Google Cuts More Than 100 Design-Related Roles In Cloud Unit 20
Google has laid off over 100 employees in design-related roles, including user experience research and cloud design teams, as part of broader cost-cutting measures to prioritize AI infrastructure. CNBC reports: Earlier this week, the company laid off employees within the cloud unit's "quantitative user experience research" teams and "platform and service experience" teams, as well as some adjacent teams, according to internal documents viewed by CNBC. The roles often focus on using data, surveys and other tools to understand and implement user behaviors that inform product development and design. Google has halved some of the cloud unit's design teams, and many of those affected are U.S.-based roles. Some employees have been given until early December to find a new role within the company.
Re: So, finally... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
LOL yes, this certainly mean that UX is now "dead".
Was it ever even alive?
If anything is purely Jobswerthian, an expression of underwater basket weaving, it had to be UX. Something invented so someone can justify getting a pay cheque without actually having any skills or qualifications.
Re: (Score:3)
Jobswerthian, an expression of underwater basket weaving
A "jobsworth" does not refer to a useless job, but to a worker who does the absolute minimum, hiding behind regulations, and fobbing off any demand to do some actual work with "That's more than my job's worth". Hence the name.
Oxford dictionary: (Score:2)
Jobsworth, n.
"an official who upholds petty rules even at the expense of humanity or common sense."
Re: (Score:2)
the totally useless bullshit called "UX"
user interface design is a serious, necessary and surprisingly difficult discipline. "ux" was just a pompous name introduced as the field started to get taken over by a generation of charlatans. this has happened across the board in software disciplines, but user interface land seems to have been the more sensible and vulnerable target. i mean, you can shout "but it's web scale!" all day long but when stuff breaks shit gets serious and some sanity is brought back in. if that happens in an ui you just piss o
Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
100 people are peanuts compared to Google's cloud size. Letting them go is stupid unless they were not doing any work and were not expected to ever doing real work.
Well, I guess Google is just one more of those that do not know how to do it anymore or are on their way there.
Re: (Score:2)
What is "Google's cloud"? A division for any group could be split up in any number of ways with thousands of employees not doing anything related to these. 100s of employees in what sounds like a small sub department could very well simply be a change in strategy to not do that kind of work anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
Got any more than flinging crap in the hopes of some may stick?
Re: (Score:2)
100 people are peanuts compared to Google's cloud size. Letting them go is stupid unless they were not doing any work and were not expected to ever doing real work.
Perhaps the truth is that the executives and managers feel like getting rid of positions and people is "doing work" and making a contribution. Google has long been criticized for internal politics and jockeying for recognition, leading to the canceling of projects and products solely to make a change that can be recognized during performance reviews.
Mature products go into maintenance mode.... (Score:2)
The general cloud services, managing them, documentation and more are now 15 years old and large number of services are mature products.
Mature products need less and less development, design and documentation effort over time leading to a long-term baseline cost to staff and support.
The handful of new cloud services introduced each year need a much smaller staff.
The question would be "Would anyone worry if IBM let go most of its designers for the text mode mainframe interfaces?"
Seems implausible. (Score:4, Funny)
Re: implausible [as Google has no design] (Score:3)
Yes, in the Dark Patterns Department. They were competing with Amazon. [natlawreview.com]
Not AI (Score:2)
This is what classism looks like (Score:3)
Why share the wealth when you can just fire all the workers and keep it for yourselves. The people at the top are already excessively compensated and this will make it worse. Google is a blight, it needs to be broken up and disbanded. They are ripping us all off, adsense is a scam to cheat and steal form content creators and shove corporate manipulation down our throats. Google is evil.
On to the next Buzzword (Score:2)
"Cloud" is out, "AI" is in, until it isn't.
I hope the AI hype poppage is a soft landing rather than a repeat of 2008. That one hurt.
20-yo Savants Account (Score:1)