33 ms·

Googler... ex-Googler

• snvzz 1y ago
  That's just how it is for a lay off, in megacorp and elsewhere. Not sure how this is HN-worthy.
  • sangeeth96 1y ago
    Adam was a very prominent Chrome DevRel and top voices of the web platform. I personally owe to his content (blog, snippets, podcast, talks, youtube, social media etc.) to stay up-to-date on things. It’s a bit of a shock to me that he of all people is getting laid off and that too in such an ugly way.
    • ycombinatrix 1y ago
      What was specifically ugly about it? It seems ugly like any other layoff except maybe he liked his job more than most.
      • fragmede 1y ago
        the obligations listed on the page that he got rug pulled off of seem kinda ugly to me.
        • snvzz 1y ago
          Ugly, but not uncommon. A company will often try and avoid letting a candidate know that they are being considered for firing, or that the decision has already been made, until the trigger is pulled.
          • decimalenough 1y ago
            That's normal. What's uniquely ugly/American is conveying those firing decisions by locking the fired employees out of their email at 6 PM on Friday. In most countries this is illegal.
            • phtrivier 1y ago
              I suppose organizing departure in an adult manner (Offer some time to finish task, pass on knowledge, etc... AND let the people leave earlier if they prefer - you know, the whole "think about the team" thing) would also violate someone's meritocratic free speech ?
              • fragmede 1y ago
                Do you really need to make it a freedom of speech issue? can't it be recognized as a human as a pile of shit to rug pull someone like that and not let them at least cancel their own talk?
                • phtrivier 1y ago
                  Sorry, sarcasm intended (I was riffing on the idea that anything ugly and unacceptable gets defended as "saving free speech", those days.)
                  • fragmede 1y ago
                    Poe's law strikes again!
        • roman_soldier 1y ago
          Replace/Cancel the talk he had scheduled or forgo the $500k+ in savings and keep him. Not a hard decision.
          • fragmede 1y ago
            Is it? $500k is a lot of money to you or me, but I'm not Google and don't make $3000/second, or about $500k in 30 minutes.
    • physicsguy 1y ago
      DevRel is unfortunately something that’s going the way of the dodo though now that interest rates are up. A position that doesn’t directly contribute to the bottom line of a company, so it’s easy to justify getting rid of.
      • grandempire 1y ago
        > blog, snippets, podcast, talks, youtube, social media etc. In ZIRP every cent is positive ROI (Not intended to be a comment about OPs individual performance or skill)
      • switch007 1y ago
        And Chrome has an insanely dominant position now. Devs need Chrome, not the other way around
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• musicale 1y ago
  Does Google (or whoever is making these decisions) think that layoffs are in the long-term best interest of the company? If so, are they correct? Or is it related to the possibility that Google may have to divest itself of Chrome due to anti-trust enforcement?
  • amputect 1y ago
    None of the people making these decisions care about the long-term best interest of the company. Sundar doesn't give a shit about Google's future, he is laser focused on what really matters to him and the people he reports to: the stock price. A big round of layoffs can juice the stock, and it's a nice way to keep the numbers going up in between industry events where they can show off deceptively edited product demos and knowingly lie about the capabilities of their current and future AI offerings. To put it another way: Google doesn't want to be a software company anymore. Google does not care about making software, or products, or the people who make or use their products. Google wants to be a growth company where the stock price goes up by two-digit percentages every quarter. That is absolutely the only thing that Google cares about. Google has realized that the best way to make this happen is to commit securities fraud by lying to their investors about their products, and by drip-feeding layoffs to show that they're serious about their underlying financials. It's theater, playing pretend at being business people. The individual products are allowed to go about their business as long as they don't cost too much money, but Google doesn't want to make money by having good products that people love to use, Google wants to make money by being a hyper-growth unicorn again, and they will do anything at all to recapture that kind of growth even if they're slitting the throat of the company to do it. Whether this attitude is good for Google or its users is left as an exercise to the reader.
  • tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
    It may be a bet that AI will reduce the need for developers. Even if it can only write boilerplate, boilerplate still has to be written and is time consuming, so if it were to remove 20% of time that needs to be sunk into a project, the work of 5 people can now be done by 4 (less if you account for the reduced coordination overhead). Whether these savings actually play out and whether management has accurate expectations and metrics remains to be seen, given messaging that makes it sound like AI saves huge percentages of time, when it at best saves huge percentages of something that's actually only a small percentage of day to day work.
• musicale 1y ago
  It can be shock to discover how little the company as an entity, and its upper management in particular, actually values you (or any other employee.) Employees are indeed cogs in a megacorp, and the relationship is transactional. The company demands loyalty because it can and because it is profitable, not because it will be reciprocated.
  • hyperliner 1y ago
    Even those in “upper management” are cogs.
    • greesil 1y ago
      Everybody responds to incentives. Not everyone is competent. And, the higher you go the less accountability there seems to be.
      • windward 1y ago
        We pay a lot because we need these people who are capable of making tough decisions (copying everyone else by overhiring at a premium during low interest rates), they can't be kept accountable for their own mistakes like the rest of us (fired myopically as a sacrificial lamb during a down-market because investors demand executives copy everyone else (they're invested in everyone else))
  • roman_soldier 1y ago
    When it comes down to it everyone has their own interests as a priority so if a manager is told to let folks go they will gladly do it to keep their own job.
• commandersaki 1y ago
  It sucks and especially the abruptness, but I find it hard to muster sympathy. Google employees receive some of the highest renumeration in the industry. Combined with the prestige of Google on his resume he'll land back on his feet in no time.
  • ycombinatrix 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • austhrow743 1y ago
      At least for me it’s more like “this guys career is still way better than mine so it’s hard to think of his situation as suffering”.
      • disgruntledphd2 1y ago
        It's still hard. Maybe he or she has had better luck and opportunities than you, but that doesn't mean they don't suffer just as much when bad things happen. We're all on this rock together, and either nobody's pain is worthy or everyone's is.
        • mathgeek 1y ago
          > We're all on this rock together, and either nobody's pain is worthy or everyone's is. This overgeneralizes IMHO. While the pain of being laid off due to something other than your own actions is fine, there are certainly folks out there who cause a lot of pain to others and aren't worthy of universal sympathy when their own pain comes along.
          • disgruntledphd2 1y ago
            > This overgeneralizes IMHO. While the pain of being laid off due to something other than your own actions is fine, there are certainly folks out there who cause a lot of pain to others and aren't worthy of universal sympathy when their own pain comes along. Everyone thinks that when they're angry or upset with someone. Ultimately people are people, and everyone deserves sympathy when bad things happen to them. Note that i don't always accomplish this, but I certainly think it's worth trying.
• ivraatiems 1y ago
  The reality of one's lack of value to one's own employer is often baffling. It makes you wonder how anyone manages to stay employed at all, since apparently everyone is replicable and unimportant. I have been through layoffs where other people on my team, doing the same job I did approximately as well, got laid off. No explanation given for why them and not me. And it could happen to me at any time. It doesn't matter how good my evals are or how big my contributions. It doesn't matter that there are multiple multi-million-dollar revenue streams which exist in large part due to my contributions. It doesn't matter that I have been told I am good enough that I should be promoted to the next level. Raises barely exist, let alone promotions. Because theoretically some other engineer could have done the same work I actually did, the fact that I'm the one who did it doesn't matter and I deserve no reward for doing it beyond the minimum money necessary to secure my labor. Under those conditions, why should I - or anyone - do any more than the minimum necessary to not get fired for cause? If the company doesn't see me as more than X dollars for X revenue, why should I?
  • hyperliner 1y ago
    If you do only the minimum necessary to not get fired, then wouldn’t you be the person that needs to be fired the next time the the budget is cut, since you are the lowest ROI of all, all other things equal?
    • ivraatiems 1y ago
      No. It's clear individual level of effort doesn't matter. That's the point.
      • lazide 1y ago
        Cheer up - Sometimes it’s also a convenient cover for reprisals, back stabby office politics, racism/sexism, etc.
    • tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
      In theory, you'd think so. In practice, due to the phenomenon described here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43662738 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43662738, it's less relevant than you think. Specifically at Google, there have been reports of high performers, recently promoted with excellent ratings before and after the promotion, getting the sack. In my experience, people who do good work do so because they enjoy the work and feel motivated, not due to any kind of performance management system or threat. Destroy the joy or motivation, and you've just destroyed a large part of the performance of these self-driven people. People often talk about "10x engineers", but not how it's possible to destroy a 10x engineer and turn them into a (let's be generous) 2x engineer, and I think capricious layoffs are a great way to do just that.
• dumbledoren 1y ago
  These megacorps will have so much fun in the upcoming recession. They turned public opinion against them through sociopathic profiteering and then mass layoffs. When the cows come home it won't be fun and games like before.
  • nsm1 1y ago
    > sociopathic profiteering That "sociopathic" profiteering funds the 401(k), IRAs, and pension plans of tens of millions of Americans. God forbid these companies be run for the collective benefit of all shareholders (including special ed teachers, utility workers, and airline mechanics) and not just the lottery winners who scored the high-paying jobs at these companies. > mass layoffs The "Day in the Life" videos that made the rounds on TikTok sapped the general public of whatever sympathy they may have otherwise had for the FANMAGers getting sacked from their $100-300k jobs.
    • dumbledoren 1y ago
      > That "sociopathic" profiteering funds the 401(k), IRAs, and pension plans of tens of millions of Americans At the cost of the destruction of the entire rest of the economy, which is coming home to roost right now. People's retirement should never have been loaded onto the stock market. That was a 'mistake' from the start. A 'mistake' that was designed to bloat the stock investors' coffers. > God forbid these companies be run for the collective benefit of all shareholders No; First, if you are profiting at the detriment of entire rest of the society by consolidating the economy in your hand by bankrupting everyone else, it doesnt matter if you run it 'for the collective benefit of the shareholders'. And even cheating, scamming at that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43719246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43719246 Second, let's get real - it's not the employees who benefit from the stock prices the most. Even proposing they do is just self-deceit. > The "Day in the Life" videos that made the rounds on TikTok sapped the general public of whatever sympathy they may have otherwise had for the FANMAGers getting sacked from their $100-300k jobs. The layoffs involve much more than those 6-figure job holders.
