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

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

#261

Post by whimsicalism » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

papito wrote: post #229

ep103 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

I think it is dead & dying though. Nobody would start asking brainteasers if Google went back to doing it.

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

#262

Post by ehnto » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 4:04 PM UTC

joshstrange wrote: post #127

ehnto wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more likely scenario for most is that there are other people or mechanisms making the money, or that they're living off the success of previous efforts. It's not necessarily their fault at a company that large, sometimes people are just grossly under-utilized or misallocated. People can just vanish in a manner of speaking, by getting forgotten about or by having your responsibilities taken from you but not replac…

If you have some producers that aren't "pulling their weight" then that just means you have others that are pulling 2x+ and still only making a fraction of the actual value they provide. I'll be the first to agree that FAANG and friends have ridiculous overhead and way more engineers than I think is necessary but these companies are making money hand over fist. If we are looking for fat to cut I'd start with manageme…

Respectfully I have two qualms with your thoughts here, first is that lack of effort from one person must mean extra effort from another to balance out in some way, you could easily have people not pulling their weight but still be producing based on some leverage or multiplying factor in your business. More effort doesn't always equate to more value. Some businesses are just spinning their wheels, keeping themselves busy, while the core value generator keeps ticking over. I worked at a 10 man company that was turning over millions a month from automated lead generation, we could have all walked away for 6 months and it would have kept making money.

The other is just that it's not a realistic way to look at a workforce, especially in software, hours and effort don't equate to an "output" neatly. Most software companies are in the business of making value producing automations, not producing the raw value themselves. You can have one production engineer in a factory completely eliminate someone's job with a nifty insight that took him an hour to spot, now that person isn't pulling their weight (because their job doesn't exist anymore) but the business is more profitable, for one example.

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

#263

Post by nojito » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 4:04 PM UTC

klipt wrote: post #115

Dave3of5 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My hunch is that these companies are cargo-culting their strategies Yes most of these tech companies are the same. Their strategy is based off what other successful companies are doing. Also they want shareholders / investors to be on board. @paulg himself started this run with an email telling investors and companies to turtle up and stop hiring. The whole thing has become a self perpetuating loop. Companies also…

> @paulg himself started this run No the fed started it by raising rates with the explicit goal of triggering a hiring freeze to chill the economy and reduce inflation: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-the-fed-wants-corporate-a... Everything else is just a consequence of the fed deploying its one big lever.

Rates rising have been priced in for many years already.

The tech bubble is popping.

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

#264

Post by Espressosaurus » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

blagie wrote: post #21

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.

The best businesses I've seen work counter-cyclically. When there are hiring freezes and layoffs, it's easy to find good cheap engineers and you hire. When job markets are hot, you put a pause on hiring. The same goes for many other things. A recession is an ideal time for deep R&D. There's little competition, and it's possible to do long-term thinking. When the recession ends, and the bubble begins, you hit jackpot.…

You need a counter-cyclical business to really make that work however. And given how interconnected things are these days, what out there is counter-cyclical?

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

#265

Post by namdnay » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

balfirevic wrote: post #243

badpun wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it solved in France then? I dont' think it's possible to have an trans-national employment contract (which labor laws would the contract observe? The French ones or the US ones?). So, how do French people work remotely for US companies? I don't think most countries' laws are set up for a situation where a company employs a worker that does not live in the same country.

I wouldn't take namday's comment at face value without some kind of citation. It could be that it works similarly to Croatia - it's not illegal, but if you are found to be "a hidden employee" you simply owe taxes and retirement/healthcare contributions as if entire income of your single-employee company was your salary. It could be that it's actually illegal in France. But many people are confused about how it works…

I completely agree with what you say, it depends on the specific setup (specifically, whether a judge will consider that it was an employment relationship). My statement was in response to someone who was clearly describing an employment relationship:

> The "employee" creates a single-person company in Poland

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

#266

Post by washbrain » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 4:08 PM UTC

jahnu wrote: post #254

itstomkent wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn’t have to cost that. You probably can hire people remotely. E.g. Almost nobody in the EU will cost you that much. Most good devs are less than €100k total cost.

100k - accounting for pay, benefits, office space, training, hiring, computing equipment, support services (hr, etc)?

In the States, those things can exceed the salary cost of the engineer.

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

#267

Post by Espressosaurus » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 4:11 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #261

papito wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The "we want to be like Google" syndrome in tech is just devastating. I think it is dead & dying though. Nobody would start asking brainteasers if Google went back to doing it.

Brainteasers are dead. The parent's point that the industry follows Google's lead is a cogent observation however.

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

#268

Post by Consultant32452 » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

mikeyouse wrote: post #211

Consultant32452 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now subtract the deficit spending including the stimulus package from that nominal 6% growth.

Why? Government spending is a base component of GDP..

Let me have a $10 Trillion deficit and I will show you tons of "growth" in GDP.

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

#269

Post by jtefera » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 4:18 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #244

crazygringo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's not abnormal for a Google PM. Basically it takes ~2 weeks of initial phone screening and scheduling, then another ~4 weeks that will involve setting up the full day of interviews and collecting feedback and making a decision on whether or not to hire. So basically after ~6 weeks from first being contacted by a recruiter, you know whether or not Google wants you. This is not unreasonable for a large company…

I want to make sure I'm on the right page here: PM = Project Manager. Projects can range from something like all of Project Loon down to some one small little thing. Project managers can manage many people (and other managers) down to only one other person. Project managers are given access to budgets, including hiring and project budgeting. The role is somewhat ambiguous, but you are definitely in the 'Management' s…

PM at Google is normally Product Manager. Project Managers are called Program Managers (PgM). Most program managers at Google do not manage anyone.

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

#270

Post by unicornmama » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 4:18 PM UTC

nomel wrote: post #249

yuan43 wrote: post #139

> As several of these statements blatantly contradict one another, I went back to the data and ran the same sanity check that I did with Facebook above. In other words, what if Google is using the hiring freeze as a smoke screen and only continuing with the strongest candidates, while keeping the rest on the bench? An actual hiring freeze sends a very strong negative signal to employees and investors. To employees it…

> To employees it says "the ship is sinking." Layoffs are right around the corner and that is absolute poison to morale. To investors it says "technical or not, we've hit a recession." Brace yourselves for impact While it’s possibly true in this case, that’s definitely not always true. I’ve been in two companies that had to implement a hiring freeze because growth was too fast. Everyone understood, because nobody new…

Layoffs can be positively received by the market if it cuts the fat to increase profit. No one expects Google or any other company to grow unboundedly.