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    Google has eliminated 35% of managers overseeing small teams in past year

    (www.cnbc.com)
    574 points frays | 29 comments | 27 Aug 25 21:16 UTC | HN request time: 0.429s | source | bottom
    1. mikestew ◴[27 Aug 25 21:52 UTC] No.45045782[source]▶
    The 35% reduction refers to the number of managers who oversee fewer than three people, according to a person familiar with the matter.

    If you oversee 0-2 people, in most cases that’s probably not an efficient ratio. How did Google get so many folks in that position in the first place? And I assume the other 65% take up the slack to fluff their teams? Or what? Leave the other 65% managing 0-2 people?

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    2. TheBigSalad ◴[27 Aug 25 21:54 UTC] No.45045800[source]▶
    How is it not efficient?
    replies(3): >>45045873 #>>45045880 #>>45046167 #
    3. bayindirh ◴[27 Aug 25 21:55 UTC] No.45045814[source]▶
    By plucking employees from larger teams until said teams have 0-2 people.
    4. jeffbee ◴[27 Aug 25 21:55 UTC] No.45045815[source]▶
    The article says they were converted to ICs so these were TLMs or similar people. It sounds like the headline is clickbait and what's really been eliminated is small teams.
    5. andreimackenzie ◴[27 Aug 25 21:56 UTC] No.45045827[source]▶
    From my experience: re-orgs and limiting backfills for attrition can lead to these awkward states. Someone starts off with a sensible number of directs, but it can devolve over time.
    6. tibbar ◴[27 Aug 25 22:00 UTC] No.45045863[source]▶
    For a team that size, you would assume the manager is only spending around half of their time on people management and probably around half their time working directly on whatever the team does. It can be a good arrangement if the goal is just to give a little more leverage to the manager, but it's also equally possible that the manager doesn't have time to do anything particularly well. Also, a lot of time a part-time line manager like that won't have enough organizational clout to look out properly for the team.

    Having tried that arrangement a few times, I think it's better to have small pods where everyone is an engineer and then all the pods report up to a dedicated people manager.

    7. n1b0m ◴[27 Aug 25 22:00 UTC] No.45045873[source]▶
    I guess it depends on what other responsibilities the manager has. If a manager has too little to do, they might over-manage their small team, constantly checking in on their work, which is inefficient and demoralising.
    8. Etheryte ◴[27 Aug 25 22:01 UTC] No.45045880[source]▶
    If managers oversee 0-2 people in a company, that means it's roughly just one person managing one person managing one etc.
    replies(1): >>45050153 #
    9. jldugger ◴[27 Aug 25 22:23 UTC] No.45046087[source]▶
    Not a Goolger but my experience is that this is usually an optimistic promotion where someone is made a manager with the expectation of growing headcount later. But later never happens, or coincides with turnover to the degree that they never bubble up to a decent span of control.
    10. michaelt ◴[27 Aug 25 22:33 UTC] No.45046167[source]▶
    In certain types of company, it's workers without management responsibilities who do the work that brings in the money.

    Think of a delivery company, for example, where drivers make deliveries, which is what the company gets paid for. Too many managers - AKA too few employees per manager - will sink the company, because managers draw a salary but don't make deliveries.

    Of course, this analysis might not work as well for a company like Google. I'm pretty sure I can publish an ad without any human intervention on Google's end, so maybe they have no equivalent to the drivers, making the ratio incalculable.

    11. toast0 ◴[27 Aug 25 22:39 UTC] No.45046207[source]▶
    IMO, overseeing 0 people is great. I'm not likely to take any position where I have to oversee more or less than that; although I'm willing to compromise and oversee one person where they're actually independent and I don't have to do much overseeing.
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    12. JCM9 ◴[27 Aug 25 22:48 UTC] No.45046272[source]▶
    Fewer than 3 people? That almost never makes sense. Right on Google to sort that out but I’d have a lot of questions for whatever leaders allowed such nonsense to develop on their watch in the first place.

    Also 35% is way too low if it’s really less than three. Should be more like eliminating 95% of those scenarios.

    13. LambdaComplex ◴[27 Aug 25 22:48 UTC] No.45046278[source]▶
    > overseeing 0 people is great. I'm not likely to take any position where I have to oversee more or less than that;

    I would have so many questions if I got an offer for a position where I had to oversee less than 0 people

    replies(1): >>45046409 #
    14. QuadmasterXLII ◴[27 Aug 25 22:50 UTC] No.45046285[source]▶
    In some circumstances it can be an effective way to lose efficiency in exchange for velocity- basically there are large tasks that can’t be developed by a team any faster than by an individual ( mythical man month) because they are fundamentally sequential not parallel. In these cases there are often parallel subtasks, so you can buy some speed by having one individual forging ahead as if they are the only one on the project, and then rope in the team for parallelizable subtasks. Instead of any amount of decision-making or communication overhead, everyone jumps when the team lead says jump – this is the step that bounds performance to not be slower than a solo project.

