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

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

#221

Post by whatarethembits »

GlennS wrote: post #89
gumby wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their one product makes so much money, that there is not a natural forcing function for other ventures to succeed or fail. This is what appalled me about Pichai’s productivity comment. Google may not have high productivity, but that’s not its problem. The company has just drifted since Schmidt stopped running it, reminiscent of Microsoft in the second half (and before?) of the Ballmer period. The ladder-climbing PM…

Not knowing anything about how Google works internally, this is very much how it looks from the outside. They just don't seem to be able to make products that anyone wants. And the products they made before which people did want just drift in a generally worse direction as they fiddle with them randomly over time.

They have no coherent vision. As a consumer I have no idea what I'm getting with a Google product, or what their ethos is. Their products and features are always randomly baked together, without any coherent story. Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. I can't rely on any of it. This is why I moved to Apple eco system last year. Google as a company seems analogous to the Linux eco system; TON of duplicated work across different teams, none providing an actual complete solution for day to day use. Such a waste of talent.

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

#222

Post by mattkrause »

michaelt wrote: post #183
ahmadss wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine spent ended up spending 9 months in the Google pipeline for a PM role. During the early phases of the cycle (1 month in) he received and accepted an offer at Capital One and joined as a PM. Spent 7 months at Capital One while still interviewing for Google, and then managed to get an offer and team placement. Surprised it took that long, but he's happy he stuck w the Google process.

If a company had a 9-month-long hiring pipeline for me, I would worry their internal decision-making processes would make achieving anything of interest a Sisyphean task.

You're gonna love how academia works :)

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

#223

Post by harambae »

parkingrift wrote: post #186
_gabe_ wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood how strong labor numbers negate a recession. Like sure your money is worth less because of all the inflation, and your COL keeps increasing but your wages remain the same, but hey we have lots of people working. Maybe somebody smarter than me can explain how these two correlate lol.

At this point it's just an argument of what constitutes a recession. The NBER definition requires a "significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months." There is lots of leeway in there for defining a recession to be whatever you want to be. However, I think a GDP contraction of 1% (and decreasing) combined with robust job growth and increased spending would n…

If we hit a 3rd quarter in a row of contracting GDP, would you call it a recession?

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

#224

Post by rsynnott »

_gabe_ wrote: post #136
phailhaus wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We entered a technical recession by the "two quarters of contracting GDP" rule of thumb, but labor numbers are still strong and that second quarter contracted less than the first [1], which is not what we've usually seen when entering a recession. [2] [1] https://www.bea.gov/news/2022/gross-domestic-product-second-... [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-...

I've never understood how strong labor numbers negate a recession. Like sure your money is worth less because of all the inflation, and your COL keeps increasing but your wages remain the same, but hey we have lots of people working. Maybe somebody smarter than me can explain how these two correlate lol.

Economists have always kind of applied an "I know it when I see it, typically after the fact" sort of test for recessions (the two-quarter thing is a rule of thumb, but isn't taken that seriously). But just "there's highish inflation" wouldn't normally be considered a recession, and it is unusual to have a recession with very high employment; historically nearly all periods that ultimately get called major recessions have significant joblessness as a feature.

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

#225

Post by codereviewed »

lesuorac wrote: post #209
codereviewed wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are 100% correct. The confusion in the public stems from the fact that the news media selectively reports on recession in different ways depending on which party is in power. They ignore your fact when one party is in power and they highlight the "2 quarters of no growth" rule of thumb instead. Then when their guy is in power they go out of their way to say "Akshually a recession isn't defined by that it is defin…

> Just a few examples: https://imgur.com/a/xbBzLIU Well, its just 1 example because BBC and Reuters were only in your Imgur link with a timestamp saying in 2020 that it was a recession. And in your only example the person (Ben White -- CNBC) explicitly call out a double digit decrease in their claim of recession. The current situation is not a double digit decrease so it's not hypocritical. Certainly somebody is goin…

No post body was provided.

