> Google can kick them out and replace within a month.

Ah. A believer that software engineers are cogs and can just be “replaced” without training and learning of code bases.

Hiring software engineers, bringing them up to speed, and having them contribute to production features, is expensive. Also, you’ll never truly recoup the lost knowledge that goes.

Google has literally thousands of engineers. A significant percentage of those engineers leave every year as part of normal attrition. Google is certainly capable of dealing with the fallout these folks leaving without feeling a thing. While it's true there are some "one-in-a-million" type engineers that work at Google, I don't see any of the well-known ones on this list.

All that said, I commend the folks who signed this letter. If anything, the fact that most of the folks who signed are in relatively junior positions shows how Google has lost its way when it comes to it's morals. The more senior execs feel the pressure of serving Wall Street and have more to lose, while these more junior folks, while taking a risk know they can get hired anywhere else in a heartbeat. It's the kid standing up saying the emperor has no clothes.

Does a few engineers leaving hurt google? No. Does the massive PR storm that will never be erased from the Internet cause problems for them down the road? Absolutely.

The fact this is posted on HN and the regular gauntlet of tech sites is enough to have a major impact on their recruiting. I, like many of the people here, am a frequent target for Google recruiters and Dragonfly is more than enough for me to turn down an interview with them. Maybe they will have more luck with fresh college grads and interns who are less discerning.

Same. I normally avoid me-too comments, but...

I skimmed the list and there's at least one well-know name on the list, Matthew Garrett.

At a size of Google, the company has to be mostly constructed out of "cogs", to be resilient. If Google couldn't handle losing ~40 (as of right now) employees, that would be something seriously strange for one of the most valuable companies on the planet.

I'm sure there are sets of 40 employees that would cripple Google, at least be extremely unfortunate if they left together. There are certainly important components with a bus factor of less than that.

The typical ramp up time for a new Google engineer is roughly 3-6 months. So it's more like replace them within 3mo at a generous estimate. Also a few of those were staff You can replace those in 2-3yrs maybe.

Does Google care about this cost? Hard to say from the outside. But for every signature on this you can bet there are many more inside being very vocal. One part of Google's culture is that it encouraged feedback from the engineers and the engineers take advantage of that freedom pretty frequently.

I listened to a longform interview with the head of their HR strategy which referenced the company consistently citing talent attraction and retention as the number one limitation on company growth.

They invest extremely heavily in minimizing attrition and widening their funnel for recruiting. That's why their offices are crazy, they do 3 meals a day for employees, they pay a ton of money for people right out of college and for interns, everyone gets free massages, etc. They take any effect that narrows that funnel or increases attrition very seriously, as they view the company as fundamentally being a stable of the best software engineers they can get competing with the best software engineers other people can get to put out better solutions to problems.

All of that is true, but it doesn't change the reality of how software engineers are perceived and treated in the vast majority of technology companies.

Prior to becoming a software engineer, I worked in various industries, including restaurants (server), hospitals (data entry), and landscaping.

It may be true that in some companies, engineers are treated as cogs, but this line of work is _heaven_ compared to those other industries.

> A believer that software engineers are cogs and can just be “replaced” without training and learning of code bases.

In other words, every single person who is not a software developer, especially anybody in any form of "management"?

There are hundreds of thousands of developers around the world who dream every day about working at Google. If you think a few dozen engineers aren't replaceable by a company like Google, you are wrong.

Everyone is replaceable.

Of course but there are significant costs for replacement.

Not significant enough to realistically hurt Google though

I don't think you understand Google culture. Kicking them out would have far greater repercussions. It might also expose them to lawsuits. It also will likely affect what they'll have to pay for top talent: the idea that Google puts core values above profits (or at least that they prioritize them at all) is a major perk.

Google has little reason to kick them out. They can ignore them instead. Some will leave due to this. Others will stay. The effect of the action overall would be diluted.

Worst thing that can happen here from Google's perspective is for this to get a lot of media attention & a lot of signatures.

Firing all these engineers would be insanity, as the internal uproar over that would be much worse than that over Project Dragonfly. You might even see formalized organizing begin over it (look up what happened to Lanetix).

I don't have strong views either way on Project Dragonfly but I would absolutely be greatly pissed off if everyone opposing it were fired.