What Happened to Justin Poehnelt?

Justin Poehnelt, a Senior Developer Relations Engineer at Google, became widely recognized in the developer community for his creation of the Google Workspace CLI, often referred to as `gws`. This command-line interface provides a unified, dynamic way to interact with various Google Workspace services like Drive, Gmail, Calendar, and Sheets, designed for both human operators and AI agents. The tool garnered significant attention for its innovative approach, dynamically building its command structure from Google's Discovery Service, ensuring it automatically supports new API endpoints without requiring manual updates. It also features over 100 built-in 'agent skills' and supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP), making it highly valuable for AI-driven automation.

The `gws` project was officially open-sourced by Google, with Google Cloud director Addy Osmani even introducing it as a tool 'built for humans and agents' in March 2026. The project quickly accumulated over 26,500 stars on GitHub, indicating its utility and popularity among developers. Articles published in March 2026 lauded the CLI as a 'game-changer' for developers and AI agents, addressing the fragmented nature of programmatic interaction with Google Workspace. At that time, Poehnelt was still publicly identified as a Senior DevRel at Google, actively writing about the CLI's design philosophy, including its 'Zero Trust' approach for AI agents.

However, on June 23, 2026, a Hacker News thread titled 'Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI' emerged, with comments suggesting that 'Justin' (the original poster) had been dismissed by Google. This development presents a significant contradiction to the earlier positive reception and Poehnelt's continued public association with Google. The Hacker News discussion speculated on several potential reasons for the firing, including a disregard for Google's internal processes, a desire to 'steamroll' over existing Workspace teams, or concerns related to trademark and branding. Some commenters also linked it to a broader trend of Google dismissing employees without clear cause, a pattern observed over the past year.

As of June 23, 2026, Justin Poehnelt's GitHub profile still lists him as a 'Senior Developer Relations Engineer at Google', creating an ambiguity around his current employment status in light of the Hacker News discussion. The situation highlights the complexities within large tech companies regarding employee-initiated projects, open-source contributions, and internal organizational dynamics, especially in a rapidly evolving AI landscape where such tools are highly valued. The Google Workspace CLI itself continues to be an active and praised open-source project, regardless of the reported fate of its creator.