• rdtsc 1y ago
  Sadly two management levels above we’re just a line in a spreadsheet. Maybe even one level above. “Hey look, this one is cog is spinning at a cost $200k/year, why don’t we replace it with a cog from a low cost country and save some money?” Or “remove it and make this one other cog do the work of this obe?” People doing the replacement have to show they did something, as well!
  • lazide 1y ago
    Upper management has targets they need to meet. If they don’t, they’re out the door even faster than your typical junior engineer who is struggling to code. The targets often aren’t what you’d think though.
• uptownfunk 1y ago
  Google is one of those places where you never need to ask if someone worked there.
  • fragmede 1y ago
    self fulfilling prophecy though, because the people who worked at Google but don't tell you about it, won't tell you about it, so you don't know they did so you're only going to hear about it from the ones you hear about it from
    • uptownfunk 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • fragmede 1y ago
        believing it to be the empty set is on you, man.
        • disgruntledphd2 1y ago
          I dunno man, I've been making a similar joke for well over a decade, so it seems like a common perspective. That being said I talk about my former big tech all the time too, so maybe I'm part of the problem?
          • fragmede 1y ago
            To pick a different topic, I know a couple of vegans. Some of them are militant about it, others simply are not. You'd never know that about them unless it really came up.
          • margalabargala 1y ago
            "How do you know if someone is the sort of person to make derogatory jokes about 'the way certain sorts of people are'?"
  • 1y ago
• walterbell 1y ago
  https://www.sfchronicle.com/tech/article/google-layoffs-android-pixel-20271334.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/tech/article/google-layoffs-andr... > Google laid off hundreds of employees from its platforms and devices unit, the team responsible for the Android operating system, Pixel phones and Chrome browser. The move, first reported by the Information, comes months after Google offered voluntary buyouts to all 20,000 employees in the division, signaling deeper structural changes at the tech giant.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • danpalmer 1y ago
    Correction, they did not offer buyouts to the entire division, they offered the ability to apply for a buyout to US-only employees, and application did not guarantee you’d get it.
• zem 1y ago
  having been in your position a year ago, I can definitely sympathise :( the one thing I can say (again, from experience with having worked for google while engaging with the open source world as part of my job) is that the relationships you have been building up might well survive the loss of your job, especially if your next job ends up being in the same general area. also, i can highly recommend starting a group chat with your ex-team, that was really good for all of us in the time following the layoff.
• Velorivox 1y ago
  My condolences. Both to Adam and Google. Here is a relevant poem I found once. [0] [0] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54305/the-cloud-corporation https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54305/the-cloud-corpo...
• sfmike 1y ago
  Google rips away people via tos with no explanation everyday should have argued for more toil during your tenure
• lifestyleguru 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • morcus 1y ago
    This is someone's personal blog, and it seems like it wasn't posted by the person that owns the blog. Have the decency to just ignore and move on next time.
    • lifestyleguru 1y ago
      I say it as a person who had to get over it myself at some point. You will never win with colleagues who are all into politics and desperate to hold and advance their position. Let them have it, hopefully they'll tear off each other heads.
      • chanux 1y ago
        In my first reading your original reply sounded rude. After reading this, it sounds you are relating with the author and airing your frustration from a similar experience. I'm off to do some coding with natural language.
  • chuckSu 1y ago
    [dead]
• tuna74 1y ago
  The most important takeaway is this: "I really was just a fuckin cog in a mega corp." Remember, if you don't own it this is always the case. ALWAYS!
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• h4ckaerman 1y ago
  > Googler... Whole things reads like someone leaving a cult. It's ok to be sad about leaving a job but your identity shouldn't be so tied up in it that you're crying in a blog post online. We all lose jobs and we all get on with it. Obviously they're talented and will land fine somewhere. I'm not trying to be mean but it's bad that a person can get upset to this point around a job. The corp isn't caring.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • grayhatter 1y ago
    [flagged]
  • oldpersonintx 1y ago
    [dead]
  • nehal3m 1y ago
    I disagree. This person apparently had a great time working this job and I imagine it’s difficult to end up with the responsibilities they had without being intrinsically motivated. It’s perfectly alright and valid to be sad about losing the ability to express that part of yourself to make a living. The whole point of the post is that yes, the company doesn’t give a damn about anything but the bottom line, but the author did.
    • antisthenes 1y ago
      > This person apparently had a great time working this job and I imagine it’s difficult to end up with the responsibilities they had without being intrinsically motivated. I think you can have a great time and build good relationships with teammates while still realizing you are a cog in the machine. The way author writes the blog, you'd think they were working on the first Moon flight or the Manhattan project, whereas the reality is they were working on some CSS spec at Google, which tens of thousands of other people have been doing for probably 2 decades now. It's routine maintenance work on existing stuff.
• greatgib 1y ago
  A strong but constant reminder that companies are not your family or friends despite what will say the corporate bullshit. You should never invest more of your time and energy than what is expected for your position. And keep your side activities and hobbies as personal things using your personal email and accounts. This is also why you should not owe fidelity to your company and don't hesitate to switch if you have a good opportunity because on its side the company will not hesitate. Everything might be good and you can generate money, and still the day you are in a redundancy for whatever reason you will be worthing nothing to the company. Like that, just like a replaceable cog. And you will be badly handled because "it is the company policy and we can't do anything than being harsh in such a situation". The worse is that usually the decision is non-sense but the one deciding is not the one that has to deal with the decision and with you. So you will try to argue, and they will try to invent reasons to rationalize the decision that is imposed on them also, you will try to contest, and they will become angry to have their bullshit called and will double down... And you will feel bad, not understand the situation. The only thing I can tell you is the that if you are in such a situation is to not worry and go on, except in rare cases, for everyone I saw it happened, the event was finally for the best because the next step in their life was better in the end: better job, better salary, better project, being able to do what you always dreamed to like create a company or evolve your career.
• minraws 1y ago
  I have been in a similar situation, on a Saturday morning right after a farewell for a colleague and planning for next big release and timelines, late Friday. I got an email from my company early on next Saturday, so I tried to log into my laptop which was now wiped(to my horror). At that very moment I checked my DMs and realized most of my team was out the door. No warnings, no justification. I had been promised promotion, I had been promised growth, and I had already seen a round of layoffs with promises to not do more. We were the "valued" members and we were needed. Well not so much I guess. Now I don't care, tbh maybe I still do. I want to, just not care though, and I am always prepared, if even a single bad sign comes up I will be out. But I don't know if I will still see it coming. I just want to tell to anyone else in a similar situation, don't be sad often it might be a good thing. I managed to land jobs within the same month and my next job paid me over 2x my previous one. And it helped me grow in my career. I have changed a lot more jobs till date and I love what I do now, but I still often care too much. I hope people can find hope here. Also a couple of my friends had similar luck and one of my former colleagues also now has a startup of their own, they built it on top of their open source project that got surprisingly popular. Best of luck, world can be rough but, I hope folks just don't stop trying to do something to improve it for themselves and rest of us. And F execs, I guess. :)
• ein0p 1y ago
  As an ex-Googler I say: blessing in disguise. When working at a $MEGACORP it's easy to think there's barren wasteland out there beyond the walls, so it's scary. But that is very much not so. I get that opportunities to work on browsers are relatively few and far between, but if you can do something else, try working for a smaller company which treats you more like a human being, and less like a replaceable cog. Not much of a consolation, I'm sure. I've never been laid off, so I can only hypothesize what that'd feel like, but know this: this too shall pass.
  • lazide 1y ago
    It is much easier to handle when departing is voluntary. Layoffs, especially surprise ones, are the opposite. For someone young with no dependents, it can be scary but doable. For those with kids? Not so much.
    • ein0p 1y ago
      OP spent several years at Google. Kids or no kids, if they managed their finances well, they have a lot of latitude wrt next moves.
      • bdangubic 1y ago
        outside of having stupid money what percentage of people (excluding people living paycheck to paycheck) manage their finances well, especially in the first decade of their career? I’d ballpark that at 0.78%
        • 2muchcoffeeman 1y ago
          Are you pessimistic or is that a serious estimate? It’s so … low.
          • bdangubic 1y ago
            being a realist ... I think in the US no one is (purposely) thought basic financial literacy and it spills over into probably the first decade of working life
• canucker2016 1y ago
  Tangentially, I thought the term Xoogler was used to refer to an ex-Googler. Or has that term fallen into disuse now?
  • decimalenough 1y ago
    The term still exists, but it's not one you'd expect people outside Google to be familiar with.
    • biztos 1y ago
      Is it pronounced like “shoogler” or like “zoogler?” Or do they buy a vowel and say “exoogler?”
      • decimalenough 1y ago
        "Zoogler". But it's used more in writing, you'd probably use "ex-Googler" when speaking instead.
• throwaway58670 1y ago
  Please test your site on a phone. 2fps while scrolling text is not ok.
  • etse 1y ago
    Hmm. Maybe you should test the site on a different phone. Not seeing an issue with responsiveness here.
    • latency-guy2 1y ago
      I'm personally seeing quite terrible things on desktop, here is a snapshot of the homepage: https://i.imgur.com/VfNwqi7.png https://i.imgur.com/VfNwqi7.png Here is a snapshot of the post itself: https://i.imgur.com/61b7ADn.png https://i.imgur.com/61b7ADn.png To note, I cannot click on any of the buttons in the top-right to control what I could or learn more about this person.
    • throwaway127482 1y ago
      There's definitely something wrong with the scroll performance. I'm seeing bad performance as well on a pixel 8 pro. If I weren't on mobile I'd pop open devtools and check for excessive layout recalculations
  • xyst 1y ago
    I noticed this as well on my underpowered MBA. Might be the bluesky integration causing the slow down.
    • stevenhuang 1y ago
      yeah I was lagging as well on desktop and no wonder... the site made 2659 requests to what appears to be display pictures of people who commented on the post.
  • riknos314 1y ago
    This comment would be much more useful it it included the model of phone, OS version, and browser (ideally with version) you're using as context. All of these variables are highly relevant to performance and any attempt to reproduce/fix the issue you're reporting.
• adamjoan512 1y ago
  [dead]
• mediumsmart 1y ago
  Important… ex-Important Welcome back dude and don’t screw up your jungian walk through the fire. You got this
• kara4151 1y ago
  [dead]
• Tinos 1y ago
  "I really was just a fuckin cog in a mega corp" Yup. Must have been a horrific wake up call :(
  • benoau 1y ago
    ... and they haven't even spent all year searching for a new job yet!
