5 ms·

Are you saying that "BigHead" kind of devs are doomed? And why does Google keep laying off people? You would think that they would do the relevant calculations

Are you saying that "BigHead" kind of devs are doomed? And why does Google keep laying off people? You would think that they would do the relevant calculations and fire everyone they need to keep the costs down. The multiple rounds speaks of incompetency at Google. Given their unssuccessful attempts at besting OpenAi, it is not surprising. But still it is kind of scary to see how Google has become the old Microsoft and how the OpenAi is now the new Google

UncleMeat 3y ago
Hard to say if BigHead style devs are being affected here. Annual review ratings aren't quite yet finalized, so it is hard to know whether they could be used as input to a layoff system.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  What is "BigHead style devs"?
  - UncleMeat 3y ago
    BigHead is a character from Silicon Valley who doesn't actually know how to do anything, does basically zero work, and manages to still fail upwards. This is describing devs that are sitting around and doing an hour of work a day and aren't actually achieving anything but have somehow managed to not get fired for low performance because their manager isn't paying attention.
    - lulznews 3y ago
      This is actually the ideal profile at FAANG and a quick track to upper management.
    - okdood64 3y ago
      > devs that are sitting around and doing an hour of work a day I think for a lot of people this seems nice on paper, but in the past I've realized that you can be so bored that you actually start doing work.
- VirusNewbie 3y ago
  >Hard to say if BigHead style devs are being affected here. Annual review ratings aren't quite yet finalized They aren't yet finalized, but pretty damn close. Don't you think this probably plays into it? VPs were likely told 'put 6% of your engineers below 'meets expectations', and some VPs probably thought about it and said "actually we have a really weak division, i'd rather axe that, than taking a 6% haircut across the board. It makes sense, if you have a few teams of rockstars, a division of 'meh', and one weak director that has hired a few weaker managers who also hires weaker engineers, why give everyone the same PiP quota?
  - UncleMeat 3y ago
    For a number of reasons. 1. This wasn't just entire divisions. I've seen massive cuts on some teams and ticky-tack cuts elsewhere. 2. This was clearly coordinated above the VP level and could not have been just individual unilateral decisions by VPs who saw specific grad numbers coming through. 3. I've seen people who were not low performers get fired in this ticky-tack manner. 4. Nobody on my team was fired, but I sure as hell wasn't told "don't worry about expected distributions of low performers since we'll just cut from elsewhere."
    - VirusNewbie 3y ago
      I mean, it's certainly above my pay grade, but why wouldn't they either take Grad results into account, or at least wait until they could. Another two weeks is not going to make or break someone's yearly budget, and it certainly seems like a good idea to maybe not lay off the person who was about to get "top tier" or whatever it is at google. Second, why take the PR hit and not just crank the PiP quota or something?

UncleMeat 3y ago

Hard to say if BigHead style devs are being affected here. Annual review ratings aren't quite yet finalized, so it is hard to know whether they could be used as input to a layoff system.

rightbyte 3y ago
What is "BigHead style devs"?
- UncleMeat 3y ago
  BigHead is a character from Silicon Valley who doesn't actually know how to do anything, does basically zero work, and manages to still fail upwards. This is describing devs that are sitting around and doing an hour of work a day and aren't actually achieving anything but have somehow managed to not get fired for low performance because their manager isn't paying attention.
  - lulznews 3y ago
    This is actually the ideal profile at FAANG and a quick track to upper management.
  - okdood64 3y ago
    > devs that are sitting around and doing an hour of work a day I think for a lot of people this seems nice on paper, but in the past I've realized that you can be so bored that you actually start doing work.
VirusNewbie 3y ago
>Hard to say if BigHead style devs are being affected here. Annual review ratings aren't quite yet finalized They aren't yet finalized, but pretty damn close. Don't you think this probably plays into it? VPs were likely told 'put 6% of your engineers below 'meets expectations', and some VPs probably thought about it and said "actually we have a really weak division, i'd rather axe that, than taking a 6% haircut across the board. It makes sense, if you have a few teams of rockstars, a division of 'meh', and one weak director that has hired a few weaker managers who also hires weaker engineers, why give everyone the same PiP quota?
- UncleMeat 3y ago
  For a number of reasons. 1. This wasn't just entire divisions. I've seen massive cuts on some teams and ticky-tack cuts elsewhere. 2. This was clearly coordinated above the VP level and could not have been just individual unilateral decisions by VPs who saw specific grad numbers coming through. 3. I've seen people who were not low performers get fired in this ticky-tack manner. 4. Nobody on my team was fired, but I sure as hell wasn't told "don't worry about expected distributions of low performers since we'll just cut from elsewhere."
  - VirusNewbie 3y ago
    I mean, it's certainly above my pay grade, but why wouldn't they either take Grad results into account, or at least wait until they could. Another two weeks is not going to make or break someone's yearly budget, and it certainly seems like a good idea to maybe not lay off the person who was about to get "top tier" or whatever it is at google. Second, why take the PR hit and not just crank the PiP quota or something?