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Tell HN: Google-Wide Layoffs
Leads across Google are sending coordinated emails within their orgs announcing layoffs. They've all gone out in the last 2 hours or so.
They've fragmented the layoffs on purpose to make them seem more localized, but it's affecting the whole company.
Orgs that I've heard/I'm part of that have been impacted so far include Ads, Search, Assistant, Maps Android & Core.
I'm sure there are more, but I can't confirm.
I can't find WARN notices yet, so I assume they haven't been filed yet in any state.
- googledtnifzn 3y agoCan confirm, this is true.
- throwawaygoog6 3y agoCan confirm. Core Developer is impacted, with what appears to be roughly an 8-10% layoff.
- upon_drumhead 3y agoRoughly what’s the Core Developer size?
- matesz 3y agoCan you elaborate what is the role of a core developer? From my understanding core developer is somebody who works on something fundamental, like build system, general monorepo structure and architecture. I would be curious to hear insights if anyone has understanding or experience in these roles.
- UncleMeat 3y agoCore Developer is the org that provides key software that developers use to build and deploy applications. Stuff like "we ship the java compiler" and "we ship the IDE."
- revskill 3y ago[flagged]
- marban 3y agoAlso https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947224
- filedottsx 3y agoAlso https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38948444 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38948444 (NY Times article discussion)
- sjhdjshdjskhds 3y ago[flagged]
- udev4096 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dataking 3y agoRelated https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947654
- Doubtme 3y ago[flagged]
- sgammon 3y agoDude, stop, please
- alexander2002 3y ago[flagged]
- nashashmi 3y agoI don't blame him. He has another account doubt_me. His post got flagged there.
- sgammon 3y agoCan confirm, this is true (from a friend)
- sgammon 3y agoHang in there Googlers :(
- LargeTomato 3y agoWhat I would give for 24 hours of access to memegen.
- gaws 3y agoNo doubt people have lost their jobs because of memegen.
- dcrow0 3y agothey will land on their feet, stop it with the pity party
- sgammon 3y agoEmpathy is free
- rvz 3y agoEngineers affected. The coasting day care is over and Google is in code red wartime mode in a state of panic. Sorry. The market is brutal and it does not care. No one is safe, not even Google.
- abnercoimbre 3y agoYou think mass layoffs will start slowing down, or was last year a trend that's barely getting started? I just wish I could find well-educated guesses (because I know it's hard to predict definitively) but news sites are typically shallow / sensational.
- brnt 3y agoIs money cheap again? No. There is no guessing, just some hysteresis.
- bossyTeacher 3y agoI think this will likely last at the very least until the end of 2025 if not more. Companies seem to be delaying laying off all the people they need to layoff. To become strong, we must first experience weakness
- ulfw 3y agoWhat market? Google stock is up 56% YoY. Fifty six percent. What do you think it should be? 2000%? It's a huge mature company. 56% in a year is unheard of.
- em1sar 3y ago[dead]
- rvz 3y ago> Google stock is up 56% YoY. Fifty six percent. That's it? Screaming about 56% in one year is hardly anything to be celebrating about. Compared with the likes of Meta with >200% in 1 year with just buying and holding alone tells us that was a much better return than Google which is already getting disrupted as it flails about. > What do you think it should be? 2000%? If you're talking making 2000% in one year, go and do some 0DTE options gambling on some other stocks. > It's a huge mature company. 56% in a year is unheard of. That means absolutely nothing. We gave Google enough time to respond to its rising competition and all it could do was fabricate a demo in front of the world. No wonder the layoffs happened.
- ilrwbwrkhv 3y agoAs I have been saying for a while Google, Amazon, Facebook, all these companies are on the decline. We have allowed them to become so big that they don't fall fast but it's very apparent that they would have been disrupted if they were normal sized like companies were in the past.
- joak 3y agoMicrosoft was once on the decline and it's now bouncing back. Having billions and captive markets (by network effect) seems to help.
- Zetobal 3y agoMicrosoft is too big to fail the perfect place for a shit ceo like Satya to just hold the finger in the wind and go with the flow.
- pdav 3y agoWhat? Hasn’t Nadella been, like, a complete turnaround from the Ballmer years? Did you think Ballmer was onto something with Windows Mobile and not releasing Office apps for the web/iOS/android?
- Zetobal 3y agoAnd you believe these were hard decisions? That's exactly the point everyone besides the stubborn ceo before would have made them.
- paulus_magnus2 3y agoMicrosoft has access to ALL corporate data of ALL companies (sharepoint, teams, outlook, office365). Remaining step is to link chatgpt to it and train automated agents.
- garymiklos 3y ago
- ulfw 3y agoGoogle stock is up 56% compared to a year go. And yet Sundar is happy to destroy morale by keeping to fire people. after saying "Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, Says Laying Off 12,000 Workers Was the Worst Moment in the Company's 25-Year History" https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/googles-ceo-sundar-pichai-says-laying-off-12000-workers-was-worst-moment-in-companys-25-year-history.html https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/googles-ceo-sundar-pichai-say...