• cess11 1y ago
  That's a good time to read up on Google's involvement in genocide and tyranny.
  • cab11150904 1y ago
    Why now and not before? Because some spoiled manbaby lost his cushy job?
• NooneAtAll3 1y ago
  my take on this is that "2 week notice" should probably apply to businesses as well?
  • t-writescode 1y ago
    We have it, it's called the WARN Act [0] Any company with more than 100 employees that does the "you were laid off today, but you'll be paid for the next 2 months" thing is following the WARN Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraining_Notification_Act_of_1988 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraini...
    • rsanek 1y ago
      not quite the same, this only applies to mass firings. the giving two weeks thing is whenever an individual leaves a job. if you're fired as an individual not alongside a bunch of others the company has no requirements under WARN.
  • grandempire 1y ago
    For what? He’s probably getting fantastic severance so his time is best spent on the next thing. The employer isn’t going to get more work - it’s not wise or safe to let layed off individuals roam around the office.
    • iainmerrick 1y ago
      it’s not wise or safe to let layed off individuals roam around the office. I don’t really buy this. I take it you’re worried about vengeful ex-employees abusing their access privileges to break stuff on the way out? It seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Probably some people would feel vengeful if you do shitty things to them like removing all their access and firing them with no notice whatsoever. Bad employees can already break stuff while they’re employed. They might feel more inclined to do stuff like that if there are chilling effects that build distrust in the work environment, like jump-scare layoffs. Conversely, if people are getting “fantastic severance” and you treat them with dignity on the way out, aren’t both they and the people who remain more likely to feel more positively inclined?
• readthenotes1 1y ago
  "I'm told this comes as a shock to my managers and other Chrome team leaders. I'm told it's not based on merit" If your manager is shocked by one of their team being laid off, the manager is probably next. Of course the OP was told it wasn't based on merit, or any other arguable-in-court characteristic. But it was. Someone decided Google was better off this way, or that OP was better off working somewhere else.
  • silisili 1y ago
    Managers often feign cluelessness because what else can they do? Tell you they submitted you for layoffs? Tell you they knew for weeks and said nothing? There's really no upside option here. I have no doubt that sometimes managers really don't know, but I'd wager that most who say they didn't know probably did.
    • acjohnson55 1y ago
      From my personal experience, front line managers are often not privy to layoffs.
    • DannyBee 1y ago
      I'd wager they didn't. Lowest person who generally will know will usually be a senior director. Sometimes director. Sometimes VP. Google is pretty careful about this. While it's true sometimes those people share stuff, it's definitely not en masse, and you can get yourself in significant trouble if you share it when you shouldn't, so it's less times than you think. At most other places i worked it was different.
  • DannyBee 1y ago
    Eh - having had to do these myself at Google for large orgs over the past few years, i would not assume it was based on merit. The cost disparities can be huge between team members and locations, and a lot of time it's being done to hit some EOY or mid-year budget number. They are also slowly trying to clean up location strategy. So it's entirely possible it was based on cost and location, and not merit. It would still be merit "under the covers" if everyone was the same cost/location, but they aren't.
• coolThingsFirst 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • boxed 1y ago
    Sounds like you never got fired. I hope you don't have to experience it.
    • coolThingsFirst 1y ago
      Lol. Of course I've been fired.
      • boxed 1y ago
        I've never been fired. So I don't see why "of course".
    • pluto_modadic 1y ago
      have to agree: but my first thought was "oh shoot they lost health insurance", is /why/ the american's worried.
  • Validark 1y ago
    Pay was not mentioned in the article as a reason why they were sick to their stomach. This person was a part of a community and they were doing a lot of work they found meaningful, and then in an instant it was all ripped away. You can't imagine how that would suck? Even if this author was immediately handed a new job that pays more than Google, I still think it would hurt. They had goals, they had friends, they had purpose, they had fun, they had innovation, and now that's all gone. I think you're just angry at the author because they made a lot of money.
  • ViktorRay 1y ago
    When someone’s life gets turned upside down, feeling sick to the stomach is a normal reaction. Also keep in mind that the person who wrote this blog might be here on hacker news reading comments. If you met this person in real life would you say those things to him? If the answer is no then why post those things here?
• xyst 1y ago
  In this neoclassical/neoliberal economy where the only thing that matters is "delivering value for the shareholders" and profits for the billionaire class. I am not surprised. A bit jaded, honestly. I have only started my career in the past 10 years and have seen this story unfold time and time again across many companies. Big, small, or medium company. It doesn't matter. You. Are. Expendable. I will say the problem is much more pronounced when it's a publicly traded American company; or a company that was recently acquired or funded by private equity, "angel investment", or a vulture capitalist firm. Folks. Our industry needs a trade union to protect our interests. We cannot keep relying on billionaire class to "do right by us" because quite frankly. They do not give a shit.
  • windward 1y ago
    >Our industry needs a trade union to protect our interests. Ding dong. There's no grindsetting yourself out of the path of an uncaring locomotive.
    • Herring 1y ago
      Yeah well this comment thread is right at the bottom of the page, so it's not gonna happen anytime soon. Top of the page indicates they're more interested in infighting (calling him spoiled).
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• goldchainposse 1y ago
  If Google realizes they made an oopsie, I hope he respectfully tells them "no, thanks." I could never go back to an employer that did this to me, then said it was just a mistake.
  • mvdtnz 1y ago
    I have a mortgage to pay. I certainly could.
  • windward 1y ago
    This is the 'anger' stage, where you fantasise that anyone other than your shockingly impotent immedate manager will care about you. Anyone who's been dumped will recognise the feeling.
• fitsumbelay 1y ago
  FYI ex-Googler/Nerdy.dev !== OP was surprised to see this here tbh as its something that was posted to the author's (again, author, not OP) bluesky which made it maybe not _personal_ personal-news but ... I don't know ... way more personal than all up in HN I dunno ... shrugs ...
• abdj8 1y ago
  Layoffs are a difficult thing for employees and their managers. I have seen people (one was a VP of Engineering) escorted out of the building, sent in a cab to home along with a security guard (this was in India), not allowed access to computer or talk with other employees. But, recently have had a very different experience. The current company I work for announced 30% layoffs. The list was made public within one hour of announcement. The CEO detailed the process of selecting people. The severance was very generous (3-6 months pay) along with health and other benefits. The impacted employees were allowed to keep the laptop and any other assets they took from the company. They even paid the same severance to contractors. After the announcement, the laid off employees were given a few days in the company to allow them to say good byes. I love the CEOs comment on this ' I trusted them yesterday, I trust them today'. This was by far the kindest way of laying off employees imo. People were treated with dignity and respect.
  • phamilton 1y ago
    A nice addition to this I've seen twice now is a slack channel (via their personal emails) with continuing employees willing to help them practice interviewing and share their professional networks to help them find their next role.
    • neilv 1y ago
      * The Slack is under the company's control, and potential monitoring and retention? Over the life of someone no longer with the company? * Was there any sour grapes in the Slack channel? Or was it a bummer or distraction for remaining employees? * Did the Slack actually help the employees readjust and refocus on their new job search? * Why not encourage people to say goodbyes and exchange contact info, and pay for a job search coaching service (with no reporting back to the company)?
  • biztos 1y ago
    That’s great, and the polar opposite of how I experienced layoffs (of others, then eventually of me). But one thing that could be better is transparency around severance, so you know in advance what it will be should you get laid off. (Six months may or may not be “generous” depending on tenure.) When I was laid off we got what was “customary” in that country, but before the offer was on the table nobody was sure we’d get it. It’s so much nicer when this is a matter of law — I’m all for a ~ free labor market but severance requirements help to balance the risk so the employees can relax and do their best work.
• sudomateo 1y ago
  > But I was also immediately ripped away from my calendar, docs, code, and more. Layoffs are never easy. I've been through a few myself and it really takes the wind out of your sails. That being said, this sentence made me pause a bit. None of these things mentioned are actually yours. They are the property of Google. One thing that helped me immensely in my career is understanding that my relationship with a company is a business relationship. They pay me for my time and skills and nothing more. Today I can have a job and tomorrow maybe not. I recommended learning how to separate your value from your employer. It's not easy but it's necessary. I'm not saying you can't enjoy what you do or be excited by it but don't fully tether yourself and your well-being to a company. Godspeed!
  • dullcrisp 1y ago
    I think their point was that they were told they could look for another internal role, but at the same time had their access revoked, which sends a very mixed message.
    • windward 1y ago
      It's because the message isn't for OP, it's for the people who are left.
    • sudomateo 1y ago
      With the way it was written it wasn't clear to me whether the other role was offered as a replacement for the layoff or more of a good luck I'm sure you'll land on your feet. Agreed it's a mixed message if it was the former.
  • kopirgan 1y ago
    Exactly.. Many see it as some sort of marriage in an age where even marriages are contractual relations
    • JKCalhoun 1y ago
      I hope you're not suggesting that you approach your marriage the way you approach your relationship with a corporate partner.
• hulitu 1y ago
  [flagged]
• kopirgan 1y ago
  Don't blame CEOs its the chief counsel or similar.
• zonkerdonker 1y ago
  I hope you use your new free time to beat every expert song on Wacca
  • cab11150904 1y ago
    This is a pretty dumb redduht level comment. I'd personally probably just remove it.
    • zonkerdonker 1y ago
      ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
• cadamsdotcom 1y ago
  Yep, it sucks. Speaking from experience - I was laid off a few years ago. I was sad my time ended, but my path forward was to leave SF with money and time to visit countries I'd always wanted to see. It's a trend away from the post-WW2 "promise of lifetime employment". Over the decades, companies have crept toward "human autoscaling" so slow no one noticed. You're far from alone - every other company is doing it. Go see the numbers at https://layoffs.fyi https://layoffs.fyi . When the whole industry is doing something, companies must follow suit to stay alive. Nurture your network! Keep being present on their feeds. Reach out to the ones on your team that you had personal relationships with. Some will shun you; it's not personal, they're ashamed and fearful. It is human nature, same as the company's behavior toward you is a company's nature. There was never a better time to take things into your own hands. Go look at @IndyDevDan's content on youtube and test the limits with agentic coding: https://agenticengineer.com/state-of-ai-coding/engineering-with-exponentials https://agenticengineer.com/state-of-ai-coding/engineering-w... Spend your 8-20 paid weeks agentic-coding (not vibe-coding) silly projects for your nieces and nephews. You'll come back stronger and more employable than ever. Don't be sad to be kicked out. The boot that kicked you was attached to a Hills Hoist.
