Google Lays Programmers Ahead Google I/O 2024 Developer Party
- Technology giant Google has laid off a number of employees in its Flutter, Dart and Python programming teams.
What is ironic is that these layoffs were carried out only two weeks before the conference that brought together programmers, Google I/O 2024, was held.
The Google I/O "programmer party" itself will be held on May 14-15 2024. This annual event will announce updates related to the Android operating system, Wear OS, Gmail, and others. For those who are not familiar, Flutter is an open-source software development kit/SDK made by Google that is used to create cross-platform applications from a single code base.
Meanwhile, Dart is a programming language that powers Flutter. Python itself is a programming language that emphasizes code readability and code indentation. The information about these layoffs came from posts by affected employees on social media. Then, this news was confirmed directly by Google to the technology news site TechCrunch. However, Google did not specify the teams, roles and number of employees laid off.
However, the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications (WARN) warning filed in California on April 24 2024, indicated that there were 50 Google employees at three locations in Sunnyvale, California, USA who were affected by the layoffs this time. The WARN application is mandatory for companies that employ more than 100 employees in California.
"As we've said, we're responsibly investing in our company's biggest priorities and significant opportunities for the future," Google spokesperson Alex Garcia- Kummert told Tech Crunch.
"To put us in the best position to capitalize on this opportunity, throughout the second half of 2023 and into 2024, our teams are making changes to be more efficient, perform better, and align their resources with the biggest product prioritiesthem," he added.
Garcia-Kummert continued, Google provides more opportunities for employees to work on the company's most innovative products, while reducing bureaucracy and layers of employees. Google also confirmed that the layoffs did not occur company-wide, but were a reorganization that is considered normal in a business. Later, affected employees can apply for other open positions at Google.
Many teams were affected
Kevin Moore, Product Manager for Flutter and Dart, explained that these layoffs had an impact on many teams, although he did not reveal the number of employees in detail. This was conveyed through his post on social media X (formerly Twitter).
"The layoffs were decided by at least a few layers above our team and affected many teams, (I think I can say that). A lot of good people got bad news and a lot of big projects lost people," said Moore.
In a separate post on the Reddit forum, Moore admitted he was sad about Google's layoffs this time, but would still work hard on Google I/O and future projects.
According to Y Combinator's Hacker News news site, the Python teams impacted by the layoffs are those who manage the runtime, internal Python toolchain, and Python OSS. A number of employees are core developers and members of the steering committee on their team.
"We did all this for years with no more than ten employees. Even though the number is small, we have managers who can maintain a work-life balance," read a comment from Hacker News user with the handle @zem.
"This is the best job I have ever had, and I will miss it very much," he continued as quoted by KompasTekno from TechCrunch, Wednesday (1/5/2024).
On social media, many people expressed concerns in particular about the downsizing of the Python team, considering the programming tool's role in artificial intelligence.
However, Python Steering Council board member Thomas Wouters explained that Google did not eliminate the Python team, but replaced it with another team headquartered in Munich, Germany. "It's a tough day, when everyone who works with you directly is laid off, and you are asked to integrate replacement employees in the company, namely people who are told to take on the same role, the only difference is in the location," said Wouters inMastodon social media.
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