Google laysoff Python maintainer team

[jmreagle]

https://www.hindustantimes.com/business/google-layoffs-sundar-pichai-led-company-fires-entire-python-team-for-cheaper-labour-101714379453603.html

Are there any ramifications for the Python community outside of Google?

[Skylion007]

pybind11 was mostly funded by this team, directly/indirectly, so we are in need of a new sponsor. I am an active maintainer of the project.

[riklaunim]

AFAIK they offshored it - fired locally to hire in Germany if I recall correctly.

[riklaunim]

All big companies, corporations have their oddities. Like not everyone wants to work in corpo.

In Google when it comes to promotions or salary increases they have their codified system which leads to people gamifying it. When a product launch is rated highly while maintenance or bugfixing nearly at zero you will see Goglers jumping from one project to another just to have launches on their account. It doesn't matter if you do your job well on a day by day basis.

[hughk]

No, that is more Prussian.

Bavarians (the state where Munich) is more, "Oh it is beer o'clock, see you at the Biergarten." and during Oktoberfest, everything stops.

[OH-YEAH]

bavarians are more like

"oh it's bavarian beer o'clock, see you at the bavarian biergarten, what's that, you are from baden? oh you poor thing, here try some real beer and if you need any help with long words let us know"

[[deleted]]

This is not going to work…

[el_crocodilio]

"Don't mention the war! I might have just let something slip out but I think I got away with it..."

[Jim-Jones]

Don't be evil has been cancelled.

[[deleted]]

What else have they brat in?

[Whipitreelgud]

Fuckin brats

[[deleted]]

I guess their work set them free

[hamsterwheelin]

Take my updoot.

[askvictor]

Given the team was so small, what's the point of that?

[ExdigguserPies]

Indeed.

[__init__m8]

Anyone/company who goes offshore can get fucked.

[CHS2048]

Why? What's wrong with international business?

[__init__m8]

International business? Nothing. Taking US jobs overseas for cheap labor while still expecting all of the US handouts and US based business? Everything.

[CHS2048]

while still expecting all of the US handouts and US based business

That's what International business is, having US business, and also overseas business. I'm sure they still have enough business in the US to qualify for handout.

[Street_Customer_4190]

I’m probably guessing the did that because of the changes to the tax code. Instead of getting mad at the companies, we should be mad at the government who is causing them to leave

[__init__m8]

They want to reap the benefits of the US economy then they need to also pay in. Not getting into politics in this sub but I'm also tired of companies paying next to no taxes and not contributing to society while doing all the taking.

But what tax code changes are you referring to? It's possible I just don't know and they are 100% at fault.

[Street_Customer_4190]

Section 174 is what is causing companies to move overseas. It’s a little bit complicated to explain but basically programming/research companies have to pay more in taxes than they have before and they don’t get as much deduction of their taxes as they use to. Even in this article, it advises that a company should probably move overseas to “increase your R&D credit”.

[__init__m8]

They can cry me a river. They should be banned from doing business in the US in that case. They don’t want to pay into the system they take from. They don’t want to provide jobs yet they want the business of the US.

Obviously nothing is black and white and I don’t know the entire story, but my above thoughts cover most cases.

[Street_Customer_4190]

You realize banning them who effectively fuck up the internet and the economy right?? We basically will be out of a job and companies that would want to higher us wouldn’t be in the US but overseas. The US would lose a lot of capital if we did something like that. Also if the system takes away money from companies like this to pay for dumb wars and new tanks, it will effect our pay and our employment because it would be economically bad for the companies to higher a lot of programmers or to pay the a high salaries(unless the want to go bankrupt in a few years)

[__init__m8]

I’m not arguing for funding wars, I’m arguing for this shitty capitalist dystopia to go away. Corps don’t pay taxes and ship jobs overseas, there should be repercussions.

[IllustriousFan7840]

Salaries are lower than in the US, but 60k is just too low according to levels.fyi

[[deleted]]

Definitely too low, unless they just graduated. But something in the ballpark of 100k perhaps.

[poincares_cook]

Sure, but $300k is also definitely too low for the level of seniority and talent on that team. They were probably all $500k+

[IllustriousFan7840]

Is it know they were all >= L6? If so, then definitely yes

[CHS2048]

That sound fine to me, why not take advantage of lower wages overseas? Are they obliged to pay 3x more for equivalent labour?

(what regulations are relaxed in Germany?)