  • YZF 1y ago
    Human autoscaling. That's a good one. I mean it's not good. We live in weird times. Companies are drowning in earnings. Their stock sky rockets. But they are unable, or not interested, to put people to work to grow their business. Because they are so big it distorts the entire economy. Because they are so big and so entrenched it's also hard to compete with them. Less people makes the stock goes up? And then AI too in the mix with many executives apparently believing it can just replace all the people. Who is going to buy the products then? I have a feeling this is temporary. The wheel will turn and suddenly companies will hire like there's no tomorrow on some new shiny thing. It's gotta - right? Otherwise what?
    • arccy 1y ago
      recently their stocks have gone down... and when you're large, it takes much more effort to grow at the same %, and maybe it's not worth it?
• AndyKelley 1y ago
  > I really was just a fuckin cog in a mega corp. Yes, you were. Next time, please choose a company that contributes to society rather than shoving ads in everyone's faces.
  • Mond_ 1y ago
    No need to kick someone while they are down.
    • henry2023 1y ago
      I worked at Google, and now I work at derivative finance. No sympathy should be expected when you don’t contribute anything valuable to society.
      • codr7 1y ago
        To an awful lot of people work is food and roof over their heads, and they're lucky if they can manage even that.
      • thinkingemote 1y ago
        I found this comment rather funny.
        • henry2023 1y ago
          I'm aware I don't contribute anything valuable yet. No hard feelings :). On the contrary, I'm trying to get to the point I can sustain my own small projects and stop worrying about Corporate America once and for all.
          • karolist 1y ago
            how's that going for you?
    • JKCalhoun 1y ago
      Yeah, probably a poorly executed assault, but I felt it was an intent instead to kick Google with that comment.
• mystifyingpoi 1y ago
  > Relationships that took me years to cultivate… mostly going to be gone too. I don't want to sound condescending, but if being forced out of the job means end for your relationships built for years, maybe these relationships weren't built as they should. They should have been built with the people as people, not coworkers, and definitely not using company as the communication ground.
  • neilv 1y ago
    That sentence caught my eye too. First thought was whether they meant corporate political capitol transactional relationships. Second thought was maybe they meant that, inevitably (or so it seems, probably thinking depressed), they'd drift apart, since everyone's busy with family and work, and around the workplace was the only times they'd have to interact. In the latter, even if you have beyond-work social relationships, the opportunities to interact outside of work and the lunchtime might tend to be like "drinks after work", and effectively disappear as well. If that was your mode while working together, that's fine, and probably you don't want to see even more of each other then. That doesn't mean you weren't seeing them as people beyond coworkers. So, once no longer working with each other, you both need to actively change things to make opportunities to interact.
    • mystifyingpoi 1y ago
      > the opportunities to interact outside of work and the lunchtime Good point. I wonder how much in-office work contributes to this. Because if you are trapped inside an office building for 8+ hours with essentially randoms, most people will start getting to know each other at some point, because there is no other choice, and after work and commute there is no time left for anything else. I feel sad for the author.
      • AstralStorm 1y ago
        8 hours if you're lucky. Make that 10 if you're not because of breaks. So the 40 hour work week gives rather little time to properly socialize, even less if you have family obligations esp. kids, especially when people move around as much as they do now.
• koiueo 1y ago
  Everything seems random if you lack information. My bet would be that the author's compensation was one of the highest among his peers on the same role. This is to me, btw, is a sign of a well built relationship with a colleague: you know each other's compensation.
• jillesvangurp 1y ago
  I experienced something similar at Nokia around the time things were starting to go bad (due to competition from Google and Apple). I got caught up in one of the earlier layoff rounds. As I've been able to reconstruct since then what happened was roughly that: - I got a excellent performance review and a small raise. All good, keep on doing what you are doing! I was pretty happy. - Nokia started to prepare for layoffs and gave units targets for numbers of people to lay off and amounts of money to save. They tried to spread the pain. - Because of my team's multi site setup the choice came down to cutting at one of two sites. They picked my site. Management was concentrated at the other site. - Because I was at the higher end of the spectrum in terms of salary, I was one of the natural choices for laying off. This was just done based on the numbers and had nothing to do with performance. So, my bosses boss flew over to give us the news and that was it. Nokia was pretty nice about it. I was put on immediate gardening leave, I got the usual severance payment based on time served, and a decent amount of start up funding in the form of a grant. Since things were chaotic, other teams in the same site were still hiring new people with roughly the same qualifications. I was actually bucketed in with a project I wasn't even a part of. That whole project got shut down and apparently it was convenient to pretend I was working on that just so they could avoid firing other people in different parts of the organization. Somebody had to solve a big puzzle and I was a piece that fit in the right place. It wasn't personal. In retrospect, one of the best things Nokia could do for me was firing me. I was coasting and the whole thing forced me to rethink what I was doing. If you are late thirties and a bit comfortable in your job, you might want to make a move. Or at least think about what you would do if you were forced to suddenly. Lesson learned: job security is an illusion and employment relations are business relations. Don't take it personal. These things happen. Part of a high salary is insuring yourself against this kind of stuff and dealing with it when it happens. Part of the job.
  • windward 1y ago
    >job security is an illusion It really is. Even government and blue chips aren't safe. In fact, those are where you'll find it's the most disconnected from your own agency.
    • sublimefire 1y ago
• quotemstr 1y ago
  "The magic of first love is our ignorance it can ever end". One of the most difficult realizations you must confront in this industry is that almost everything you build will disappear. It will be ruined, ignored, slandered, and then forgotten. Almost all of your late night epiphanies and bugs conquests will fade anonymously into the anonymous blackbody spectrum entropy demands planet Earth emit. You must come to peace with this reality. You must accept the transience of glory into your heart. You must prepare yourself, deep down, for any reality of off-sites and planned presentations and electric roadmaps to disappear in an instant. It gets easier after the first few times, trust me. You emerge a sadder and wiser man. The only thing we can do is create moments of excellence --- occasions on which we can reflect when we are old and gray and take solace, even pride, in knowing we put every bit of ourselves into a task and did it well. There's honor and nobility in excellence even when doomed. And who knows? You can't predict what will endure. If we're lucky, once in our careers, if we continually apply the best of ourselves, we'll do something that escapes all this destruction and endures.
  • fud101 1y ago
    you looking for someone to mentor? damn.
  • JKCalhoun 1y ago
    “Whatever you do in life will be insignificant but it is very important that you do it.” ― Ghandi
• throwaway2037 1y ago
  First, this is pretty rough what happened to the person. My condolences. Second, completely tangential to the content of the blog post: Was anyone else surprised by the number of comments/"mentions"/likes/reposts? I haven't seen so much activity on a single blog post in years. Normally, blog posts that accept comments have 10 or less comments. This one has hundreds.
  • Cthulhu_ 1y ago
    It looks like a Bluesky integration which will get a lot more engagement than a blog post. The author was a "CSS advocate" at Google, which implies a strong emphasis on networking.
    • perching_aix 1y ago
      I guess this also explains why the site is so fancy that I can't scroll it without my phone lagging horribly lol
      • gnuly 1y ago
        I was going to suggest you to use reader mode, but firefox's reader mode doesn't detect the main content here, but rather the comments.
  • gary_0 1y ago
    Their blog looks like it's integrated with Bluesky, where they have 15K followers, so that's where the activity is coming from. It's not uncommon for high-profile devs to get that much engagement there.
  • JimDabell 1y ago
    I keep seeing this pop up everywhere. I’m sure he’s a great guy, but the level of attention he’s getting is massively disproportionate. A lot of great people have been laid off recently!
    • 1y ago
• codr7 1y ago
  It hurts, but the sooner you realize what you mean to them, the better.
• whiplash451 1y ago
  « Relationships that took me years to cultivate… mostly going to be gone too » Why? What prevents you from spending time with your ex-colleagues?
  • Strom 1y ago
    Probably because most interactions were on company time. Because of course if the relationships were outside of work, then changing jobs would have little effect.
    • whiplash451 1y ago
      If those ex-colleagues were truly good friends, they ought to find the time to hang out with you outside of work. This would likely lead to genuine, more interesting conversations. In my experience, true relationships survive (and sometimes thrive in) a departure.
      • 9rx 1y ago
        Relationships don't need to be "true" to be useful.
  • darknavi 1y ago
    Relationships here might also mean professional relationships. I think many of those can still survive a job transition, but some of them may rely on the fact that he is on the Chrome team doing Chrome things. Those relationships would now be moot (professionally).
  • bsimpson 1y ago
    A potentially unique feature of Google (at least pre-pandemic/McKinsey) is that it cultivated communities of people in a particular discipline despite being spread across the world. When I first met Adam, we were both UX Engineers. We'd all gather in NYC in the spring and in the Bay Area in the fall for internal conferences. Adam lives in Seattle. There are plenty of people who adore him who aren't geographically close enough to meet for the proverbial beer. I suspect that's also true for the connections he made outside of Google.
• fbn79 1y ago
  Not related to the layoff (I'm very sad for what author is experiencing), but the blog looking is very great and functional. Looking on the page code I see that is using a CSS framework that I'm never heard off Open Pros (https://open-props.style/ https://open-props.style/), looks like a much better solution than Tailwind and friends. I see that a components collection is the development too Open Props UI (https://open-props-ui.netlify.app/ https://open-props-ui.netlify.app/)
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• Jean-Papoulos 1y ago
  > But I was also immediately ripped away from my calendar, docs, code, and more. Isn't Chromium open-source ? Also, please don't use your corporate calendar for personal stuff...
• 2-3-7-43-1807 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • 2-3-7-43-1807 1y ago
    > Is he stupid? to clarify ... the ignorance behind a statement implying that working at chrome has been anything other than contributing to enshittifying the the quality level of the web in the past years is showing a disconnect from reality that in my terms deserves to be labelled as "stupid".
• dailykoder 1y ago
  > Just like that. These statements always catch me a bit off-guard. Is there no such thing as a cancelation period in the US? When my employer wants to kick me out, he needs a good reason for that and I'd still be paid for 3 months. Which is often even longer, depending on how long you belong to a company. Edit: I'm in germany
  • windward 1y ago
    In my experience, it doesn't matter anyway. You can be paid to be sat at home and, while the worry of finances is kicked down the road, the big dark questions come home to roost very quickly.
