Google Senior Software Engineer Plunges to His Death from 14th Floor of Tech Giant's NYC Headquarters

This is the second Google employee to commit suicide in less than three months after a 33-year-old fellow coworker Jacob Pratt was found dead in his apartment on February 16.

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A senior software engineer at Google jumped to his death from the search engine giant's headquarters in New York City on Thursday afternoon. The man who is yet to be publicly identified was 31 years old and was found on the ground on the 15th Street side of the building around 11.30 pm on Thursday.

It is still unclear if bystanders saw him jumping to his death. Police received multiple reports of the incident and rushed to the scene. On reaching the scene, cops found the man unresponsive. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital and later declared dead on arrival.

Shocking Death

google expansion in singapore
The Google logo is pictured atop an office building in Irvine, California, US August 7, 2017 Mike Blake/File Photo/Reuters

The man's identity is being withheld pending family notification. Officers found handprints on the ledge of the 14th story, where there is an outdoor terrace, according to sources who spoke to the New York Post.

The outlet reported that there was no suicide note left behind.

This is the second Google employee to apparently commit suicide in less than three months after a 33-year-old fellow coworker Jacob Pratt was found dead in his apartment on February 16.

The New York Post was informed by an NYPD source that Pratt appeared to have hanged himself.

google
Reuters

Pratt was a partnership leader at the business, according to his LinkedIn, and had been with Google for a year and a half. Pratt began working for Google as an agency manager in May 2019.

"His interests in advertising and technology lead him to a dream job as an accounting manager at Google in Manhattan," his obituary read.

Their deaths come shortly after Google fired around 12,000 employees worldwide. It remains unclear if this employee's job was also at stake at Google.

Difficult Times Ahead

Google's parent company Alphabet cut 12,000 jobs in the latest savage round of white-collar layoffs sweeping across the tech sector in the United States as recession fears continue to escalate.

Jacob Pratt
Jacob Pratt Twitter

Alphabet's CEO, Sundar Pichai, stated that the losses impact a variety of teams across the organization, including those responsible for hiring, a few corporate tasks, and a few engineering and product teams.

The massive reduction in Google's workforce comes just days after rival Microsoft Corp. announced it will lay off 10,000 employees, and just days after Amazon started firing its 18,000 employees as the 'richcession' has decimated the biggest companies in the globe in recent months.

Jacob Pratt
Jacob Pratt Twitter

However, blue-collar workers are currently in high demand although, while white-collar workers have seen significant job losses over the past year.

The phenomenon has been dubbed 'richcession' by those in the field.

This article was first published on May 5, 2023
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