Google Lays Off Staff From Flutter, Dart and Python Teams (techcrunch.com) 28
Ahead of its annual I/O developer conference in May, Google has decided to lay off staff across key teams like Flutter, Dart, Python and others. "As we've said, we're responsibly investing in our company's biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead," said a Google spokesperson. "To best position us for these opportunities, throughout the second half of 2023 and into 2024, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, remove layers, and align their resources to their biggest product priorities. Through this, we're simplifying our structures to give employees more opportunity to work on our most innovative and important advances and our biggest company priorities, while reducing bureaucracy and layers." TechCrunch reports: The company clarified that the layoffs were not company-wide but were reorgs that are part of the normal course of business. Affected employees will be able to apply for other open roles at Google, we're told. [...] Though Google didn't detail headcount, some of the layoffs at Google may have been confirmed in a WARN notice filed on April 24. WARN, or the California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, requires employers with more than 100 employees to provide 60-day notice in advance of layoffs. In the filing, Google said it was laying off a total of 50 employees across three locations in Sunnyvale.
On social media, commenters raised concerns with the Python layoffs in particular, given the role that Python tooling plays in AI. But others pointed out that Google didn't eliminate its Python team; it replaced that team with another group based in Munich -- at least according to Python Steering Council member Thomas Wouters in a post on Mastodon last Thursday.
On social media, commenters raised concerns with the Python layoffs in particular, given the role that Python tooling plays in AI. But others pointed out that Google didn't eliminate its Python team; it replaced that team with another group based in Munich -- at least according to Python Steering Council member Thomas Wouters in a post on Mastodon last Thursday.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not even sure why this is making the news. Google cancels products and lays off various teams all the time. Is this just some way of showing that not everyone getting fired is due to protests against Israel or something like that?
languages with long term viabliity (Score:1)
Python, Java, C#, C, C++, JavaScript, and SQL look to be the only long lived languages with forward development momentum and more than 10% share of beyond toy sized projects.
These announcements surprisingly look all alike in the 'soon to be unmaintained and unsupported' product category.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Astonishing (Score:5, Interesting)
And what? Let government dictate how a business is run?
Why not? The whole concept of a "business" is nothing more than a fiat defined by the government.
There are all sorts of rules regarding businesses. One is that customers that owe you money have to eventually pay, and if they don't, you can run to the government for help. In this particular case, large employers have to treat their employees somewhat like human beings, and not just totally upend their families' lives with no warning.
Are employees required to continue working until I can find and train replacements?
Maybe if employees routinely quit en masse without warning, that would be an issue. But it's not an issue. How do we know? Because almost all businesses use an "at will" work policy if they are allowed. This means that being able to unceremoniously dump employees than is much more important to them than the risk of some employees suddenly quitting.
Re: (Score:2)
Which came first? Government or a human's ability to be productive enough to sell the fruits of their labor?
That works if you're a prostitute. Without a government, it doesn't scale much beyond that.
Never had an employee that was critical to business operations, eh? I was one 10 years ago. I said "fuck you" and quit.
Cool story, bro.
English-to-Monday translator (Score:4, Funny)
Google got fluttered, so the Python teams darted.
You wanna work remotely? (Score:1)
Go work remotely from Europe. It's cheaper than Mountain View :P
That trendy-glasses wearing CEO (Score:3)
is slowly killing this company. To be fair, it's not just him - the board gives direction and his MBA brain executes. But let's not forget that other guy that gutted search in favor of ads. The enshittification of Google proceeds apace.
Re:That trendy-glasses wearing CEO (Score:4, Interesting)
> is slowly killing this company.
That depends on who you are. As a consumer, yeah, probably - although the enshitification has got quite a long way left to go before it's unusable.
As a shareholder, he's going gangbusters. He fired a load of people in January and paid a dividend in April. He's fired a load more people in April, so the next div payment might be even higher! That "enshitification runway" that's got plenty left in it is a great opportunity to make some serious money.
As a spectator, the firing of people, reshuffles and enshitification mostly allow other players to enter the market. Maybe DDG will hit the big time? Maybe Bing will suddenly get good? Maybe Amazon or Apple enter the search market? Perhaps an AI startup will beat them all to it? Time will tell...
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Time for him to go. Google changes software products more often than I change underwear, and nobody will trust them anymore unless a new CEO comes in who clearly promises to have more patience growing software and its legacy support.
50 Jobs is news? (Score:3)
I was under the impression Google had thousands of employees. Fifty layoffs is perhaps a HR "adjustment", trimming mistakes for all kinds of reasons. Google should not hire and fire people willy-nilly with the breeze, but they can and will, if under the radar. Well, it was noticed. Human Resources needs to do better. This does not mean dragging on the process, rather, getting Google management to define who they want and need, no matter how the wind blows. Fifty seems a minor adjustment to their international work force, hardly a typical layoff announcement and really not worth the bad publicity or ill will. Perhaps, they miscalculated public opinion. Maybe they will think twice next time, or only hire people they intend to keep, or reassign rather than set afloat after such rigorous, time consuming selection and hiring drill. Who knows the actual truth is when it concerns staffing decisions, but they'll think twice about fifty "layoffs" going unnoticed. The wider issue is we just don't believe a word they say regarding the layoffs. Furthermore, the fruitless, low hanging, severed ex-employees could ripen into plaintiffs.
Keep it up, Pichai (Score:2)
Dart sure, but Python (Score:3)
Dart never was going anywhere as far as I can tell. I never used flutter, but a quick google shows promise. I don't understand Python though, that is such a critical language today.
Re: Dart sure, but Python (Score:2)
Flutter is written in Dart :)
Re: (Score:2)
Yea, I realized that after the comment. Having not used it I had no clue.
writing on the wall (Score:2)
Google is seeing itself as soon toast; all must be devoted to AI. AI search already is far superior to google.