I know an extremely high performing engineer that was on a successful but completed project (not at Google). His whole team was given a few months to find a new position. Multiple managers tried to get them on their teams, but the transfers all were blocked at a higher level.

Eventually, he asked for and got severance pay. Shortly after, during the earnings call, the leadership told the investors they were reducing engineering spend by cutting hiring and consolidating programs, but that all redundant engineers were encouraged to seek another position in the company.

Of course, they neglected to mention that such positions didn’t really exist.

It was clearly a layoff, except they strung the laid off employees along for a few months. That way, they didn’t have to damage morale or customer/investor confidence by admitting it was a layoff.

I’m sure people further removed from the situation would assume it was a PIP, which hurts the engineers’ careers.

This is interesting.

Then That’s clearly just lay-off.