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

(www.cnbc.com)
574 points frays | 1 comments | 27 Aug 25 21:16 UTC | HN request time: 0.331s | source
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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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1. 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.