++, UI C++, Java middleware. It just keeps changing, and that's a good thing! I can't imagine working in a dull static changing world.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#695

Post by anthonypasq »

roncesvalles wrote: post #671
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…

I think you're arguing against a strawman. Nobody says layoffs are stupid because they're not a very "nice" thing to do. They say so because the statement "it's a company trying to maximize value" is contentious. The long term objective of a company is not to save as much money as possible. It's to spend money toward endeavors that generate more money. If the layoff is because of an efficiency improvement, that's jus…

a company can have multiple products that are at different stages in the business cycle. If Microsoft never did layoffs in their entire history they would still have a dev team working on Zunes, and 95% of the company would be working on desktop windows

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#696

Post by skeeter2020 »

nly wrote: post #35

My firm made billions last year too and just laid off hundreds of engineers (a decent %) Some of the best engineers, those that I respected the most, went. People who make no sense. After last year's layoffs they told us they were "done" and it was "all behind us". Last year then turned out to a better year financially than 2022 (we have access to the top line numbers) You can't trust anything anyone above you in the…

>> You can't trust anything anyone above you in the management chain tells you. Not one thing. Not ever.

This seems like a really negative and self-damaging perspective. I'm the direct manager for 14 people with whom I have hard-won relationships, built on trust and caring over long periods of time. We're not friends or family, but I honestly care about them. I share as much as I can, and try to include my confidence and assessment of what I share. If they follow your advice and unequivocally discount it all, I think they're actually in an even WORSE situation. Regardless, what a sad, scary way to live.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#697

Post by stormbeard »

trympet wrote: post #586
ken47 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen plenty of HN threads where good alternative processes were described. I'm not going to be exhaustive here: writing a program over a few hours that is reflective of the kind of work that the company actually does, coming up with and debating the architecture of a system, mock code reviews, etc. You might say these don't scale as well as standardized testing of university classical algorithms knowledge. The g…

At big tech companies, "writing a program over a few hours that is reflective of the kind of work that the company actually does" is not really a good, representative performance measure. Often times, you will be solving problems across multiple domains, outside of your area of expertise. You have to take on the role of PM, data scientist, SWE, researcher, etc. Internal restructuring of the company may even take you…

> Internal restructuring of the company may even take you from working on backend web apis to distributed databases.

This isn’t true. I’ve worked in multiple FAANG companies’ infrastructure orgs, including distributed kv stores, as a SWE. Anybody joining those kinds of teams are either specialists, very junior, or already had some kind of experience in the domain before joining.

Recruiters that say stuff like “we want strong generalists… blah blah” are not the people who are sourcing candidates for these deep systems roles. It looks a lot like the ML roles.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#698

Post by anthonypasq »

yreg wrote: post #333
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…

How does it make sense for Google to keep laying off people (many of them skilled overperformers) while continuing to hire? It seems they have alienated a large part of their workforce with these decisions. Plus they are running into legal fights in Europe where it's not so easy to randomly fire employees. I would truly like to understand this, but I haven't heard an explanation of why the actions make sense for the…

people are constantly job hopping, Google has to always be hiring just to negate attrition.

Second, there isnt a single budget for hiring that interviews everyone and ships them out everywhere. certain groups/products can be growing within google while others are shrinking. should the chrome team not be allowed to grow because google+ was in the trash can?

third, not every employee is exchangeable, you cant just shuffle everyone around the company. You cant just take someone from the google maps team and have them start working on nexus phones.

all of these things are fairly obvious if you thought about it for more than 30 seconds, so its somewhat concerning you find this topic so perplexing.

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#699

Post by scarface_74 »

geraldwhen wrote: post #251
sz4kerto wrote: post #209

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.

I will be 50 in June.

I got my first job in BigTech at 46 - working at AWS in Professional Services

When I got Amazoned last year, I had three offers within three weeks.

One of those offers was from a former coworker who is now a director at a well known public company. It would have paid about $50K more in cash than I was making in cash + RSUs at AWS. I didn’t want the stress.

The other offer was for a “staff architect” position at the company that acquired the company I worked for before going to AWS.

The third and the offer I did take was a for a senior full time position at a consulting company that should lead to staff position as we grow the AWS specialty that I know inside out from working with the team.

Unless I’m completely misreading the market - and I seriously doubt I am - there is no reason that if I cared to I couldn’t increase my total compensation by 30-40% inflation adjusted over the next few years

Re: Google Cuts Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

#700

Post by skeeter2020 »

ponector wrote: post #214
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…

It is a business relationship, but they always trying to convince employees that it is not. That it is a family, a friendship relationship. You should be reliable, you should help everyone in your "family". If you leave your "family" abruptly it is a kind of betrayal. Also funny is brainwashing employees to think that HR is their fried, that HR can help with issues at work. It is a business. Do minimum amount of work…

Your relationship with $COMPANY should definitely be non-personal and unemotional - it's not a sentient being. Your relationship with the people, from the CEO down to your boss and coworkers should be situation-specific. I'm not sure how this is any different from all your other relationships. Do you love a $COMPANY where you are the consumer, or did you get great service from a specific person? Is $FAMILY super important, or a proxy for the close relationships it represents?
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