I'm a Google Engineer Who Was Told They May Be Laid Off | Hacker News Reader

I'm a Google Engineer Who Was Told They May Be Laid Off

businessinsider.com

19 pointsaxiomdata31611 comments

Sometimes Google ends a project, product or service and ceases to fund it. Engineers are often given plenty of time to find new roles working on other things. Sometimes employees stubbornly don’t get the hint, and then Google needs to tell them “hey you really do need to find another team”. The act of notifying the employee that they need to find a new job or else be laid off is the formal way Google does this.

Considering how many teams are hiring at Google, multiple hundreds of jobs in Seattle alone — I would be surprised if this person couldn’t find a job if they tried not particularly hard.

Disclosure: I worked for Google for 7 years, was an Eng Director, and (indirectly) managed hundreds of employees.

The person in the article is not a software engineer. Are there really so many positions for supporting roles in Seattle?

"Technical solutions engineer" -- probably? I don't know the particulars of Google Seattle, but they should be able to find a job that uses their skills.

Is this unusual? Even in germany, which has lots of laws protecting (white- and bluecollar) workers this is a reasonable cause to layoff people.

Given Google is not in financial difficulty and these employees were not at fault of anything, this layoff would have been illegal in France.

If these employees were not contractors or on a short-term contract, this layoff could easily be contested and Google would have to pay up to 1 month's pay per year worked at Google (minimum 3 month's pays)

Google could have negotiated with the employees to end the contract at a better price.

To widen your perspectives.

Well this is why a multinational company would be idiotic to have a major presence / office in France

This is why many international companies are loathe to hire new employees in France. They'll get contractors, sure. But real employees can be a major pain to deal with from an HR perspective, and be that major pain for a year or more.

Belgium isn't much different. I lived and worked there for almost eight years, and I saw this problem in spades from the other side.

so they either cannot do business in France, or cannot hire french engineers, which would be even more idiotic.

laws are rarely idiotic, businesses are

With as many crazy and stupid laws that exist in the world, I would claim "citation needed" here.

Frankly, I've seen many more idiotic laws than I've seen idiotic businesses.

What is the actual cause for layoffs?

They are a GCP support team that Google is outsourcing. Fired to be replaced by contractors, to reduce costs.

IMHO a bad way to treat your workforce.

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