My friend was let go from Goog ~ 3 weeks ago.
Was classified as "underperforming," put on PIP, worked his ass off while on PIP, and then fired without any severance.
He was with Goog for 3 years, not a new hire.
My impression has always been that Google has a "systemic hiring problem", as well as some deep organizational problems that make it very hard to get true productivity out of their workforce. 18 hour days are the last resort of bad managers. Then you get to the "The beatings will continue until morale improves!" phase, which sounds like where they're at now.<p>The original Goog model just wasn't scalable, and now they have to completely re-engineer the company. It won't be easy.
I have no specific knowledge, but I'd be surprised if there was a general layoff in Engineering. It seems more likely that they are pushing on people they have classified as "underperforming". I think they also shut down a few remote offices (there was a blog post about this), and anyone who doesn't want to relocate will be out.
These people are talking about having lots of friends that could get a job anywhere (as in, they're unbelievably awesome). I wish I had a ton of friends like that. Either their standards are lower, or this is the fundamental thing about SV that I miss.
I think a large organization like Google, with thousands of engineers can safely fire say 10% without loosing much productivity. I refuse to believe that Google has some magic hiring strategy that allows them to hire only smart, motivated and productive people. I'm sure they, like every other large corporation (PIP agreement?!) have a 10% "fat layer" of people who are not very motivated, productive, etc. I'm not saying these people are stupid, they just might not fit in or whatever.