[darkwizard42]

L8 at Google is not a random pecking order level. L8s generally have massive systems design experience and decades of software engineering experience at all levels of scale. They make decisions at Google which can have impacts on the workflows of 100s of engineers on products with 100millions/billions of users. There are less L8s than there are technical VPs (excluding all the random biz side VP roles)

L5 here designates that they were a tenured (but not designated Senior) software engineer. It doesn't meant they don't have a voice in these discussions (very likely an L8 reached out to learn more about the issue, the options, and ideally considered Francois's role and expertise before making a decision), it just means its above their pay grade.

I'll let Francois provide more detail on the exact situation.

[belter]

The history of the company does not seem to demonstrate such a semi-genius are capable of producing successful products. Can hardly be third on Cloud.