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

#226

Post by phpisthebest »

phailhaus wrote: post #123
SQueeeeeL wrote: post #119

The Google internal propaganda game must be crazy strong if the actual employees are believing random management explanations designed to keep people from panicking. The US just formally entered a recession, in within a week of the economic turmoil multiple companies freeze hiring...

We entered a technical recession by the "two quarters of contracting GDP" rule of thumb, but labor numbers are still strong and that second quarter contracted less than the first [1], which is not what we've usually seen when entering a recession. [2] [1] https://www.bea.gov/news/2022/gross-domestic-product-second-... [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-...

Labor numbers are NOT strong, we still have not gotten back to Pre-Covid Levels

And U6 unemployment is raising, suer U3 is not, but U3 is a terrible statistic in the first place.

Anyone saying the job market is "robust" is cherry-picking data

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

#227

Post by selimthegrim »

treis wrote: post #152
ShamelessC wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart’s tech hiring is a complete and total shit show regardless of the economy. I wouldn’t be surprised if they never get back to you. In fact (and you didn’t hear this from me), I’ve never witnessed a higher density of incompetence than when [SWIM] worked as a coder at their home office. Don’t work there if you want to maintain your sanity.

> [SWIM] What does this mean?

“Someone who isn’t me”

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

#228

Post by whimsicalism »

tenpies wrote: post #202
SQueeeeeL wrote: post #119

The Google internal propaganda game must be crazy strong if the actual employees are believing random management explanations designed to keep people from panicking. The US just formally entered a recession, in within a week of the economic turmoil multiple companies freeze hiring...

I don't think it's propaganda. Put yourself in place of a 30 year old who has only known a world where you're a highly in-demand whatever "in tech". You've never seen a day since you graduated where you're not flooded by recruiter emails. You've never worked a job that isn't 30 minutes of work and then the rest of the day is posting "day in the life of a FAANG employee" Tiktoks or being a paid activist. What's coming…

This comment is setting off all of my "culture war" alarm bells that typically I do not find on HN. References to TikTok and "paid activists", "never working a job that isn't 30 minutes of work."

I'm not sure if I am supposed to take these claims seriously or whether they are exaggerations to paint a picture. Obviously this caricature doesn't describe the vast majority of engineers at Google or other "FAANG" companies.

> I don't fault anyone, especially anyone who graduated in '10 or later for this. I just hope they are preparing for this.

The '20 post-covid labor market was weaker for graduates than in '08 [0] and hiring in tech is more challenging.

[0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/17/why-the-pandemic-might-be-wo...

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

#229

Post by papito »

ep103 wrote: post #167
davidw wrote: post #146

I suppose this is "old man yells at clouds" material, but I feel like engineers should be practicing for their future jobs , not for interviews.

In our industry, the interview process is completely divorced from the skillset required for the actual job. Fittingly, this is because Google developed an interviewing process that was scalable, required minimal training, human-interactive or soft skills, and was objectively measurable (leetcode), while non-obviously biasing the interview process towards cheaper, younger interviewees. It is also an interview process…

Remember how Google was asking completely useless brain teasers and everyone just blindly started copycatting it?

The "we want to be like Google" syndrome in tech is just devastating.

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

#230

Post by whimsicalism »

guiomie wrote: post #218
tenpies wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's propaganda. Put yourself in place of a 30 year old who has only known a world where you're a highly in-demand whatever "in tech". You've never seen a day since you graduated where you're not flooded by recruiter emails. You've never worked a job that isn't 30 minutes of work and then the rest of the day is posting "day in the life of a FAANG employee" Tiktoks or being a paid activist. What's coming…

Spot on. There is a huge sense of entitlement from SWEs in FAANGs right now, and from the various folks I know at FAANGs, Google is worst since mediocrity and unproductiveness are not confronted because folks are scared of being 'ungoogley'. Every company has its dead weight that others have to carry, I think Google has much more and has been getting away with it because of all its profits coming in.

> I think Google has much more and has been getting away with it because of all its profits coming in.

My sense would be that Google has such high $ earned / employee compared to other major tech employers it perhaps has less dead-weight.

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