As an ex-Googler, that's not how you're supposed to operate at those companies. You find something you like to do, talk to the team, ensure the other team has open spots and would like to take you on, and move your shit from one desk to the other. Done. You're working on your specialization, if that's what you like to do.
Discussing stuff with your manager is utterly pointless because your interests aren't really aligned. You want to do something else. Your manager wants you to do whatever you're doing now because finding a replacement for you is a bit of a pain in the ass. She gets no brownie points if you leave.
It is true that Google has a ton of PhDs who just copy one protobuffer into another and browse memegen all day while earning half a million dollars a year. But they also have a ton of PhDs who do meaningful work, too. It's not really Google's problem that someone can't be bothered to look around and find something meaningful for themselves to do. Or to be more exact, it is a problem _for_ Google, because there are a lot of people who can be deployed in higher leverage occupations, but not one that Google itself can solve, because one of the main tenets of how they operate is _nobody tells you what to do_. You're supposed to figure it out on your own. A lot of people can't deal with that.
Well yeah, you have to tell your manager of course, but _they can't stop you_ from moving to another team.
Don't know about Apple or Amazon but Google/FB are like that. If you're very senior, a few months (no more than 6 no matter how senior) delay might be imposed so that you hand off your stuff, if you're less senior, a few weeks is usually enough. It is also expected (at Google, don't know about FB) that you'll stay on each team for at least a year, and that you'll wind down your obligations in an orderly fashion, which I think you'll agree is not unreasonable.
But _nobody_ will force you to do work you really don't like to do. In contrast, at most other companies it's easier to get a job _at another company_ than to move to another team.
There are many ways at Google to stop people from moving teams. For me it was a code yellow. I am hazy, but it was either referred to as indentured servitude or more politely stated as such by our senior director who expected 3 year stints. This was at MTV, probably a toxic environment due to CxO visibility.
Code yellow is by its very nature a finite-duration thing. I've never been a part of one that was longer than a month. It's reasonable to not allow transfers for the duration, if it helps to resolve the code yellow IMO.
We had 4-6 month cyclical code yellows. It's not unlike the game where 20% projects could only be within the same team without significant blowback. Things are only reasonable when used as designed, which is not how all of Google operates for everyone. You can talk in the general sense, but you cannot speak definitively especially when such actions are blessed by the executive team.
Googler here. This is how it works. If you find a team with an open position you want to work on, and you and the teams hiring manager agrees it's a good fit, your manager can't do anything to stop it.
I did something like this myself. I found the team I liked, talked to the team a bit about the work I'd be doing, and at my next one on one with my manager I told him I'd be leaving the team in two weeks.
There’s a difference between an orderly discussion leading to change of team/focus in a timely manner and just doing whatever you want whenever you want, which is the point I was making.
You can certainly find yourself a better team fit and organise to move to it proactively, that’s true of any organisation, with greater or lesser degrees of red tape.
...but the parent assertion was basically, if you don’t like your job, just get up and walk off and drop your stuff on some other interesting teams table. Job done!
Nah dear HN reader, don't move the goalposts now. That's not what I said at all. And it's not true of _any_ organization. It's actually _not_ true of most companies I worked for.
It's certainly been my experience. I mean not exactly that level, but yeah. I told my manager the work I was doing was boring, and that I'd consider switching teams, and he worked to find work that was more interesting to me.
Then I also started working with one of the other teams I find interesting, and I now spend (more than) 20% of my time working with that team on various things.
Discussing stuff with your manager is utterly pointless because your interests aren't really aligned. You want to do something else. Your manager wants you to do whatever you're doing now because finding a replacement for you is a bit of a pain in the ass. She gets no brownie points if you leave.
It is true that Google has a ton of PhDs who just copy one protobuffer into another and browse memegen all day while earning half a million dollars a year. But they also have a ton of PhDs who do meaningful work, too. It's not really Google's problem that someone can't be bothered to look around and find something meaningful for themselves to do. Or to be more exact, it is a problem _for_ Google, because there are a lot of people who can be deployed in higher leverage occupations, but not one that Google itself can solve, because one of the main tenets of how they operate is _nobody tells you what to do_. You're supposed to figure it out on your own. A lot of people can't deal with that.