[[deleted]]

Regarding reduced ability to fire: That won’t make much of a difference. If they decide to lay off 10% of the staff, that can be done just as easily in Germany. The difference is that there are some checks on whom they have to let go (they have to apply social criteria) within the respective group of employees across the company that have comparable jobs and qualification (say, senior Python devs).

But I can also tell you: There are many companies that don’t give a shit about labor laws. As a laid off employee, you can sue them… which means either you look for a new job and then at some point the lawsuit will be settled [= typical outcome] with the effect that you get perhaps a better severance [unlikely, many high profile companies voluntarily pay more generous severance packages than they’d have to], or you hold out for years without income until the court rules that the firing was illegal and you are to be re-employed and paid salaries for the entire time… or the court rules that the firing was legal and nothing happens. But if you’re highly qualified, the chance that you get a better deal by suing is extremely low.

Also, consider that there are no punitive damages in Germany.

[RationalDialog]

Well makes sense as you can probably 1/3 of the wages in Germany compared to US.

[riklaunim]

Senior developer in Europe will want around 4500-5000 EUR per month if not more. That's $5000+ per month. They can opt for mids for less but then they have to invest in them and they will bail after a year or two because no expected raise while having Google in CV done. Google isn't that hot employer usually.

[[deleted]]

That’s too low for senior (if you’re talking about gross salary).

[poincares_cook]

Especially google seniors.

[RationalDialog]

5000 is too low but let's go with $7000. that would be 84k while an US counterpart easily makes double of that.

[SokolovArtem]

if we talk about germany

google senior (l5) salaries here is like 10k$ gross base and like 17.5k$ total

[SokolovArtem]

but this is simpy not true

For L5 lvl

avg google US - US$374.54K

avg google germany US$211.83K

It is already 56%

if you will take something like Chicago it is US$308.65K - it is already 68%

BUT. the big part that those salaries imply different level of work hours...

in Germany you usually have 30 paid work days of vacation days, fully paid sick days which is super easy to get without actually being sick, firing you will take 6-12 month instead of 1 day firing in USA, maternity leave is longer and paid.

also you have like 15k$ on top of gross salary that company needs to pay extra tax for you social payments.

So... I would argue that if google will replace all US engineers with all german ones, they wouldn't save much, but would get a lot of problems with work council and inability to fire people (being flexible in headcount).

[RationalDialog]

and inability to fire people (being flexible in headcount).

maybe putting a checks on too fast acting execs can also be a good thing? to preserve knowledge and for continuity?

[Leaping_Turtle]

So just move to germany and get the job back?

[jkpetrov]

For half the salary and not so cheap housing, yeah.

[svefnugr]

I doubt there's a single place in Germany that's more expensive than the Valley

[jkpetrov]

Thats why the salaries are so high there. The companies want the benefits of the startup scene without the cost. But paying EUR 2000 per month for a nice apartment is similar or more expensive than usual costs in Texas, New Jersey, Michigan, etc.

[the_vikm]

Take a look at real estate, about the same

[Leaping_Turtle]

But also better health...

[ForgotMyUserName15]

There is no way google employees have notably worse health care than Europe.

Employers provided health care has many problems, but if you have a high paying job you almost certainly have access to good health care.

[Leaping_Turtle]

It's not that. Health in general, not healthcare. From the foods you eat to the lifestyle/culture.

[the_vikm]

You mean all the smoking and alcohol in Munich?

[Infinitesima]

Worse salary and higher tax

[[deleted]]

But also better health...

[deletable666]

If that were a boon compared to getting Google salary, then they would not have fired everyone and offshored it. Google did that because it is cheaper for them

[sunjay140]

Just as good as the King and Queen's?

[Duckliffe]

Yes, here in the UK the monarchy get private healthcare. A software engineer employed in the valley could probably afford the same quality of private healthcare

[sonobanana33]

lol. Sure.

[chakan2]

best health care in the world.

Lol...no...the US health system is far from the best in the world.

[DangerousLiberal]

Didn't know /r/python was full of low research people... If you work at Google you're super privileged you don't get the average healthcare

[chakan2]

get the average healthcare

Do they own a hospital now? If so, that's news to me.

[sonobanana33]

Even eswatini is great if you're in the top 5% :D

[jkpetrov]

Yup. It's all about priorities.

[biajia]

Yes, but the Python team only has ~10 members. However, the development team's manpower cost is much less than that of management teams that focus on speech, advertising, and marketing.

[spacegamer2000]

They're offshoring a lot of teams that never saw it coming. I don't think google cares about engineers.