  • somerandomqaguy 1y ago
    In Canada in general either employer or employee can terminate without having to give reason. Typically it's either a few weeks of notice for termination but the employer can choose to require the employee to depart immediately and instead payout severance for equivalent time instead. There's nuance province to province though. In the US it's similar but AFAIK it does vary state to state. To my knowledge there isn't any law that requires what you're describing in North America.
  • ur-whale 1y ago
    > Edit: I'm in germany Yeah, Germany is quite (in)famous for this. I have seen quite a few times in my career large US tech corporations specifically choosing not to open a satellite EU sales office or a dev office in DE because of the horrendous labor laws. Sure, very nice for the workers. But foreign money chooses to skip DE because of this. Warm and comfy in a sinking ship, great!
    • sgt 1y ago
      If you asked them about it though, they'd say the labor laws were excellent and the American labor law is horrenous. It's about perspective, but let's face it - America is way more set up for innovation than any other Western country.
  • 1y ago
• wiseowise 1y ago
  > I really was just a fuckin cog in a mega corp. Love sudden realization. I wonder how many people within companies think “well, they are a cog, but I’m certainly not” just to be left on a road soon after.
  • 2-3-7-43-1807 1y ago
    the post oozes narcissism. and he even seems to think he contributed to the health of the internet by working at chrome.
    • roman_soldier 1y ago
      Yes I thought that when reading it, if so he may have been a difficult character to work with and that's one of reasons the crosshairs stopped at him.
      • int_19h 1y ago
        Don't underestimate the efficiency of intra-corporate propaganda directed at its own employees. There's a reason why they maintain those huge HR departments.
• kouteiheika 1y ago
  Right, okay, let's look at their most recent SEC filling to see how much money they lost in 2024 to justify layoffs... right, they made 350 billion in revenue (the highest ever in their history from what I can see) with a 100 billion in net income. Yep, this checks out, they definitely need to lay off people, can't afford them.
  • cmrdporcupine 1y ago
    Yes, and they're still hiring too, while doing this at the same time. As a person who worked there for a long time, I never thought it was a good idea how rapidly they hired and never felt they needed that many people. But the layoff process has been sadistic. And the people who made the decisions to hire like crazy are not paying the consequences. In fact it feels very much like they're using this as an opportunity to push the median average age and compensation level of their staff down. Moving more and more positions to lower cost regions, and hiring younger developers while ditching higher paid senior staff. Today's Google really sucks.
    • wffurr 1y ago
      >> the people who made the decisions to hire like crazy are not paying the consequences They should have been first out the door, but Sundar is part of the problem.
      • jiveturkey 1y ago
        This is incorrect thinking. Over-hiring is very easily corrected. You are weighting the 'human' in human resources too much. It's 'resources' that gets the emphasis. This is a success at Sundar's level.
    • bsimpson 1y ago
      > In fact it feels very much like they're using this as an opportunity to push the median average age and compensation level of their staff down. They're doing exactly that, veiled in euphemisms like "making our talent pool more reflective of our user base."
• InDubioProRubio 1y ago
  The problem is often- a idealised view of the world, where merit and accomplishment is the deciding factor, meanwhile its all diplomacy, social networks and backstabbing at court. Then again, these "meritless" systems are parasitic on the meritocratic workers producing the actual value and progress. The cooperate cruft grazes on blissfully unaware engineers. Which is why they should try to be poisonous to the cruft wherever they go.
• akskos 1y ago
  TL;DR this guy got laid off and is not happy about it.
  • ojagodzinski 1y ago
    It scares me that people make a talking point out of it XD what an incredible event, someone got fired!
• celicoo 1y ago
  Sorry to hear, Adam! Know that this isn't about you — it's them. Unfortunately, we are all cogs in this capitalistic system where replacement isn't a matter of if, but when...
• yodsanklai 1y ago
  I also work in a big tech company. We had bunch of layoffs, some based on performance (which often was a lie), some random. In all instances, the company made a lot of money and kept hiring at a high pace. At that stage, I know I'll be laid off eventually for one reason or another, I just don't know when. My partner tells me that I should quit on my own terms so I'm not depressed when it happens. But my salary is very competitive, and I'll get severance too. Still, I fear this moment and it's really hard to feel invested in the company. If it wasn't for my colleagues, I think I'd be slacking, waiting for my time.
• stevage 1y ago
  >I really was just a fuckin cog in a mega corp. Boy, this whole post sure has a lot of "I didn't think the leopards would eat my face" about it.
• azangru 1y ago
  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 on web topics at the Chrome team (I am still sad about the departure of Paul Lewis and Jake Archibald); and produced a lot of top-notch educational materials (the CSS podcast; the conference talks; the demos). What does this say about Google's attitude to web and to Chrome? What does this say about Google's commitment to developer excellence? I understand that this is a personal tragedy for Adam; but for me personally, this is also a huge disillusionment in Google.
  • gtirloni 1y ago
    It says they are getting ready for the future when some govt agency splits them up and they are shedding the load now (the areas they will have to sell).
    • supportengineer 1y ago
      If you're being forced to sell something, wouldn't you want to maximize its value? Wouldn't you retain the most valuable people?
      • gtirloni 1y ago
        That's a good question. I don't know about the author's credentials but it seem very high and indeed I'm sure they would find a job anywhere they apply to. But from the PoV of a higher up making layoff decisions, the sooner they severe the organization from the rest of the company, the less traumatic it will be when the time comes. I think at this point they realize it's better to start treating Chrome et al more like Waymore, which seems to have some isolation from the borg collective.
      • FromOmelas 1y ago
        Not if they might become a competitor, or thrive (proving that the sale was a good idea). Better to keep them weak and likely to fail.
• lapcat 1y ago
  This article was actually posted 3 days ago. I saw it back then and read the comments. You can see the old timestamp here: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fnerdy.dev%2Fex-googler https://hn.algolia.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fnerdy.dev%2Fex-googl... I think this is what HN calls the "second chance pool". I absolutely hate when HN reposts an article and alters/falsifies the timestamps. It's so incredibly misleading.
  • B1FF_PSUVM 1y ago
    In other occasions, time seems to pass very slowly for the aging of first-page items. Probably relativistic effects of large amounts of hidden mass ...
• jasonvorhe 1y ago
  Can barely read this post because scrolling feels so sluggish and weird on a Chrome-based browser on a Pixel 9 Pro. Hope the playful effects are worth it for the author.
  • Redoubts 1y ago
    it's probably the commenting section at the bottom (which also took forever to load in)
    • jasonvorhe 1y ago
      True, that's probably it.
    • jamietanna 1y ago
      I also found it on the author's homepage, on mobile Firefox - seems to be that I had to scroll mostly past something for my it to highlight and be more readable
• ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  Similar thing happened to me, after almost 27 years, but my company was a great deal more respectful, in the way that they did it. I left on the best of terms; which is extremely rare, with layoffs. To this day, I still have a lot of respect for my old company. Also, the writing had been on the wall, for years. I was quite prepared. What I wasn't prepared for, however, was my post-layoff treatment by the modern tech industry. That was an eye-opener.
  • pronigger 1y ago
    [dead]
• ur-whale 1y ago
  Silver lining: one less person working on the spying machine.
  • gh0stcat 1y ago
    Honestly this, if these people are so smart, I truly believe they can help shift the ratio of spying/nefarious/addictive tech to productive/helpful/truly world changing tech in a positive direction. We need to distribute talented people across more industries to improve the world and technology for everyone.
• mehulashah 1y ago
  I’m sorry that this happened to him. There are innumerable ways to let go of people with dignity. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of this treatment from Google. It will not be the last. Google is a great company with great people. Google is incompetent at handling layoffs. They could learn from banks on Wall Street. The banks do layoffs routinely and have a process that’s more empathetic than Google, and that’s not a high bar.
• red_admiral 1y ago
  Sounds like work colleagues should have a signal chat, or at least whatsapp, to stay in touch when someone suddenly disappears from the company. Not to take revenge or leak company secrets or anything like that, just to stay in touch and meet up for social events occasionally. If someone at work is my friend, that doesn't end when they're fired and I support them as much as I can in difficult times.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• javawizard 1y ago
  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, none of us did. Folks I talked to on the inside stopped just short of saying that was why we were chosen. It was especially galling because years before at the company that eventually got acquired by Google, I survived a round of layoffs, and leadership issued stay bonuses for everyone who was left. Those bonuses explicitly stated that they were still valid in the event that we were laid off before their time period was up. Big companies are soulless.
  • yesimahuman 1y ago
    Might be worth talking to a lawyer. Sorry to hear that, absolutely maddening
  • jmyeet 1y ago
    You should consult a lawyer about this. You might be SOL but if this happened to several people, you might be able to show the company didn't act in good faith because there's a pattern of people about to receive their bonus being laid off. Layoffs aren't meant to work that way. Generally layoffs involve someone who doesn't know who you are picking names almost at random from a spreadsheet. Management may fight for certain people to stay. Then legal and HR get involved and look through the layoff list to see if the chosen employees are problematic. For example, if the layoffs include too many people from protected classes, which opens them up to being sued. For example, if your company is 20% women but the layoffs are 50% women, that's going to be an issue. Avoiding paying substantial retention bonuses can work the same way, if a pattern can be shown. A simple letter from a lawyer probably won't do anything. Large companies are prepared for that. For anyone who does come across this, here's my best advice: if you are acquired and your new employment contract includes a retention bonus, you want that contract to say that the retention bonus is payable unless: 1. You leave voluntarily within that period; or 2. You are terminated with cause within that period. Otherwise, you should get it.
• swah 1y ago
  Glad I have a chance to peek into his world, but should he have posted this?
  • JKCalhoun 1y ago
    I suppose you have to decide for yourself if you're going to spend the rest of your life trying to grovel (okay, a rather pointed word to choose) for future employers.
• stunpix 1y ago
  Why this site has such abnormally slow scrolling in Safari, but is smooth in Chrome? There's nothing special about this site. It's like going back in time when the internet was optimized only for a single browser. It's kind of like "I'm a Chrome dev and I don't care about other browsers"?
