Google Senior Vice President Rick Osterloh published an internal memo to the Pixel, Android, and Chrome development teams on Thursday announcing a "voluntary severance program."
Google Senior Vice President Rick Osterloh published an internal memo to the Pixel, Android, and Chrome development teams on Thursday announcing a "voluntary severance program."
A company representative explained to TechCrunch what “voluntary layoff” means.
The Platforms & Devices team offers a voluntary redundancy program to the US team. This means that employees can voluntarily leave the company with severance pay.
“There is tremendous momentum within this team, and with so much important work ahead, we want everyone to be deeply committed to our mission and focused on building great products, quickly and efficiently,” a Google spokesperson noted.
This program comes a little less than a year after Google merged the Android, Pixel hardware, and Chrome teams into a single Platforms & Devices division, which Osterloh led.
The reorganization is Google's attempt to more deeply integrate the company's AI offerings into its products. In recent months, Google's Gemini generative AI platform has gained a prominent place among the company's hardware and software products.
The exit program covers a wide range of Google products, including Android, Chrome/ChromeOS, Fitbit, Google One, Nest, Photos, and Pixel. Other major Google divisions, including artificial intelligence and search, are not covered by the program.
