Sure, but that is way faster than "wait for them to quit."

Google's preferred method to "fire" a lousy programmer is to make him a PM.

In my experience, SWE -> PM ladder transfers are very unusual.

I'm sure they are. Most SWEs hired at Google are pretty good at programming and don't need to be tucked away in PM.

Xoogler here, from what I've seen, SWEs converting to PMs did it because it was what they were interested in it, unrelated to their skill, and it's not trivial at all. IIRC (never done it myself but seen a couple of people who did) there is a trial period and if you don't perform well enough as a PM you either go back to being a SWE or need to resign.

PM is a negative contribution role, so what does "performance" even mean? Getting programmers to accept Jirafication?

I guess you're just trolling, so have a nice life.