Be honest Google is my dream company, since graduation to 10/8/2018, the time when I joined Google. But soon I noticed it was another job, no big difference to other jobs. Because no one is special and not replaceable. You still need to worry about the perfomance review, the promotion, the politics, etc, everything you can imagine.
Google has its advantages, such as more talent/smart people, greater infra and tools, snacks and better work environment, better work flexibility and work-life balance. But it’s not the only talent absorber, because the compensation is not as competive as before and the internal promotion is too hard, especiall L5 to L6. I was stuck here for more than 4 years. But you know someone could get it in 2-3 years, nothing special from my observation.
Ok, some opinion for the Google 2023 layoff. I didn’t believe there would be layoff in Google, but it was still special before that. I thought Google had enough cash, it’s not necessary to lay off people to save the cost. But I’m wrong! Google followed the trend to do layoff, which hurts its reputation too much. I don’t understand how do they make this decision. The severance package could pay half year salary for the layoff employees at least. Unless the executive think the macro economics will last more than 1 year, maybe 2-3 years, otherwise it’s meaningless.
I didn’t think I will be one of the layoff people, because I’m the key person in my team. The layoff day morning, I checked Google stocker soar more than 5%. You know the Google stock dropped many days, the soaring was a big surprise for me. Then I noticed there was a layoff news. Opened company email and found the announcement. Wooo, Google started the layoff. Then I checked my manager’s reporters in the company profile site. It seems everyone was there. So my team was not impacted. Later there was a team meeting added by manager. In the meeting, I glanced everyone and it seems everyone was there, I smiled. But later the manager said our team had 2 people left, we have ~12 people. Our big team, ~40 people, had another people left.
My manager L7, my manager’s manager is L7 too, they didn’t have any information before the announcement. They didn’t know the layout criteria. Based on the observation, it did base on the product priority.
- If the product has high priority, such as YouTube Shorts, low impact. Very less people is impacted.
- If the product has normal priority, such as our team, lay off the people based on performance.
- If the product has low priority, lay off peopel randomly or cut the whole team, such as the Area 120. Most new teams are cut off, including some L7 managers.
My friend and me once applied the Area 120, unfortunately we failed. Now it saves my job in Google. Actually I want to get layoff from Google, because I have the 4-year cliff and the severance package is best in the bay area.
Be yourself, no worry, everything could be good or bad. The layoff makes Google stock up 5%, but later the ChatGDP and the bad demo causes 10% off.