What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes? • Hacker News Board

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#11

Post by meldyr » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 10:07 AM UTC

cbanek wrote: post #4

I'm not sure I buy that they're actually on a hiring freeze, but I may be wrong. The day before it was announced I got a text from a google recruiter literally saying feel free to contact me on 8/8 (after the freeze is supposedly finished). I feel like this was definitely a show for the shareholders, and a way to drop your dead weight. Everyone seems worried about employee productivity and profitably all of a sudden,…

Be careful with young and ambitious recruiters these days.

When large companies can do hiring freezes they do not immediately fire a large proportion of their recruiters immediately.

Recruiters will spent the same time interviewing for less vacancies to fill. Be careful not to waste your time on this.

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#12

Post by fnands » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 10:07 AM UTC

ripper1138 wrote: post #9

TrackerFF wrote: post #5

Didn’t Sundar just recently demand increased productivity? Sounds like he’s setting the stage for layoffs.

Inevitable. Working 2 hours a day while getting paid 300K+ is unsustainable. Most of the Googlers I know have been spending 20% of their time on Google and 80% on side projects for the past year now.

Seems like a sweet gig

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#13

Post by kafrofrite » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 10:08 AM UTC

For what it's worth, Meta offered me slightly after the hiring freeze was announced for a security engineer position (L4 IIRC). I'm interviewing with Google for Security Engineering as well and still they haven't told me anything about a hiring freeze yet.

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#14

Post by solardev » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 10:08 AM UTC

water8 wrote: post #3

Quoted post unavailable.

Is there any evidence these are connected?

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#15

Post by firstSpeaker » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 10:08 AM UTC

metadat wrote: post #2

And Oracle, and pretty much all the FANG MAAMAs except Amazon.

I wonder what is going on with Amazon. They seem to be going strong with hiring.

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#16

Post by pavlov » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 10:08 AM UTC

water8 wrote: post #3

Quoted post unavailable.

Both Google and Meta have millions of PCs in data centers and the number just keeps growing, so I guess you can call it a cancer.

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#17

Post by Ekaros » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 10:12 AM UTC

choeger wrote: post #8

My hunch is that these companies are cargo-culting their strategies. The hiring freeze is as essentially a gut reaction. If one starts with layoffs, others will follow. The real problem is that companies of the Google scale will always need new engineers for particular projects and have a surplus for others. A global freeze or even layoffs simply don't fit.

Is it just doing what markets expect? They currently expect the companies to signal hiring freezes, thinking it will lower costs and increase profitability... Probably started by some that needed to do something and now rest just follow.

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#18

Post by trasz » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 10:13 AM UTC

ripper1138 wrote: post #9

TrackerFF wrote: post #5

Didn’t Sundar just recently demand increased productivity? Sounds like he’s setting the stage for layoffs.

Inevitable. Working 2 hours a day while getting paid 300K+ is unsustainable. Most of the Googlers I know have been spending 20% of their time on Google and 80% on side projects for the past year now.

It should be sustainable if those two hours were spent building something useful, and not just another random thing to be forgotten in three years.

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#19

Post by aulin » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 10:13 AM UTC

maybe they realized hiring leetcode junkies is not a great strategy and they want to freeze that while they find a better interview system

Re: What’s going on with Google and Facebook hiring freezes?

#20

Post by philjohn » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 10:14 AM UTC

choeger wrote: post #8

My hunch is that these companies are cargo-culting their strategies. The hiring freeze is as essentially a gut reaction. If one starts with layoffs, others will follow. The real problem is that companies of the Google scale will always need new engineers for particular projects and have a surplus for others. A global freeze or even layoffs simply don't fit.

Or they both over-hired and are taking similar steps to lean into natural attrition.

As for new engineers and surplus of others, I'm sure they'll be moving people around. A backend dev on one project can move to another backend project. Same for frontend, mobile, etc. So little of the work being done at these companies is massively specialised as they all have mature systems you're weaving together to deliver solutions.