- infotainment 3y agoIt’s shocking he hasn’t been sacked yet. He’s completely incompetent, has led exactly zero successful initiatives, and has arguably trashed Google’s brand with constant product shutdowns.
- belter 3y agoYeah. It makes you wonder what is Google's secret to only Hire and Promote the Best People...
- rchaud 3y ago> He’s completely incompetent, has led exactly zero successful initiatives, That's not what the stock ticker says. That's what the CEO's job is at megacorps, not "product innovation". Google has one core product, Ads. Everything else loses money.
- strikelaserclaw 3y agoAh, so they decide to go the old boeing route, short term profits but long term deterioration.
- dcrow0 3y agohe's not going to appease rank and file. he's in the pockets of his wall street, private equity bros
- lennannard 3y agolet me know if yall want to come work at Microsoft. reach out to me about it https://www.linkedin.com/in/leepenkman/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/leepenkman/
- curious_baldy 3y agoonly want people from google?
- bossyTeacher 3y agoAll of us? HN is quite a big place. Is HR ready to be DDossed with applications?
- altairprime 3y agoMy employer’s (not Microsoft) biggest problem has been getting any competent sysadmins to apply at all. Maybe one in a few hundred applicants is capable enough to interview; the rest are just cookie-cutter cloud-only SREs who’ve never cared for a server before. They’d love to be “DDoS’d with applicants”, because there might be a few capable sysadmins in that pile! And we’re a lot smaller than Microsoft — so, yes, most likely, they’re ready. (Our job postings are all published on the usual job database sites under the usual sysadmin/opseng titles, and I don’t have any sort of special intake process to offer beyond that.)
- rainclouds 3y agoThis hits home. I wish I knew the company now.
- belter 3y agoDo you hire Humans or only LLMs?
- gandalfgreybeer 3y agoHey guys, this is a pretty decent gesture no matter what you think of Microsoft after mass layoffs. No need to be snarky.
- sinuhe69 3y agoTheir revenue growth is still good. Stock price increased. We are in a bad economy for one or two more years, but it already started a year ago. So what could the the reason for this time mass layoff? Section 174?
- dcrow0 3y agobad economy? the economy is shit for tech, everywhere else, it's booming. there is a shortage of labor in education, hospitals, government, hospitality, retail the reason it's shit for tech is the greed of wall street. they want more short term gains
- JohnFen 3y ago> the economy is shit for tech Even this is overstating it. It's shit for some segments of the tech sector, but in other segments it's going gangbusters. On the whole, it doesn't seem unusually good or bad.
- ssundarraj 3y agoUnlikely to be section 174 > Google: the tax change was minimal, because Google was voluntarily amortizing software development expenses for most staff, already. This was for all projects that reached “technological feasibility,” which is a milestone products pass before public release. Source: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/section-174/ https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/section-174/
- tensility 3y agoWell, Christopher Hohn demanded that the Fortune 50 correct salaries by performing mass general layoffs, and that's what they are doing.
- bossyTeacher 3y agoI wonder what does this mean for the "Everyone can code" movement (bootcamps, initiatives within Google and the like, government funding). They keep saying that you can get a high paying job if you do a 9 month course. When the best of the field are getting laid off, I wonder how long will the "Everyone can code" movement survive
- gumballindie 3y agoOh but they will get high pay compared to their bartending job.
- bossyTeacher 3y agowill they? The job market is full of high quality experienced devs. I don't see why any company would hire for an inexperienced dev when they can get an experienced one for cheap. It's like buying Walmart cheese for $5 when you can get high end cheese for $10. No brainer
- likewize 3y agoOh wow, comparing cheese to developers is a pretty poor analogy.
- Panini_Jones 3y agoIs it? Are you saying cheese is too good to be compared to us? I knew it.
- jcuenod 3y agoIt's with respect to the smell
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- codingdave 3y agoThat concept doesn't hold water. If everyone can code, it won't be a high paying skill. And soon, it will really be true that everyone can code. Schools are teaching computational thought as early as kindergarten, so the next generation is growing up with coding being a basic literacy skill. Of course, knowing how to code and being good at creating software are two different things. Just like knowing how to write and being able to succeed as a novelist are two different things. But that is also why the "best of the field" get laid off - why pay FAANG salaries to get the best, when entry/mid-level salaries to get "good enough" still meets business needs?
- zagrebian 3y agoIs Chrome team affected?
- photon_collider 3y agoSurprised to see another cycle of layovers happening here. What’s going on in the industry?
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoInvestors want more money
- gfdsgdfgfd 3y agoThey always do. Are you one of those who'd prefer to be poor and sick rather than rich and healthy yourself?
- soupfordummies 3y agoIf I'm already rich and healthy why would I prefer to make others poor so that I could become even MORE rich? We don't need to excuse greed. It's okay to criticize it without having to say "well I like having money too." It's not an either-or.
- gfdsgdfgfd 3y ago> Surprised to see another cycle of layovers happening here. What’s going on in the industry? Nature is healing itself. The boom cycle is over. Correction is in the process.
- rchaud 3y agoRewarding shareholders.
- superconduct123 3y agoI mean the salaries have been kinda ridiculous in recent years Not surprised
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]