Google offers 'voluntary exit' to all US platforms and devices employees

This seems like a pretty bold and employee-friendly move. Google recently merged two large divisions, so there's going to be some redundancy. Most companies would resolve this with a layoff, but it sounds like they're trying a buyout at the request of their employees. From the article:

> Some employees at Google have recently been circulating a petition that calls for CEO Sundar Pichai to offer exactly this type of optional buyout before resorting to involuntary layoffs. “Ongoing rounds of layoffs make us feel insecure about our jobs,” the petition said, according to CNBC.

Conventional wisdom is that with voluntary buyouts, high-performing employees who have the most options will leave and lower-performing employees will stay.

We'll see how it turns out.

If I'm a highly-paid, high-performing employee, I'm not walking away from a big paycheck and lots of clout. If I was a middling employee without a big paycheck, looking at the prospect of months of job searching once I get laid off, I'd take the buyout and use it to start searching full time.

> Google recently merged two large divisions, so there's going to be some redundancy

I don't see why - it was corporate games of thrones stuff, the hardware VP got the software VP's toys. (disclaimer: worked 7 years in P&E until I left in 2023)

The trick is knowing you're in the second group (and conveniently, this came roughly a week after everyone got their performance review results)

Seems like the opposite happens. The high-performing employee is getting unsolicited job offers all the time — can skip off to a higher salary somewhere else. Middling employee knows a bird in the hand when they see it.

Perhaps you can help me answer a question I've had for a long time. How is that hardware VP still there? It seems to me from the outside much better fits have been pushed out, but he's still hanging on. Is he really that good that these games?

You may think Google cares about your performance but when the involuntary layoffs come, it's the highest earners who are first cut. Google is hoping the high earners leave because that saves the most money. There is no long/term thought here, it's short-sighted stock bumps from a company already rolling in money.

Also, for a lot of people working on hardware, the alternatives aren't great. Big Tech players like Apple, Meta, Amazon, etc. all have downsides. Startsups are extremely risky, and don't pay employees as well (ex: Humane, Rabbit, Peleton, etc.)

A slightly better story for those working on software (e.g. Google Photos App or Backend). They have more options, but relatively good jobs (high pay, flexibility, great coworkers non-crazy hours, etc.) as still hard to come by. They exist, but not sure about the quantity.

I imagine it's mostly going to be folks who were planning to leave anyway, and this is the nudge they needed to do it sooner.

The downside to this approach is that they will probably tilt more towards senior and staff engineers who have been driving important projects and likely were going to leave once the project ships (or cancels).

Now, they leave 6 months earlier, and leave teams full of new or junior level employees without much context. The company is full of smart folks though and they will recover. It will just be a painful year as teams scramble to figure everything out.

It's also a potential F-U to Meta's approach who just did broadcasted performance based layoffs. Future employees will keep note and it will make it harder for Meta to recruit.

Theoretically, but in practice I'm not sure recruiters or other companies can tell the difference between a high performer and a mid-performer.

> This seems like a pretty bold and employee-friendly move. Google recently merged two large divisions, so there's going to be some redundancy. Most companies would resolve this with a layoff, but it sounds like they're trying a buyout at the request of their employees.

Or they’re afraid the union at Google will gain more traction. The employees should unionize now before the layoffs happen.

Why?

I was an early hire at a company that became a Big Tech in this position and I left even without a buyout. Well compensated employees might not be top 1% rich but they're usually wealthy enough to find a different shop and tolerate some risk while living comfortably. I found over time that my peers at Big Tech became way too disinterested in making things and more interested in corporate politics or maximizing compensation for unit effort spent. If I had been offered a buyout I would have taken it in a heartbeat.

(Consequently, when I read these threads I'm reminded of my good fortune of building my career in Silicon Valley. The kind of work environment I like is hard enough to find in the Valley but would have been impossible to find outside.)

I agree, they can't, unless we're talking like true experts in a field. Which is a very small % of the people.

My thinkings basically the same as yours. I probably also have about as much info as you on the matter, but then again, even knowing the "facts on the ground" aren't misaligned with that conclusion says something.

I honestly don't really know if there were better alternatives. But I definitely lost a lot of faith somewhere between the Google IO where they packed every announcement for the next two years they could think of, managing to announce AR glasses again, only to have to cancel them a year later.

