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Google to lay off 12,000 staffs

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
When I hear about how great tech pay, I dont know how common all those awesome $150,000-200,000 jobs are. And I dont know what the typical starting salary is for a new grad, but all I know is in my industry (the type of shit you see selling at Walmart and grocery stores), that kind of money is Director level. You're a seasoned vet and got probably at least 5 people working for you, in which those people (middle managers) also have people working for them. And a new grad student being a sales rep or junior analyst might get $50,000-60,000. There is no way any kind of starting role hits $100,000 that fast.

The only individual people who might make that kind of money are top end senior account managers. Aside from them, no common other function makes that kind of money as a solo worker. You got to be a manager of some kind. Ok, there are some roles that might also make good money like senior tax guys and the legal team. But for the common kinds of roles and departments, it's not common to have swaths of young individual workers all making $150,000+.

As for being a project manager, I have no experience with that except from what I've heard from people I know who do it for a living as a seasoned vet. It can pay shit loads of money. And it has nothing to do with tech. One friend I know makes over $200,000 doing it and she has nobody reporting to her. She does her own thing ensuring new production runs flow smoothly from start to finish. Not a quick and dirty job as it can take years for a project to finally work. But it pays a lot.

In my city, with its mean / average household income of $80k USD, a brand new software engineer will earn about $80 - $90k, probably topping out around $200k if they stick with it for several years and find themselves some kind of specialized role. IT starts around $50k, any vocation and the low end is so slow because of all the small companies hiring, but also tops out around $200k for engineering roles like mine (I do not make $200k - closing in, but still far away IMO). Specialized roles is what you want in tech or IT. Like healthcare IT, my gig. Makes you more valuable with every day of experience and every hour using / coding for systems that need to be legally kept around for decades.

I guess I can put it this way: we hire interns during their third or fourth year of college and pay them about $30/hr, and work them about 20 hours a week. I would have been out of my mind earning $30/hr back when I was 19 or 20. That's how much tech and IT salaries have grown even in small cities like mine.
 
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akimbo009

Gold Member
When I hear about how great tech pay, I dont know how common all those awesome $150,000-200,000 jobs are. And I dont know what the typical starting salary is for a new grad, but all I know is in my industry (the type of shit you see selling at Walmart and grocery stores), that kind of money is Director level. You're a seasoned vet and got probably at least 5 people working for you, in which those people (middle managers) also have people working for them. And a new grad student being a sales rep or junior analyst might get $50,000-60,000. There is no way any kind of starting role hits $100,000 that fast.

The only individual people who might make that kind of money are top end senior account managers. Aside from them, no common other function makes that kind of money as a solo worker. You got to be a manager of some kind. Ok, there are some roles that might also make good money like senior tax guys and the legal team. But for the common kinds of roles and departments, it's not common to have swaths of young individual workers all making $150,000+.

As for being a project manager, I have no experience with that except from what I've heard from people I know who do it for a living as a seasoned vet. It can pay shit loads of money. And it has nothing to do with tech. One friend I know makes over $200,000 doing it and she has nobody reporting to her. She does her own thing ensuring new production runs flow smoothly from start to finish. Not a quick and dirty job as it can take years for a project to finally work. But it pays a lot.

150k for a software dev isn't unusual - though adjusted for region/cost of living (in US, higher in the west - lower in the east). But I also wouldn't say tech is all that young - it's not the 90s anymore and it's a pretty mature industry nowadays. It likely skews a bit younger, but not overly so in my experience.

I'd say the desire to be a program/project manager is borne from putting the books down and not having to chase the latest tech or skill to keep up with the evolving landscape. But that's why they get paid a lot - devs generate tons of revenue or productivity for a business but also as a career its demanding.

If it was easy, all those people you describe would just change jobs but it's not easy and harder to do well.
 
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BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
150k for a software dev isn't unusual - though adjusted for region/cost of living (in US, higher in the west - lower in the east). But I also wouldn't say tech is all that young - it's not the 90s anymore and it's a pretty mature industry nowadays. It likely skews a bit younger, but not overly so in my experience.

I'd say the desire to be a program/project manager is borne from putting the books down and not having to chase the latest tech or skill to keep up with the evolving landscape. But that's why they get paid a lot - devs generate tons of revenue or productivity for a business but also as a career its demanding.

If it was easy, all those people you describe would just change jobs but it's not easy and harder to do well.

