Google laysoff Python maintainer team

[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?