• cjohnson318 1y ago
  It is a very, very hard thing to wrap your head around, and life doesn't always give you time to process it before your savings run out. I had a hard time finding work this year and I invested in a (tech) career coach, Larry Jacobson, and he was an immense help. He told me things that were very hard to hear, and helped immensely.
• talles 1y ago
  > I really was just a fuckin cog in a mega corp. You had to be fired to realize this?
• baking 1y ago
  Must be a Chrome developer. His blog is frustratingly hard to read on Firefox. I felt like I was going blind in real time.
  • baggachipz 1y ago
    Looks terrible in Safari too
    • adamors 1y ago
      It looks exactly the same in Safari (17.5) as it does in Chrome for me.
    • Redoubts 1y ago
      for me it just burns a bunch of CPU and is difficult to scroll
  • z_open 1y ago
    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.
• zghst 1y ago
  Sorry to hear. Your next opportunity might be around the corner…
• seabass 1y ago
  If you haven't seen Argyle's gui-challenges series, it's some of the best content I've found for learning how to use a variety of cutting-edge CSS features. I thought he was one of the best voices for the Chrome team. https://github.com/argyleink/gui-challenges https://github.com/argyleink/gui-challenges
• jmyeet 1y ago
  Other commenters are corect: you are a cog in a machine. You are replaceable. Many people in tech have for too long fallen for the delusion that, as an engineer (or just in tech in general), you are somehow immune to this, that the company does care about you. All of these big tech companies have never not been insanely profitable. These layoffs aren't necessary for the survival of the business. They're simply suppressing labor costs by cutting 5% of the employees, pushing their duties on the remaining 95% (for no additonal pay of course) and the 95% aren't asking for raises if they fear losing their jobs. It's permanent layoff culture. Google, Meta, Microsoft, etc all have a ton of inertia, just like IBM did. And that's their future. They are sowing the seeds of their own destruction with short-term profit-seeking. These companies are nothing without the employees that sustain them.
• mcv 1y ago
  Layoffs are one thing, but to be cut off without any notice, that really sucks. I usually know months in advance that when I'll leave, so I'll have time to finish what I'm working on and train the people who will take over my responsibilities. It seems weirdly destructive for a company not to allow for that. As for email, calendar etc, I think the lesson here is not to depend on anything from your employer. Keep everything under your own control, so you won't lose too much when you get fired.
  • mrgoldenbrown 1y ago
    Are you outside the US by chance? Sudden layoffs like this are the norm here.
    • mcv 1y ago
      I do live outside the US, but in another part of this discussion I was just taught not to assume that reports of unhealthy working conditions coming from the US represent the norm.
• smarklefunf 1y ago
  google is not like it was in the 2000's, 2010's. Its much more corporate, politicky, and evil.
• spicyusername 1y ago
  I really was just a fuckin cog in a mega corp. Yep. One of the most unfortunate realities of modernity. Your managers, or your managers managers, or their managers don't care about you. At all. If you ask them on the weekend, they'll decry that the things they are asked to do are horrible. but they'll still do it. Some gladly. They are themselves cogs in the machine. A machine that goes all the way to the executive class, and they really don't care about you. In fact, more likely than not, they detest you. We all participate in this hostile culture, in various ways. Usually using the excuse that we need to pay rent, eat, find the work interesting, or with some other excuse that justify the means. It seems like it's hard to do the right thing when you have something you want to buy or otherwise spent your whole life getting here, before realizing what here is.
  • LPisGood 1y ago
    I feel like this is a very dramatic view of things. Have you ever been in a management position?
    • bbqfog 1y ago
      I have and this poster is spot on, he needs to go higher up the chain though. Investors hate employees, even founders. Founders are out to get rich. Executives are out to get rich but don't have what it takes to be founders. All of these people detest labor. They are the enemy you must work with to buy food. Treat them as such.
      • LPisGood 1y ago
        I feel like this is a very cynical way of looking at things. I know some excellent people in leadership that have been promoted from lower level management jobs. I’m not sure the career change made them no longer care about people.
        • bbqfog 1y ago
          This is definitely how the capital class views labor. Don’t be fooled, and ignore at your own peril.
• stego-tech 1y ago
  It sucks. The runway they give you is generous, sure. I got two and a half months on payroll and another six of severance and COBRA. I got the same spiel: not about merit, bosses shocked and surprised, free to apply to internal roles… It still sucks, because the very first thing you do, the thing we’re all trained to do, is to think: “What did I do wrong?” And in the weeks ahead, you’re going to look back at the body of your work, the output you created, and you’re going to realize that you did nothing wrong. Rather, you were just inconvenient to keep. It was little more than a decision of personal politics, not objective merit. An inconvenient line on a spreadsheet to a leader somewhere who wanted to steal your ideas for themselves, or who couldn’t stand sharing power with an undesirable element within the company. Or maybe they remembered that time you shot down their idea, or have a report showing you were active in the “wrong” chat channels. Maybe you weren’t in the hub they wanted to prioritize, or maybe you were too involved in politics for their liking. Or maybe they just felt that your premium wages would be better spent on a fleet of underpaid, overworked Indian professionals with tenuous contracts. It could be any of those. It could be all of those. But you’ll know, deep down, that the decision made wasn’t remotely objective, and therefore had no place in an objective institution like a business. Your leaders gave into vibes, and felt you were an acceptable casualty. At some point you’re likely to feel rage. Hang onto that, and use it to temper your future. A future where you won’t make such petty decisions. Where you’ll stand up for your workers. Where you’ll build a better working environment that treats humans with dignity and respect, where layoffs are a last resort after a reorg, after everyone whose role actually got eliminated had their skills and output shifted to new, valuable roles instead of shown the door. The rage is acknowledgement that you deserved better, and by extension your colleagues, peers, family, and friends. Realizing no current business is any different than the others because they’re all run by MBA bros from consulting firms who lack any original thoughts for themselves is, in a sense, liberating. You finally see that there is no “better” out there, and certainly no objectivity or meritocracy. That everything thus far has been a temporary illusory reprieve from that reality. But once you see it, once you acknowledge it, you can finally join others in building such a future together.
• dr_coder1337 1y ago
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• dr_coder1337 1y ago
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• HenryBemis 1y ago
  > I really was just a fuckin cog in a mega corp. Sorry to hear. Yups you are/were/will be. It happened before. It will happen again. Perhaps not to you, but to me, him (pointing left), her (pointing right). Save as much as you can. Invest as much as you can. "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." I don't seem to sound like an asshole. For the past couple of decades "your services are no longer required - please return your laptop" happens on a monthly basis. If you follow the news (and I believe all of us here do), every now and then we read about Company XYZ laying off 3000. Company ABC laying off 5000. So, it's just a roulette and it has to do where the ball will sit. It's not personal (in 99.9% of the cases). I had the 'pleasure' a few years back to work for a global bank and I was asked on a quarterly basis to give names of who will be gone on the next round(s). Nothing personal. Simple arithmetic. So.. save, invest, keep emergency fund(s), and you will be ok.
• varelse 1y ago
  [dead]
• vzaliva 1y ago
  I guess the lesson is: don’t get emotionally attached to your job. Despite all the “we’re like a family” talk, at the end of the day, you’re just an employee. Never forget that.
  • fullshark 1y ago
    We all want to be seduced though, we all want to believe we are special, we all want to believe our work has value and we anthropomorphize the company on the other end of the relationship, believing it's a partnership. Protect yourself, but it's a sad way to spend 40-60 hours of your life, constantly reminding yourself that your job is just a paycheck and not putting yourself into your work. Not sure how so many can do it and be motivated. My current strategy is compartmentalization, and it all just seems unsustainable long term, cause in the back of my mind it all seems so empty.
• cab11150904 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • fryz 1y ago
    You're not wrong but suffering isn't comparative. Because it's easier for someone to bounce back or have support in the transition doesn't mean it still doesn't suck.
    • cab11150904 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • makeitdouble 1y ago
        This would be a shocking opinion, if we weren't in unprecedented times. I wish we had more empathy and be kinder to people going through rough times, regardless of their wealth or position, or the duopoly they work for even, but it's also hard to completely ignore when the effect and impact is so huge. Now, if you it makes you physically ill, I also wish you either find help or can get out of the situation you're in. Sincerely.
        • cab11150904 1y ago
          Well fear not for me. It is just hyperbole. Now it's a haiku.
  • wormlord 1y ago
    You are probably gonna get downvoted for lack of empathy but I completely agree. I feel bad for OP, but simultaneously if you are a technocrat who thinks they are somehow insulated or not part of the larger system, you need a reality check. > I was supposed to help with the developer keynote, ensuring things matched reality and were beautiful. Gone. Maybe I am too much of a jaded asshole but anyone who writes something like this needs perspective.
    • 1y ago
• wackget 1y ago
  > Works for massive advertising company on Chrome, the browser widely known for anti-competitive practices and destroying the ecosystem of the Web. > Surprised when company does nasty, profit-driven thing.
• traeregan 1y ago
  Dammit. I listened to Adam on https://shoptalkshow.com/659/ https://shoptalkshow.com/659/ just last week and really admired his impressive depth of knowledge about CSS and the web and how well spoken he is on the subjects.
• outside1234 1y ago
  Great reminder that we are all worth almost nothing to our employers as human beings so exploit your employer to the maximum.
• outside1234 1y ago
  Could be worse, at least you got severance. Microsoft has moved on to phase two and pretends you were a performance problem and gives you no severance. Microsoft also pays like shit. Don't work for Microsoft.
• gaganyatri 1y ago
  Got my role terminated when I was taking care of my father in India. Worked a research institute in Germany, used my vacation days and kept writing code to improve the project. I was the sole developer. For a month, I worked remotely , then i get 3 notices for not coming to office. In a week, I was terminated for not showing up in office, though i was working remotely. In a shock, accepted the mutual termination agreement. No severance, access cut to email/chat.
