Google To Merge Several Product Engineering Teams Into One, Fires Hundreds Of Employees،
Alphabet-owned Google is laying off hundreds of employees across several divisions. These include the division working on the voice-activated Google Assistant and the team that manages the Nest, Pixel and Fitbit hardware.
Google lays off people in Google Voice Assistant and AR Hardware department
A Google spokesperson's statement via Tech Crunch says several teams have made changes to become “more efficient and work better, and to align their resources with their biggest product priorities.
The company also laid off most of the AR hardware team's employees. According to a report by 9to5Google, the company will now work with OEMs. Additionally, Google will restructure so that a single hardware engineering team will handle all product lines.
A hardware engineering team to take care of all products
Previously, each line had a dedicated team handling design, software development, etc. Whether it's a good decision or a barrier to innovation across the company's product line, it includes devices that vary in nature, interface user, design, etc.
Fitbit co-founders leave Google
Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman also decided to leave. For those catching up, Google acquired the health tracker and smartwatch maker in 2019 for a whopping $2.1 billion that took nearly two years to gain approval.
However, since then, Google has merged Fitbit products and services into its products. For example, the Google Pixel Watch has most of the hardware and software features originally designed by Fitbit.
However, now that the co-founders have left the company, Fitbit will either disband completely into Google's wearables or continue to exist as a minor product line that occasionally receives updates and new models. Something similar happened to Beats when Apple acquired it.
This is the first wave of layoffs this year
In 2023, Google has already cut about six percent (around 12,000 people) of its workforce by laying off people across different teams, including Waze, recruiting, and the News department.
In response to the latest layoffs, the Alphabet workers' union posted a tweet on X (formerly Twitter). The union says the layoffs are “unnecessary” and that the company is laying off employees while making billions.
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