If the sell was professionalism via Motorola experience, that's not what happened.

But quite the loyal soldier, I think the public record has a very clear accounting of how many boneheaded decisions were made at the altar of Good Budgeting*, and the MBAs have thoroughly ate the company in general. They must enjoy his work.

* bungling maintaining the tablet; marching onto a nonsensical goal to have Android eat ChromeOS while embarrassing themselves publicly mumbling about how its because AI, when really, its because politics. Meanwhile fantastic software work that would have fit right into a world with LLMs was shitcanned at the altar of Efficiency™ and focusing on getting products out.

> high-performing employees who have the most options will leave and lower-performing employees will stay.

How do you figure? High-performing employees will stay because they're not worried about impending layoffs. Lower-performing employees will leave because they know they're on the chopping block.

Google is also notorious for having tons of talented deadwood, since they don't want them to go to other companies. Such companies are ripe for cutting the fat.

I believe the ChromeOS -> Android move was because the CrOS model of having Google pay for the testing support of partner devices was not working out, and moving towards Android's model would cut costs while also cutting duplicate development costs.

When you do layoffs, all the employees who didn’t get laid off this time will start wondering if they’ll be next, and they’ll look for a new job. The best employees are the ones who’ll find it easiest to get another job, and they’ll leave.

This kind of nonsense was definitely a factor in cancelling my upcoming Meta interviews.

I'd like to think that if I (or anyone) was not performing up to par, our managers would TELL US instead of the CEO deciding to do a layoff and character assassination. One of these is productive, the other one puts on a show for Wall Street at the expense of your employees.

It didn't help that Meta demanded that I re-interview for the same level that I interviewed for and they offered me two years ago, either.

The Google union, AWU, is a complete clownshow and more focused on TVCs than engineers. They suggest engineers pay insanely high dues so that they can spend it on other people.

It's a bunch of new college graduates LARPing as the leaders of a real labor movement and could not become a federally recognized union even if it tried. If I hadn't met some of the people in charge and seen how serious they were about it, I'd think that the whole thing was a plant designed to stop an actual engineers' union from forming.

Incompetent VPs have a way of sticking around at Google and rising up into higher positions of power even if employee surveys show managers and ICs underneath have no confidence in them, at least based on the bad VPs I had to deal with while I was there (in a different org).

I've been fortunate that my manager previously told me "if you're surprised at the performance review, I've failed at my job". That feels like the right approach - everyone should know their situation as soon as something starts going wrong, not suddenly at company-level layoffs.

Fascinating...I did well-known work at G, but at the end of the day just a line-level report on Android. I'm a little bit surprised, but, in ways a line-level report would be. Naive ways. (who cares!? You gotta test on partner devices anyway!! and who cares?! Google can afford it!)

Thinking on it, it's rational if that was the impetus. Why lose money? I guess I'm more sore over BSing ('because AI'), that TQ was shitcanned in the name of "let's ship devices", just to turn around and do N years of getting ChromeOS onto Android. Finally, I always saw ChromeOS as *awesome*, much better than Win/macOS...modulo the hardware...and the Linux VM perf penalty...but man its complex. To start unwinding the Android VM perf penalty, you'd have to shift off an Android VM onto Android anyway...

gah I should stop writing. Tough problems, no easy answers.

Just really disappointed it went this route. I joined G in 2016 as an Apple fanboy and was really chuffed by this new hardware division that'd induce discipline and steadily build out a real ecosystem. It's 9 years later, there's no real commitment beyond the phone and watch, which were both ~ready in 2016, and multiple half-assed commitments that were rolled back.

True, unions, in general, hurt employees no matter how competent or incompetent said unions are. Unions are the privatization of governmental bureaucracy: more evil than "exploitative" big tech corps.

Rick must be good at executive politics.

Mergers of orgs this big are rarely about organization efficiency and are instead about scope and retention for SVPs. Rick wanted more power. Sundar must like Rick. So Rick got more power.

Using this as an excuse for layoffs (we all know that after the voluntary ones will come the non-voluntary ones) is garbage. The people making the decision to merge these orgs knew how big they were. It isn't like this is a surprise to anybody.

This is my org, use to be on the Pixel Watch, and I can tell you - all the best talent has already left.

Having to do the work of 3 people is a great way to become low performing...