Comment by marcyb5st
6 years ago
Googler here. I'm not sure when you interviewed or your friends worked at Google, but nowadays managers undergo some training (I can't tell you how thorough that is, because I didn't do it yet).
Also, right now, I believe the norm is to have managers and TLs as separate positions, even in small teams (like mine, 5 people in total).
Over half of them worked for Google within the past two years. This is across New York, San Francisco, and Mountain View. One of them said they had a friend that wanted to become a manager and they were made a manager just like that.
This can't be true.
I just went through a 2 day required training as a new manager. This is required training that has to be done within the first 6 months of you becoming a manager.
This has been a requirement for many years.
Source: I'm a googler
Edit: just to add, the same training is required for TLMs. The moment you get a direct report the training becomes mandatory. I suspect there must be some miscommunication from the folks you spoke with.
I think we may have a different definition of "training". A two day training session isn't anywhere near what a manager should be getting. Compare that to software engineering where you will get months of continuous mentorship.