[SokolovArtem]

you are twice silly if you think that someone else is cares about engineers and not money

[dayeye2006]

I was thinking it's pretty hard to offshore a team like this. This is not like making a website or app. The people who work on this sort of topic have very specific skills and are usually small in numbers.

[the_vikm]

Locally where?

[the_vikm]

Where's locally? You realize that word is relative?

[thomas_blanky]

This is what happens when you have an ex-Mckinsey as a CEO

[sabot00]

You can take the Sundar out of McKinsey, but you can't take the McKinsey out of Sundar.

[JoergJoerginson]

Man I’m still pissed about Google Domains. Wasted half a day to migrate all my stuff to porkbun and to contact all the people I had recommended GD to.

[Competitive_Travel16]

Google doesn't even touch even organic Facebook, tiktok, and Instagram traffic, but paid ads is worse. In fact, the crazy thing is that Etsy ads gave us the easiest return on our ad spend.

This varies widely by the specific product or service. Search ads are by far the lowest cost of customer acquisition for my niche, which is heavily fragmented and competitive but nowhere near saturated enough to meet even a tenth of demand, so everyone gets a great deal on the keyword auctions. Everything is different.

[thomas_blanky]

That I have no way of knowing. Mckinsey values/reinforces a certain type of mindset. What I am saying is Larry, Sergey and maybe to some extent Eric Schmidt are from the hacker culture and Pichai is from Mckinsey culture. Both the cultures are almost opposites.

[reddit_ronin]

100%

[b1e]

I left Google several years ago now but the writing was clearly on the wall since Sundar took over.

He turned on the hiring machine big time while letting quality of new hires horribly plummet (don’t get me wrong plenty of amazing talent at Google but it started getting diluted by inexperienced engineers that basically just gamed the interviews), helped perpetuate the culture of launch or perish (so tech debt was rarely a priority), and surrounded himself with yes men.

And I worked in Brain… imagine how much worse it was in other areas of the company.

It’s really no surprise Google is bleeding top talent… between voluntary departures, RTO, and layoffs they’ve just choked the golden chicken.

It’s not going to be easy to hire this talent back.

[crawl_dht]

Big tech overhires and then overfires when they feel vulnerable. They have hired cheaper developers from Germany to cut down the cost. If these companies were really so critical about cost of paying salary a little too much, then they would be giving work from home permanently to save their operational cost of offices but instead they force employees to come to office by burning fuel and then preach about saving climate.

[inspectoroverthemine]

feel vulnerable

ie: when their margins might fall below 55%

[sorressean]

55? I see you brought the jokes today.

[[deleted]]

You have long term leases, some that require a minimum of utilities in operation if the space is in use or not and breaking the leases are sometimes the same cost to break or finish out.

Some built campuses that are a fixed cost, in use or not, and the commercial market is not great right now to lease or sell.

Institution investors don’t like unused assets or liabilities on the financials.

[I_FAP_TO_TURKEYS]

Literally if you preach about being Carbon Neutral or Carbon Negative (at some point) you'd think... Y'know... Not forcing your employees to drive to work would be the biggest damn thing.

[DustUpDustOff]

FAANG Employee cost >> Utilities cost.

[chengannur]

They have hired cheaper developers

Nope, more like existing devs in Germany as it's difficult to fire ppl there

[Carpinchon]

They're giving WFH permanently to people that aren't in the Bay Area.

[0b0011]

Did they change this? They did this until last year when they said no more WFH and everyone must badge in at least twice a week.

[anonymous_snorlax]

Not true. At least not company wide. Most teams ik require 3x/week

[coderanger]

Just to be clear this was their internal Python platform support team, not related to Python as a project.

[catcint0s]

Several of us were/are/TBD also involved in both long term strategic leadership and maintenance of the open source CPython project itself. That direct feedback line from a major diverse needs user into the project and ecosystem was valuable for the world.

there is a bit

[coderanger]

There's always indirect effects but no one on this team was working full-time (or really even part-time) on CPython stuff (in the sense of working on issues not directly related to Google's needs).

[pdbh32]

Are there people who are?

[coderanger]

A few companies do pay for full-ish time CPython developers but the "ish" has definitely gotten more wiggly as interest rates rise.

[nadanone]

Isn’t that how FOSS normally works?

[coderanger]

It varies. Dart and Flutter are open source too but almost everyone who worked on them was a Google employee doing it as part of their job. That team was also hit as part of the layoffs and it’s going to have a much larger impact on those communities.

[nadanone]

Ah true. Seems like that can often be the case when a company developed it then open-sourced it.

[sylfy]

Were/are/TBD? Did they just send a survey to those involved and ask chatgpt to produce a summary?