• mdip 1y ago
  Getting laid off is a unique experience -- I can't find a better word than that. I mean, on one hand we always knew this was a business transaction: I'm providing a service, you're paying me to provide a service. But work, on some level, is a social activity. You often make lasting friendships at jobs, especially a job you enjoy. If you share an office with your team[0], it isn't unusual for that to become your closest "group of friends." And you're friends mostly because you spend 8+ hours a day together five days a week. When the job ends, that daily refueling that your friendships received also ends. It's not unusual for the last day of that job to be one of the last times you communicate with those people and the last time you end up in the same place, together. It's why a job starts to feel like "a family." Just for the sake of context: some of the "unique" aspects are unique to the field of Software Development; some may be unique to my particular skill-set/location/circumstances. It's "unique" in that right when it happens, it ... sucks. But the two times it's happened to me -- both cases of "economic realities" or "radical business restructuring" -- it ended up being a few weeks off and into a better job -- in both cases, forms of "dream jobs." I've never gone more than 4 weeks without a paycheck since I was 16. I live near the car capital of the world and don't like cars/have no interest in working for any car/car-related company. I've worked for a global multi-national telecom, a conferencing provider, a maker of IoT devices for huge third-party companies, machine learning for a fraud company and remote medical software with a hint of robotics. The IoT job and the last job happened after being laid off. After about 2-3 weeks of back-and-forth, I had at least two offers in play both times I lost my job. In both cases, the economy and hiring trends were negative. In one case it was so close to Christmas that many people were difficult to reach. I received a piece of advice way too late in my career from a 50-year-old man who was working for a startup that -- literally anyone who had any familiarity with the space would have given about a 99.99995% chance of cratering in bankruptcy. I was brought in on contract to help them get through some code written off-shore, he was my "project manager." Over lunch he'd offered me a job directly with the company[1]. I mentioned "benefits, salary and job security" and he said: "You won't beat the pay, the benefits are fine, and you're a software developer -- even 2008, unemployment in our sector was low enough to be considered 'full employment'. And if they get bought or succeed, the stock could make you a lot of money." Random advice, even from graybeards, is not often the kind that I take blindly, but having just gone through being unemployed during a -- not terrible, but not great -- economic time and finding more than one offer on the table in about three weeks, I couldn't argue with him. Thinking back to the scores of employees who were laid off when I worked at the telecom, I could name only one (non-manager) guy in IT who didn't end up some place much better a month after they started looking for work, again[2]. While there's never any guarantees and I don't want this to be a "buck up, camper" kind of dismissal of the misery of losing a job, I suspect the ex-Googler will land on their feet and maybe they'll look back on this and say "Yeah, but if I'd stayed there, I'd have missed out on all of the stuff I'm working on, now." [0] Even if not, though physical proximity encourages it. [1] This was not only allowed at the company I worked, it often came with an e-mail announcing when it happened in "celebration"-style. We rarely directly contracted to a third-party, so it wasn't a sort of "temporary placement agency" or anything like that. In fact, the reason I was contracted directly was because the owners of the company went to school with the owners of the startup and the 50-year-old guy was a former employee of my employers. They'd worked out an arrangement during a time when business was slow. [2] Depending on how long that person worked there, they may have received over a year of severance paid at 100% of the employee's salary -- in one case, paid in a single lump sum cheque (due to the company going bankrupt and the court preventing them from paying the outstanding severance checks of employees who were laid off a week prior to the bankruptcy). One guy took a year off and still landed a job in a month.
• karaterobot 1y ago
  Offboarding is when any illusion of your non-cog relationship to a company is belied. You're suddenly a virus that the immune response is trying to destroy. Your presence is a threat to the host that must be eliminated. On the one hand you wish companies would be a little more human about it: it's me, I'm not a criminal! On the other hand, they've got security controls that almost mandate a swift and pitiless execution.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• kwakubiney 1y ago
  Sorry to hear. I have never worked for Google or any corporation of that scale but I got my fair share of a harsh layoff two years ago (at a reasonably small company). The company used to run a hybrid shift, with specific days for remote and onsite. We got a mail (from the higher ups) a day before saying no employee should show up at the office the next day, under the guise of a fumigation exercise. The next day shows up, I am in a meeting with my colleagues (a regular standup), a fraction of my teammates receive an email with an meeting invite link. We join the meeting, our mics and cameras were automatically turned off by the host/organizer, the CEO's face spotlit in the meeting, he then delivered the news in a very cold way, the meeting ended, we were logged out of all company accounts in the next 15 minutes, that was the last team meeting we had :)
• Night_Thastus 1y ago
  I hate to say it...but this is how working for a company works. It's more prevalent at the largest ones and less so at the smallest ones, but it's just the norm. In the US, it's at-will employment. You can leave, or be fired, at any time - for virtually any reason. (As long as it doesn't break discrimination laws) Investors only care about quarterly returns, and so you have to expect a publicly-traded company may let people go for that reason alone. They're not your friends. They're not your family. You exchange hours of your life for money. That's all. It sucks, but that's just how it is. Google is no exception, it is one company like literally all others.
• anarticle 1y ago
  They would sell you for meat if they could. I had my access hard cut off and laptop locked, a cold reminder that your relationship goes as far as the business will allow. Always, ALWAYS build your homey network at your job, because that is your door to walking on to the next job. Be sure to try to get the best severance possible, take time off, explore opportunities. You often won't have that kind of pressure off moment if you're serious about your career so take advantage. I'm a hired gun for now for academia and a small startup and I've probably never been happier career wise. I work with non-fake employees, and solve problems that make money. No 401k for now, but my sanity is more valuable to me after the circus of the last year at my old place. (Fake employees in VP position, director position, both fired 1y after I left.)
• bitlad 1y ago
  No one complains when TComp just 500k+ Only when laid off.
• acyou 1y ago
  Content aside, does anyone else have poor scrolling performance on his blog? I saw similar issues on both mobile and desktop, what's with that?
  • neop1x 1y ago
    Also the content did not fit my Galaxy S24's screen width when used in portrait. The author's previous work in the Chrome team is visible. "The shoemaker's children go barefoot" as they say. :)
  • jiveturkey 1y ago
    exceptionally poor to the point of being unreadable, on safari. in chrome it works perfectly for me. i believe it is due to the bluesky feed, seeing as the author's own content is really short. i'll have to figure out how to block bluesky. the blockers focus on privacy stealing feeds like facebook etc.
• mont_tag 1y ago
  ISTM software engineers have been living in a privileged and elite world. They are then utterly shocked to be treated like employees are treated elsewhere. Pretty much anywhere if you are let go, your email access and physical access are cut off immediately. Start-ups do this all the time as funding gets tight or there is a need to pivot. I get that this sucks (and have been on the both the dishing out side of this and the receiving end of it multiple times). It is a fact of life. It would be more mature to move on rather than blog about how you feel wronged by your former employer. The next employer may see this post and reason that it is unsafe to hire this person because they feel a need to damage the company's reputation on the way out (for Google, there isn't much risk here, but for smaller companies, threats to the reputation matter).
  • ncr100 1y ago
    > It is a fact of life. It would be more mature to move on rather than blog about how you feel wronged by your former employer. +1. While there is an imaginable "victim" viewpoint, it is a job for pay with a clear employment contract that was agreed to before employment start, between the Employee and the Corporation, including local and state and federal laws, permitting EXACTLY THIS type of termination. Further, corporations can't be seen to Favor one Googler vs another. Especially since there is NO GUARANTEE this Ex-Googler isn't one of those AR-15 toting weirdos who condone violence against their now ex-coworkers .. so allowing them futher access to the (huge) universe that Google owns and controls .. its corporate workings .. even for an additional 5 seconds after termination, can be reasonably seen to be Foolish .. so they would cut ties Immediately.
  • ygouzerh 1y ago
    > It's a fact of life I will argue the contrary. Companies with US mindset makes us think that. Countries with social safety net have a better way of handling it. Even in the country where I am now living, Hong Kong, which is very liberal, half of the companies let you have 1 month of notice period.
    • winrid 1y ago
      And even in China the layoff policy for pregnant women is way more humane than in the US.
• Vegenoid 1y ago
  Getting laid off sucks, but this comment isn't about that. What I noticed when I read the post is that the website isn't very good. It's laggy, as in slow to load, scroll, and for the mouse-hover stuff to respond, and this is on a fancy modern macbook. It seems to focus on pretty modern web aesthetic over presenting content. This is exactly the kind of website that makes me bemoan the tendency to prioritize looking better than a simple website when comparing 2 static images, and not prioritizing the experience of actually using the website. I find these things have a real "well it works on my machine" about them. Whereas sites that stick to simple tech (ex. HN) are far more likely to work well on all machines.
  • b8 1y ago
    The website works smoothly on my Pixel 6A. Not sure if it's JavaScript or some other software issues taking up your Mac's hardware resources.
    • pton_xd 1y ago
      Scroll perf on that site is terrible in Chrome on my S23 Ultra. It's much smoother (but still kinda laggy) in Firefox. Weird.
  • the-grump 1y ago
    Browses very smoothly on my iPhone and it looks great.
• ra7 1y ago
  It’s always sad to see people lose their jobs, but it’s telling how often it’s ex-Googlers posting about layoffs. Feels like a lot of the shock is just realizing they’re just as replaceable and as much of a "cog in the machine" as everyone else. Google spent years selling the idea that it was special, but this feels like a real coming back down to earth moment for the employees.
  • globular-toast 1y ago
    The OP strikes me as being quite immature. Like a first breakup or something. I think it's less about Google selling themselves as being special and more that people like OP have been led to believe they are special. A lot of them have been treated like royalty: super privileged lives, only experiencing the nice bits of society, top education, then straight into a 6-figure job where you get to be part of a special club with a prestigious google.com email address etc. It's going to be a shock to anyone to have that taken away abruptly when you're a decade or more into this lifestyle. Most people have to go through shit like this at some point in their life. Most don't get to reap in internet sympathy by the bucketload, though. For some people it really actually sucks. OP is likely a millionaire already, could just take time off to adjust and reflect, then accept one of the numerous job offers that will be on the table. They might even end up doing something useful with their lives instead of advertising.
    • gh0stcat 1y ago
      Emphasis on "doing something useful with their lives".
• MangoCoffee 1y ago
  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.
• JohnMakin 1y ago
  This is a wild read for someone that has spent the bulk of their career as a "mercenary" for small to mid-size largely non-tech companies (e.g., their product wasn't purely technical) and no matter what the official company Koolaid line was, you always know you are one "restructuring" away from being made redundant, the company doesn't give a crap about you or your contributions, and you very much are a "cog." I've been blessed to work for a company or two where this was less the case than others, and more or less bought into their own culture hype, but it's still fundamentally this way, the relationship between employer and employee. It's sad and interesting to me to see what sounds like an experienced developer for such a large company coming to this realization all at once. Given what I've read and learned about Google layoffs since ~2022 this seems pretty bog standard large company stuff. Everyone is replaceable/expendable, even if you actually aren't, it doesn't matter. It isn't worth investing so much emotional energy and your personal identity into a company unless you are a major shareholder.