We joke at my company about how we launch the careers of so many west coast techies. They intern with us, graduate, and then immediately depart for either California, Texas, or somewhere in Europe. They never, ever remain with us. Well, a few have, but they're typically from the area like the rest of us so already have roots. The rest of them kids? No way, as soon as they get offered that west coast money they are gone lol.
 

taylor34

Neo Member
Article bla bla

I have a feeling AI has a lot to with these recent lay offs.
AI doesn't have anything to do with it. Nobody is hiring/firing based upon that stuff. AI is like everything else, works really good in some situations, but also has a lot of limitations, and the last 10% to make it actually groundbreaking is a long ways in the future. It's the reason self driving cars haven't came out, that last 10% of situations (bad weather, animals in the road, road construction) is very hard to solve. I've asked that new Chat thing to do some stuff just to test it out, it either died after the request, gave me a different output every time I asked the question, or gave me a not great answer. So while it may be good at some things, the stuff I was asking it couldn't handle at all.
 

HoodWinked

Member
alot probably has to do with the economic slowdown, increasing interest rates, they were over-hiring for awhile but with near zero interest rates they were basically doing it for free. it makes sense they'll continue to do the same thing until it stops working. -12k would just put them back at trend.

B4sI7yp.png
 
I’m a software engineer at an Australian company, thankfully my company hasn’t experienced layoffs.

I feel for all of these people, 40,000 is a massive influx into the job market, competition and H1B concerns will be brutal.
 

taylor34

Neo Member
I looked, Microsoft and Google still have over 1k jobs open between them. This whole thing is just some sort of way to shift power back to employers. Businesswise it doesn't make any sense to have that many open jobs and lay people off at the same time without using some of them for reassignment to areas of need.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
alot probably has to do with the economic slowdown, increasing interest rates, they were over-hiring for awhile but with near zero interest rates they were basically doing it for free. it makes sense they'll continue to do the same thing until it stops working. -12k would just put them back at trend.

B4sI7yp.png
So the company has more than doubled head count from 72000 in 2016 to 156000 in 2021. +84000. I think they can give back -12000.
 

jakinov

Member
When I hear about how great tech pay, I dont know how common all those awesome $150,000-200,000 jobs are. And I dont know what the typical starting salary is for a new grad, but all I know is in my industry (the type of shit you see selling at Walmart and grocery stores), that kind of money is Director level. You're a seasoned vet and got probably at least 5 people working for you, in which those people (middle managers) also have people working for them. And a new grad student being a sales rep or junior analyst might get $50,000-60,000. There is no way any kind of starting role hits $100,000 that fast.

The only individual people who might make that kind of money are top end senior account managers. Aside from them, no common other function makes that kind of money as a solo worker. You got to be a manager of some kind. Ok, there are some roles that might also make good money like senior tax guys and the legal team. But for the common kinds of roles and departments, it's not common to have swaths of young individual workers all making $150,000+.

As for being a project manager, I have no experience with that except from what I've heard from people I know who do it for a living as a seasoned vet. It can pay shit loads of money. And it has nothing to do with tech. One friend I know makes over $200,000 doing it and she has nobody reporting to her. She does her own thing ensuring new production runs flow smoothly from start to finish. Not a quick and dirty job as it can take years for a project to finally work. But it pays a lot.

It's not that it's common. It's more that it's not uncommon. You can find those jobs easilly, but not everyone gets those jobs but there's thousands of those positions out there to apply for. The FAANG acornym used by investors sums it up pretty well. Facebook/Meta, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google pay stupidly well. They aren't the only ones though, they are just the more pretigious ones and the ones whose stocks people tend to like. There's a bunch of tech unicorns like all those gig service apps that pay really well. Shopify, Snap, Instacart, etc. Some older companies like Microsoft pay well.

A site a lot of software engiener use is called levels.fyi. I'll post some examples and links below.

To explain the Stock (/yr), people are offered a certain number of shares per year for next N years (normally 4) as part of their pay based on the value of a stock when joining . So if the stock of the company goes down the stock you are owed throughout the years goes down, but if stock goes up then when you actually own the stock you own something even more valuable. This is to motivate employees to care about making the stock go up instead of thinking "I get my pay cheque why do I care about the stock price". The values posted on the site is the amount of stock they were alloated based on the price they joined. When they actually get the stock it could worth more or less.

Here's Google Software Engineer average pay by level:

O4GklTp.png



Here's Microsoft (Because this gaming forum) Software Engineer average pay by level:

uZC8dMT.png



Here's Netflix (A FAANG company known for paying well) average pay by level:

WnAbJXU.png



Here's Instacart (A unicorn known for paying well) average pay by level:
tvZVYqI.png

 

Tams

Gold Member
When I hear about how great tech pay, I dont know how common all those awesome $150,000-200,000 jobs are. And I dont know what the typical starting salary is for a new grad, but all I know is in my industry (the type of shit you see selling at Walmart and grocery stores), that kind of money is Director level. You're a seasoned vet and got probably at least 5 people working for you, in which those people (middle managers) also have people working for them. And a new grad student being a sales rep or junior analyst might get $50,000-60,000. There is no way any kind of starting role hits $100,000 that fast.

