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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?

#231

Post by nowherebeen »

ascar wrote: post #182
nowherebeen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a way to filter out more experienced candidates because they want cheap and young. Even a Meta recruiter admits to me that Leetcode has nothing to do with the job, it’s just a company requirement that no one questions.

Your logic doesn't add up. Sure, these tests are not an ideal proxy for job performance and indeed they shifted more and more from general intelligence assessment to algorithm coding assessment. Solving the algorithm is only part of the equation though. Writing readable code, explaining your thought process and decisions and communicating well with the interviewer are also vital points of the assessment. Is it a perf…

> these tests are not an ideal proxy for job performance > Past experience is unfortunately also a weak indicator

If past experience of doing the actual job is bad indicator and these test are not a good proxy, then according to your logic, experience is worthless and we should all optimize for these tests.

And this is exactly what is happening in the industry. Younger professionals spent hours memorizing Leetcode because they just graduate to pass the test. Older professionals having years of experience and family obligations don't.

> Writing readable code, explaining your thought process and decisions and communicating well with the interviewer are also vital points of the assessment.

Maybe to you, but I have seen many candidates get an automatic fail if they can't solve 2 questions in 50 minutes. The key metric being 2.

> Especially Google should have quite some data on their various approaches and correlation to job performance and seems to use it.

Source?

> Every approach comes with its own unique set of problems and as long as the position is sought after people will prepare and try to game the system.

Agree

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

#232

Post by harambae »

vinnymac wrote: post #201

Both Google and Meta have reached out to me directly for an interview in the last week. When did this hiring freeze begin?

Meta reached out to me yesterday afternoon about a position, it doesn't looking they're freezing for technical positions in AR/VR.

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

#233

Post by whimsicalism »

phpisthebest wrote: post #226
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-...

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

I think a lot of people took covid as an opportunity to retire and will not come back which is reflected by low labor participation numbers. Unemployment is basically the same as it was pre-pandemic.

We are in a strong labor market in the sense that demand continues to outstrip supply (although this is weakening for higher paid workers in the top ~10-20%) but there has been a negative shock to supply from covid.

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

#234

Post by ghaff »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #189
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #104

The people I know who are still inside (Google) seem optimistic that maybe the company is taking a pause to deal with some of its bureaucracy and internal politics issues and with people's complaints about perf. I suppose that's good. From my perspective: They've got way too many people doing a lot of meh work and feeling really ... important about it. And it's on the whole asphyxiating the industry.

> And it's on the whole asphyxiating the industry. My understanding was that asphyxiating the industry was always the plan. For those who worked in industry pre-2008, one of the major drivers that allowed new startups to be so disruptive was that startups could very often compete with the then major tech companies on compensation. If there was a difference in pay, it was usually minor and could easily be made up for…

It's not just startups. If someone wants to and can get an offer from one of the richer big tech companies (FAANG isn't really the right acronym as Microsoft at least is also in the mix) and is just going to go with the best offer, just about no one is going to be able to compete--at least in the US. I've heard plenty of stories of companies not even trying to match offers.

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

#235

Post by nick__m »

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?

#236

Post by whimsicalism »

evan_ wrote: post #156
jfoster wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If companies are doing hiring freezes and layoffs, will the labor numbers remain strong?

Yeah probably, the tech layoffs amount to a couple thousand people in a labor force of hundreds of millions.

Sure, but if you consider what is causing these layoffs: anticipated weaker aggregate demand -> less demand for ads but also less demand for workers -> weakening labor market.

I mean, the Fed's goal right now is basically to slow wage growth so that average people are no longer bidding up the price of our limited supply.

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

#237

Post by randomdata »

davidw wrote: post #150
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decision makers are now starting to openly push for moves to increase unemployment to get wage "inflation" down. I feel we're about to enter into a situation very similar to the early 90s, and we'll see a wave of pro-austerity politics and a lot of talk about "tightening our belts" -- slashing employee rights and social programs and cutting all kinds of social spending -- which is really about re-instilling labour di…

I have no idea what will happen myself, but it all feels a bit different. I think a lot of what's going on are still shocks from the pandemic, supply chains, and geopolitical stuff.

Not to mention the middle boomers are entering retirement age right now. This exact scenario of boomers leaving their jobs and creating an employment vacuum in their wake is something I've been hearing about for 30 years.

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

#238

Post by cmrdporcupine »

ghaff wrote: post #234
PheonixPharts wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it's on the whole asphyxiating the industry. My understanding was that asphyxiating the industry was always the plan. For those who worked in industry pre-2008, one of the major drivers that allowed new startups to be so disruptive was that startups could very often compete with the then major tech companies on compensation. If there was a difference in pay, it was usually minor and could easily be made up for…

It's not just startups. If someone wants to and can get an offer from one of the richer big tech companies (FAANG isn't really the right acronym as Microsoft at least is also in the mix) and is just going to go with the best offer, just about no one is going to be able to compete--at least in the US. I've heard plenty of stories of companies not even trying to match offers.

Yes in my job hunt over the last 6 months basically the first thing I have had to say to potential employers is: "No, I'm not expecting to match what I was getting at Google."

Pretty sure that a lot of places I simply didn't hear back from was because they didn't expect to be able to even come close on comp. And I've had other Xoogler friends who applied for places, got promising initial results, and then insanely low offers (like 1/3rd or less of Google comp).

I'll do 2/3rds or even 1/2 for the right job, but not 1/4 or 1/3rd.

Now, part of that is the domestic market (Ontario Canada) has been underpaying SWEs for years and getting away with it, since most of the good talent flees south after graduation anyways.

But part of it is that FAANG compensation is just far more than anybody else could ever afford.

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

#239

Post by forgingahead »

niall00c wrote: post #172
_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.

"When your neighbor is out of work its a recession. When you are out of work its a depression" - said someone

When asset prices increase quickly, everything is fine, as the wealthy are benefitting. When wages increase though, that's inflation and we must tamp down hard on it!

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

#240

Post by itstomkent »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #199
PheonixPharts wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it's on the whole asphyxiating the industry. My understanding was that asphyxiating the industry was always the plan. For those who worked in industry pre-2008, one of the major drivers that allowed new startups to be so disruptive was that startups could very often compete with the then major tech companies on compensation. If there was a difference in pay, it was usually minor and could easily be made up for…

Yes, I mean, I came to Google through an acquisition (of an adtech company) and it was pretty clear to me that the goal of the whole process was a) make your company go away and stop your customers from using you instead of us and b) get as much of your talent out of the job market as possible. They totally didn't care about our product or the productivity of the employees they brought in. They let us sit and twiddle…

It's kind of insane that on the one hand we have folks playing lip service to "anyone can learn to code" and on the other, decent developers being so rare that to hire one you need to offer compensation equal to winning a minor lottery for just 2-4 years worth of work. I wonder how much more software would get written if it didn't cost $250-500K/yr for a single developer.
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