• orochimaaru 1y ago
  You’re always a cog. Don’t treat a job with passion unless you’re getting something more than a salary from it - e.g. more professional networking, expanded skill set for your next role, etc. This seems to happen too often. Be invested in your career not the company you work for. All the talk about doing great things as a team is usually all b.s. It’s just excellent theater. Most of us are side actors in someone else’s script and believe we have the lead role.
• retrocryptid 1y ago
  Back in the day Convex Computer Corporation was laying off a large fraction of its staff. The plan was to come into the warroom and just hang out. Your manager would come and get you and take you into a private conference room to discuss your package with an HR specialist. The packages were pretty decent, at least. In gallows humor I drew some stick figures on a white board for each of my team with their unix logins below them. As people were RIFfed, I would go over and put a universal red circle and slash "no" symbol around the figures who were laid off. My time came and I marked myself as a "no" and handed the red marker to a co-worker. I remember being a little ticked off at my manager, but when I came back to say goodbye to everyone I noticed his figure / login name had been exed out. The last thing he did before metaphorically being shot in the head was to metaphorically strangle half his children. "What was deluxe became debris, I never questioned loyalty. But this dead end demolishes the dream of an open highway."
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• jdmg94 1y ago
  Same thing is happening to me this week at Amazon, I'm just not writing a post about it
• vcryan 1y ago
  Sucks when you first experience the inherent fragility of working for somebody else.
• bitbasher 1y ago
  I was laid off (as a founding engineer) nine years ago from a startup. It __still__ burns to this day. There's a betrayal in there that is hard to let go. It was a catalyst for burnout and an overall vitriol for the entire tech industry that hasn't really let up to this day. Luckily, I created a product that has given me financial freedom with zero employees. I don't think I'd have made it if I kept working for people.
  • beacon294 1y ago
    Have you written anywhere about your product creation? I would like to create a product and it seems like there's a lot of unique things to get past. I'm looking for resources.
    • bitbasher 1y ago
      I have written about technical things (how I choose technologies, what to avoid, reasons I went from language X to Y, etc). I never had any interesting social interactions from the blog/writing and the internal pressure to keep it updated eventually wore me out, so I got rid of the blog. I have considered distilling everything into a book, complete with a working application. I'm more interested in the technical aspects and I am unsure if it would be of much interest/use to people.
      • karolist 1y ago
        Is it a SaaS? Phone app? Hardware device? Not looking for specifics, just intrigued by your post to understand what tech category the product is.
        • bitbasher 1y ago
          It's a b2b saas offering.
• mrgoldenbrown 1y ago
  >I really was just a fuckin cog in a mega corp. This article could have been interesting if they talked about why they ever thought they weren't just a cog. Like what cognitive blinders did they have on? Does Google have a unusually effective "we're all a family" type of internal propaganda?
  • gorfian_robot 1y ago
    corpos are really good at creating a false narrative around shared missions/values/etc
• mattbillenstein 1y ago
  You have to understand who you work for - most companies don't really care about their employees - they are means to an end and if they weren't absolutely needed, corps would do the work other ways. And Google is way past "Don't be Evil" days...
  • dennis_jeeves2 1y ago
    >And Google is way past "Don't be Evil" days... Wonder what prompted the change in L&S ... I suspect over a period of time caring people realized that the people they care for are a shitty lot, so they become less caring.
• randomcatuser 1y ago
  The comments on Bluesky are really cool, did you implement it yourself? I wonder what other things Bluesky has!
• DebtDeflation 1y ago
  A company with $350B in annual Revenue, $200B in Gross Profit, $100B in Cash in the bank lays off a few hundred people making a few hundred thousand dollars a year each, the savings amount to rounding errors. It's hard to understand what these Tech companies are trying to accomplish with the never ending rolling layoffs other than to engender fear in the workforce. It's like all that Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting stuff a few years back broke the collective brains of the C-Suite and they decided they just cannot tolerate labor having any sort of bargaining power at all and needed to mete out punishment to put workers back in their place.
• roman_soldier 1y ago
  I learned about "cog in the machine" a few years after starting in tech and I became a contractor and have been ever since (20+ years). I get paid a daily rate and as long as there is work I keep earning, no sick/holiday pay, no reviews, bs corporate networking for promotions etc. I have zero job security and could be let go any time, but that's built into my rate and I realised that's the case for normal employees anyway as the OP has discovered to his horror. The funny thing is I have outlived many a "permanent" employee in some places I've worked.
• Verdex 1y ago
  The inner call to make your work matter is, I think, a good one and something that if we had more of then the world would be in a better place. That being said, I think Ecclesiastes has an important message that has at least saved me quite a lot of trouble. Nothing we're doing is anything more than variations of things already done and even if we're successful then it's only to the benefit of morons. So work hard but make sure to take the afternoon off every once and a while to surprise your spouse with flowers and a picnic.
• nashashmi 1y ago
  You like a company based on the environment, the peers, and the work. But it is not necessarily that someone way out in a different office likes you. They are cogs in a machine, not you. And you are the worst thing of self reflection that cog has ever dealt with. Challenge the cogs and make them squirm.
• dietr1ch 1y ago
  Fellow ex-googler near tax due date, get your tax documents ASAP as losing access to your corp email and laptop will make things slower.
• barbazoo 1y ago
  > argyle@google.com is no more I'm working through this on a personal level as well because it's not healthy to make one's self worth dependent on a relationship one has no control over.
• jedberg 1y ago
  Weirdly, Amazon had far more compassion than Google here. When my role got eliminated at Amazon, I got an email at 5am PT to my personal email telling me that my role was eliminated. It also told me what I would still have access to, and how to access them from the outside. Crucially, it said that I would still have limited corp access until 1pm, and then told me which things I still had access to. I got on my work machine, and found that all of my previous emails had been erased (or at least blocked from my view), so I couldn't download an email archive or otherwise see anything. I also couldn't send emails externally anymore. Most of my systems access had been cut off where I could have downloaded or exported anything "secret" as per the email. But they did let me send emails internally. I still had slack access to affinity groups. So I was able to shoot off a bunch of goodbye emails and slack messages. And true to their word, at 1pm, my laptop rebooted and I was then locked out. But at least I got to say goodbye and share my personal email and linkedin with a bunch of people, and they were able to send me "so sorry to see you go" replies, which was nice.
• mattfrommars 1y ago
  I just find this very sickening. On one hand, Google laid him off and best excuse I can think of is, "reduce operational expense". On the other hand, they happily paid $32 billion dollar for Wiz where the both fonder net around $3 billion dollar. I don't know guys but there needs to be some crackdown on this bull that is going on with corporate America. Something feels really off lately with these tech companies on how they make excuse and get away.
• p0w3n3d 1y ago
  It's always really hard to be let go, especially when you were a successful person in the company. Sadly, companies choose the people to fire by some obscure means, mostly the money earned. I've been recently dismissed from work due to "reorganisation", and it really hit me hard in terms of psychological health. Please take care of yourself, do not lose your strength, don’t let your sense of self-worth be harmed by this (I got really vulnerable after this event), and wishing you good luck in finding the next job!
• RainyDayTmrw 1y ago
  I wonder if there is some megacorp regression to the mean going on here. Google holds itself up as somehow special, and I think that it's right to be cynical about that today. I also think there was a golden age of sorts, back when real-world distributed systems were much more fringe, and Google was a legitimate trailblazer. Then, the spreadsheet number crunchers come in, and the elves leave Middle Earth[1]. [1]: In reference to this famous essay: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
• matrix87 1y ago
  Why is it always a googler writing these articles? Okay, you got laid off, but it's news because the company was google?
• zombiwoof 1y ago
  Life goes on after your job, unless you make your job your life
• broknbottle 1y ago
  I didn’t see one mention of AI related feature or talk they were working on.. that’s the real reason. If you’re not wasting time peddling some AI feature that nobody will ever use or give a second look, you are not onboard the hype train.
• billwear 1y ago
  "Don't be evil" comes to mind. I wonder if any company -- or for that matter, any software development organization, whether paid or volunteer -- can really avoid bad decisions when they get big?
• daqhris 1y ago
  Sorry for you. The Open Source door is wide open. The flashing red pixels on the screen, seen when visiting the personal website, are a hint of what's known. The knowledge gained in a previous job is valuable to the rest of the world.
• lazyeye 1y ago
  I think Google is currently undergoing a massive restructuring and money-saving/raising operation to totally orient the company aroubd AI.
• bk496 1y ago
  If this was a < 10 employee company it would probably be over. But for Google people will forget about this next week
• furyofantares 1y ago
  As important as your work seems, none of this would really function if folks weren't replaceable. The only exception I can think of is the highest level of professional sports.
• methuselah_in 1y ago
  Man this was sad. The part of the word that you are about to get ready and leave for work next morning. Have to login to check your emails. I am an introvert though usually do work from home guy and in 33+ age group. I had to resign recently and then I tried to get the job back. It was hard to get it. I am sales guy thoigh. Your expense just stop being regular now. But I hope the skills you have are going to get you a job in no time.
• saltybytes 1y ago
  Was laid off more than 2 years ago. For me it was not the process (the company I worked for announced their plans early) of being let go - it is the current job market that keeps me from sleeping at night: every day I get rejection emails, every day I'm told I'm not good enough or that other 220 candidates applied for the position. I feel obsolete, depressed. All I want is to find a job where I can be helpful, have a purpose and focus on my work goals. If you have any work please reach out to me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianskala/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianskala/
• conartist6 1y ago
  I learned this exact lesson 7 years ago now and my reaction, quite similar to yours, started me on journey I am on to this day and which has led me to produce the most impactful technology I'll make in my life
• ilioscio 1y ago
  This is so terrible for their optics, Google used to work to cultivate their image so that an entire generation of young talent would've loved to work there, fast forward to now and that's all burned down and there's no respect left. Now the best Google can expect from young pragmatic talent is that they'll have no real loyalty or trust in the brand, well respect is a two way street, this will almost certainly just accelerate enshittification across Google products and services.
• melodykaitlyn3 1y ago
  [flagged]
• AllSuperIndians 1y ago
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