The only individual people who might make that kind of money are top end senior account managers. Aside from them, no common other function makes that kind of money as a solo worker. You got to be a manager of some kind. Ok, there are some roles that might also make good money like senior tax guys and the legal team. But for the common kinds of roles and departments, it's not common to have swaths of young individual workers all making $150,000+.

As for being a project manager, I have no experience with that except from what I've heard from people I know who do it for a living as a seasoned vet. It can pay shit loads of money. And it has nothing to do with tech. One friend I know makes over $200,000 doing it and she has nobody reporting to her. She does her own thing ensuring new production runs flow smoothly from start to finish. Not a quick and dirty job as it can take years for a project to finally work. But it pays a lot.

It's a thing those payscales only really happen in tech (not all of it) and some parts of finance. There's some of it in the fossil fuel industry, and some people with rare skills can demand it too (quite a few of them end up going freelance).

A family friend was a geologist. He could pretty much work when (not day to day, but which periods of time) and where (not chose the place, but whether he wanted to do the job) and got paid a small fortune. And there was always someone with a job available for him.
 

Tams

Gold Member
Article bla bla

I have a feeling AI has a lot to with these recent lay offs.
Nah, not yet.

This is just most of the tech industry overhiring over the last few years. The number of people Google have hired since 2016 is insane. Way more than they really need.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Wow. Thanks for the tech pay charts. I didn't know it ramped up that much. When I'd hear about a google guy getting $200,000 or so. I thought that was the top end of the scale. But its more like the bottom of the scale.

Once you get to step 2 or step 3, you're hitting doctor money.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
Wow. Thanks for the tech pay charts. I didn't know it ramped up that much. When I'd hear about a google guy getting $200,000 or so. I thought that was the top end of the scale. But its more like the bottom of the scale.

Once you get to step 2 or step 3, you're hitting doctor money.
Those pay charts are hardly representative of the norm and should be taken with a grain of salt. The FAANG companies heavily skew the numbers on levels.fyi so you really need to filter out the Silicon Valley and PNW locations to get anything close to the actual average. Most don't get anywhere close to those numbers, not even in the most expensive markets. Many an entry level person has walked in to an interview with levels numbers in hand expecting a 6 figure offer right out of school only to leave deflated with an offer closer to reality.
 
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isual

Member
Been at 4/5 FAANG's myself, and I'm not surprised or empathetic to the people who lost theirs jobs. I know for a fact that a lot of them make a lot of money already, so they definitely got the good times.

Sucks for the new hires or those with less than 1 year at the job, but they're probably young; but if not, a big indicator in a person's success is how quickly then can 'get up' from a fall (such as being layed off).

New graduate hires with a bachelors for an SWE role starts at 110k-120k, no bonuses, small RSUS. Comparatively, graduate students start at 150k, negotiable bonus and rsu. Non-tech roles are dependent on their job title, but FAANGs do pay at the top of the market band width.
 

akimbo009

Gold Member
Pretty shit to see long time employees being let go without a face to face or proper notification.

On the other hand, I don't mind seeing people like these being let go.

Always the same fucking video posted. Why would you be happy they were laid off? Why would you be happy anyone anywhere were laid off?
 

TransTrender

Gold Member
Always the same fucking video posted. Why would you be happy they were laid off? Why would you be happy anyone anywhere were laid off?
I've worked at companies where I had to deal with absolute dead weight who made my job and others much harder than it needed to be and were absolute black holes of time, energy, and money. I was sooooo fucking glad, along with other people, when they were shit canned.

So yes.
You goddamn better believe it that me, and other people, celebrated when bad eggs were finally let go in these cullings.
 
I've worked at companies where I had to deal with absolute dead weight who made my job and others much harder than it needed to be and were absolute black holes of time, energy, and money. I was sooooo fucking glad, along with other people, when they were shit canned.

So yes.
You goddamn better believe it that me, and other people, celebrated when bad eggs were finally let go in these cullings.

No, you’re just jealous.
 

akimbo009

Gold Member
I've worked at companies where I had to deal with absolute dead weight who made my job and others much harder than it needed to be and were absolute black holes of time, energy, and money. I was sooooo fucking glad, along with other people, when they were shit canned.

So yes.
You goddamn better believe it that me, and other people, celebrated when bad eggs were finally let go in these cullings.

You know this person is a bad egg, from a single video? Riiiiiiiight.
 

Locutus

Member
Being laid off? Not really. It would have to be a really good package.

Of her job? No, not at all.
I make more than she ever did and I only deal with really cool people and cool projects.
Me too! Also, you should see my smoking hot girlfriend. She’s a model. She lives up in Canada, so she won’t be around for a while. Hopefully she can come visit this summer. But trust me, she is bangin’!
 

Durien

Member
Small fucking world. Like I always tell them: just work in IT. You do basically the same work, over less hours, for the same pay. Screw being a software engineer. Not worth it.

Until they outsource your job to save money. Talking from experience....Everyone happy with your work until the higher ups think they can save money...
 
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