Employees who were laid off say that Google fired people from key teams like Flutter, Dart, Python, and others before its annual I/O developer meeting in May. The news was shared on social media by those who were affected. Google told TechCrunch that they were letting people go, but they wouldn’t say which teams or jobs were affected or how many people were let go.
Alex García-Kummert, a spokesperson for Google, said, “As we’ve said, we’re responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the big opportunities ahead.” “To get ready for these chances, many of our teams made changes in the second half of 2023 and early 2024 to work better and more efficiently, get rid of unnecessary layers, and make sure their resources were focused on the most important products.” By doing this, we’re making our structures simpler so that workers have more time to work on our most innovative and important projects and our top business priorities. At the same time, we’re cutting down on red tape and unnecessary layers of management, he said.
As it turned out, the layoffs were not for the whole company. Instead, they were part of a normal reorganization process. People who are affected will be able to apply for other open jobs at Google, we’ve been told.
A PM from Flutter and Dart wrote on X that the cuts had hurt “a LOT of teams” and that “lots of great projects lost people.”
As Google PM Kevin Moore wrote in the Flutter development community on Reddit, “We’re sad, but still cranking hard on I/O and beyond,” he also said that Flutter and Dart weren’t hurt more or less than other teams. “We know how much you care about the project, the team, and the great environment we’ve made together. You’re scared. I see it. We understand. You are putting your money on Dart and Flutter. I feel the same way. “Google is the same,” he said.
Google also told TechCrunch that Flutter will have new versions to show off at I/O this year.
In a different Reddit message, someone else said that the Python team that was being laid off was in charge of the internal Python runtimes and toolchains and worked with OSS Python. “Several current and former core developers and steering council members” were in this group, they said.
Others shared on Y Combinator’s Hacker News, where a member of the Python team explained their technical tasks and said that for years, most of the work was done by less than 10 people. Another Hacker News commenter said that in their first few years on the Python team, they had to pay off internal technical debt that had built up because they didn’t have a strong Python plan.
“Even though we didn’t have enough staff, our bosses were great at keeping the work-life balance and the “marathon, not sprint” way of working. “Like I said in another comment, I’ll miss it a lot; it’s the best job I’ve ever had,” they wrote.
“Google was one of the first places where a lot of people used Python.” “The user gpshead also said that it was the last major backend language to get a language team.”
Google didn’t say how many people were laid off, but a WARN notice made on April 24 may have confirmed some of them. The California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN, says that companies with more than 100 workers must give 60 days’ notice before laying off workers. Google said in the document that it was letting go of 50 workers in three sites in Sunnyvale.
People on social media were worried about the cuts in Python because of the important role that Python tools play in AI. Others, though, said that Google didn’t get rid of its Python team; instead, it replaced it with a group based in Munich. This is what Python Steering Council member Thomas Wouters said in a post on Mastodon last Thursday.
“It’s a tough day when everyone you work with directly, including your manager, is fired or, better yet, “had their roles reduced,” and you have to train their replacements, who are upset about having to do the same job in a different country,” he said.
Also Read: A Message From Sundar Pichai to the Google Staff: More Layoffs Are Coming
In line with local laws, Google said it would help all affected workers by giving them time to look for new jobs at Google or elsewhere, access to outplacement services, and severance pay.
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