    Being the team lead in this sort of structure is grand fun, of course, but being a team member is brutal on the ego, and requires enormous skill to be a boost to velocity instead of a drag. Thus, it requires ridiculous compensation, even if you’re mostly sitting idle when the project is in a serial phase. it’s the sort of play that I could believe 2012 google could profitably execute and 2025 Google can’t.

    15. mkoubaa ◴[27 Aug 25 22:56 UTC] No.45046335[source]▶
    It's only inefficient if the manager only had management responsibilities, which I doubt is the case in most of these situations.
    16. deltaburnt ◴[27 Aug 25 23:07 UTC] No.45046408[source]▶
    When I started, I was told that one of the easier ways to get promo at L5 was to become a manager. I don't know how true that was at the time, but I think this could be a consequence of that sort of local optimizing. I think now they don't even allow you to be a manager at L5 unless you're grandfathered in?
    replies(1): >>45047918 #
    17. fuzzy_biscuit ◴[27 Aug 25 23:07 UTC] No.45046409{3}[source]▶
    Would that mean you have to undersee one or more people? cue rimshot
    replies(1): >>45046791 #
    18. ◴[27 Aug 25 23:38 UTC] No.45046621[source]▶
    19. shoo ◴[28 Aug 25 00:05 UTC] No.45046791{4}[source]▶

      Up on the shore they work all day
  Out in the sun they slave away
  While we devotin'
  Full time to floatin'
  Under the sea
    20. omoikane ◴[28 Aug 25 00:39 UTC] No.45047000[source]▶
    Overseeing 0 people is great if your role is an individual contributor. If your role is a manager and there is no one for you to manage, it would seem that your role is redundant.
    21. dyauspitr ◴[28 Aug 25 02:11 UTC] No.45047565[source]▶
    It’s that semi role of being a “manager” while still writing code. They’re just doing away with that role and having dedicated people managers and dedicated engineers.
    22. lmm ◴[28 Aug 25 02:12 UTC] No.45047573[source]▶
    Sometimes there are products where 1-3 people is the right size of team for that product; letting a team that size exist can be better than trying to smush together two or three unrelated products to fit a bigger team. Per other comments these are TLM positions where the manager is also expected to contribute technically.
    23. pfannkuchen ◴[28 Aug 25 03:07 UTC] No.45047918[source]▶
    Search and ads, at least, had the L6 requirement for manager going back as long as I’m aware. I was under the impression that the requirement was relaxed at some point in some of the less revenue critical orgs, but that the L6 restriction actually goes back a long way.
    replies(1): >>45048319 #
    24. aix1 ◴[28 Aug 25 04:14 UTC] No.45048319{3}[source]▶
    FWIW I was L5 manager (on the SWE ladder) in two PAs. The L6 requirement did exist but in my experience was quite soft. All that my management had to do was justify to the VP that I was capable of doing the job and would soon be ready for promo to L6 (though the first org got nuked and the promo took a long time).
    replies(1): >>45049132 #
    25. pfannkuchen ◴[28 Aug 25 06:38 UTC] No.45049132{4}[source]▶
    Interesting. Where I was I never saw an exception to the L6 rule.
    26. pmontra ◴[28 Aug 25 08:07 UTC] No.45049675[source]▶
    I'm sure that some company has managers overseeing imaginary and complex people.
    27. LudwigNagasena ◴[28 Aug 25 09:25 UTC] No.45050153{3}[source]▶
    Imagine you have a cohesive system that has 10 services, each service requires 1-3 people. The head of the system can assign 10 tech leads responsible for the overall quality of the services or they may have over 20 direct reports, most of whom have nothing of interest to report to the higher-up.
    28. ddoolin ◴[28 Aug 25 12:22 UTC] No.45051289[source]▶
    I am on a team of 2 people with a dedicated manager. That is, the manager does not write code and is not even really technical.

    It is awful, send help.

    29. abustamam ◴[28 Aug 25 13:42 UTC] No.45052082[source]▶
    I work for a startup with an engineering team size of about 6, and I manage one person. I agree it's not an efficient ratio but it works for now.

    I don't think mature enterprise companies should have managers of 0-2 people though.