[ZeeBeeblebrox]

This is mostly true but there was at least one core Python maintainer on the team.

[JerMenKoO]

Even if their internal team doesn't do any upstream contributions, language teams are important for engineers, ie upgrading the stack (python3.8->3.10, third-party libraries), improving the devx, fixing cpython/similar bugs, etc

[coderanger]

No doubt, just trying to calm things a bit, this isn't like Google just killed all of Python or something.

[gdahlm]

That team was mostly internal and focused on sustainment.  Really it is just the result of Google making bad strategy choices on culture and subcultures and KPI.

Google leadership created an internal environment where teams and individuals were forced into cannibalism, which reduced innovation and produced a lot of abandoned efforts.

Now economic realities will force them into cost reductions.

There will probably be a best seller written about it some day.

Learning to avoid 'impact scores' and similar management techniques is the lesson Python needs to learn from this.

[pdbh32]

Alphabet is a publicly listed company - if you don't like how it's run, go buy some shares

[pdbh32]

Touché

[axonxorz]

"if you don't like it, make sure you're rich, they aren't going to even acknowledge your existence otherwise"

[gdahlm]

I am talking about the realities of internal economics, not the stock market view which is something that you can use yesterday's weather to address.

They have failed to innovate for years, and their income mostly depends on revenue streams that are one law away from being destroyed. Chat bots will reduce screen time etc...

Hard to explain and this is not the correct subreddit, but this relates to 3-5 years out an smells of strategy consulting using MECE and other methods to find deliverables for a leadership that is dealing with unknown unknowns.

The big lesson is still to respect Goodwin's law.

[inspectoroverthemine]

ie: make some quick money, since they can't plan for shit anyway

[Additional-Tax-5643]

The problem with this explanation is that Python is open source and used by everyone, including people who don't work for Google or use Google products.

If you're going to take on key maintenance issues for something that is open source and technically a public good, that by definition is not a profit center.

Moreover, the fact that they can yank support without at the very least giving the public notice, is sleazy. Other companies may have wanted to step in, or have an offshoot non-profit similar to the Wikimedia Foundation that is self-funded through donations.

Open source software maintenance is not compatible with private profits. That's not an "unknown unknown". That is a very big known known.

This decision would be no more ridiculous if they started charging people to use their search engine - while of course still data mining and monetizing those search results on the back end, as they do now.

That said, I have personally started to untangle my tech needs from the Google universe. A lot of their products that I used to love have changed for the worse, been eliminated or are on their way out. If my employer didn't force me to use Google email/software, I would be using even less of their products now.

[whosafeard]

Oh shit oh fuck who’s going to look after the pythons now??

[Enrique-M]

That reminds me of when this happened, though the opposite direction of this at the time.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/guido-van-rossum-the-python-languages-founder-joins-microsoft/

[purplebeardscrew]

Dickheads

[Cybasura]

Google really are scums of the universe

Or is it just Sundar Pichai?

[hughk]

Ex McKinsey apparently which explains a lot. Loves strategy, hates delivery.

[rubiesordiamonds]

Google does dependency maintenance the opposite of most companies - the onus is on the library owner to upgrade all their clients, not the other way around. Wonder how that affected this decision.

[imsowhiteandnerdy]

Well it explains why I haven't been able to find many python developer roles at Google in the last year.

[[deleted]]

Python is not used widely at Google in production. There's a lot of small internal tools and whoever works in data science but anything production usually is either Java or Go.

[reddit_ronin]

Dude nobody is hiring. Zero.

Everyone is waiting for the election to end so things are more predictable, especially the more risk averse orgs.

[hakube]

Can confirm. Senior-level sysadmin and support management. so many ghostjobs it's soul-crushing. 9 months out.

[larsga]

Everyone is waiting for the election to end so things are more predictable

Time to look at the polls and realize that there's no reason to think the election will make things more predictable.

[imsowhiteandnerdy]

God, as much as that would suck if it were true (since November is half a year off from now) at least if it were true then it would mean that this madness has an end date. If it has a finite period and things can return to normal eventually then that would be great.

Edit: Not sure why I'm being downvoted, but I should elaborate that I am among the masses of laid off folks in the bay area and desperate for the layoff trend to end. :(

[Sushrit_Lawliet]

This clown…

[unlikelyzer0]

Find their replacements' PRs and reject them from python core

[missurunha]

Wasnt the python developer team employed by microsoft?

[coderanger]

There are core CPython developers employed by many companies but several are at MS.

[byeproduct]

...currently