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

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

#321

Post by ROTMetro » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 4:58 PM UTC

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…

Way back in the day my Borland friends told me about Microsoft doing this to Borland. Supposedly parked a limo across the street from the building at lunch and hired people whether Microsoft had work for them or not.

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

#322

Post by ekidd » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 4:58 PM UTC

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…

> The thing is, those with fewer than 10 years experience have never seen the ferocity of the other side of the business cycle. When it turns, that mofo turns.

I was working as a programmer during both the dotcom crash and the 2007-2008 real estate crash. I would describe these downturns as "bumpy".

But neither was catastrophic for most of the programmers I knew. Some of us moved, others found new jobs. Some of the least-skilled, including the "webmasters" who didn't know JavaScript or CSS, did wind up leaving the industry in 2001.

If you had a 1-year emergency fund, you would probably have been fine in either crash. The people who were the hardest hit were actually the people living in major tech cities, because they had the biggest concentrations of layoffs. The longest I was on the job market was about 3 months in fall 2001, but I had to move out of Boston. I got a slightly underpaid but really awesome job.

Right now, there are tens of thousands of organizations that would be revolutionized by some simple custom software. These organizations can't compete with FAANG salaries. But they'll be happy to absorb quite a few programmers. Some of the jobs will be valuable and interesting work.

So like I said, a hard crash can be bumpy. But for most professional programmers, it probably won't be catastrophic.

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

#323

Post by gen220 » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 4:58 PM UTC

modarts wrote: post #25

kafrofrite wrote: post #13

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.

A hiring freeze is typically a freeze on new job reqs (candidates already interviewing wouldn't be exposed to this)

In this instance, Google is freezing people below the Staff-Eng level who have already done their onsites.

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

#324

Post by ilikehurdles » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #286

spamizbad wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're only talking about salaries, I feel like even pre-2008 most big software companies always paid better than startups. It was stuff like RSUs and cash bonuses; which came AFTER the IPOs, that REALLY tipped the scales and made it difficult for startups to compete. Startups themselves never responded with more generous stock options; in fact, compared to the 90s, some became stingier.

Yes, as I said elsewhere the equity portion in startups is decidedly non-competitive for anybody but founders. "tldr options" @ https://equity.ltse.com/calculators/tldr-stock-options is an eye-opener to see just how meh the packages offered are.

I think a lot of candidates (speaking for myself here) just don’t care too much to negotiate equity at privately held companies. Given the highly unlikely probability that a company I work for will have a successful exit at all, let alone while I am either employed or hold exercised stock options, it’s all Monopoly money to me. Benefits, salary, and bonuses is the only compensation I negotiate and judge a company on. All the other stuff is just lottery tickets.

Meaning, startup or no, I’m expecting to be paid what I ask. levels.fyi shows that my pay+bonus at my startup for my role matches FAANG compensation so I’m happy with it.

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

#325

Post by wittycardio » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 5:00 PM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #276

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.

You literally can go on indeed.com and check for "$250-500K/yr for a single developer". It. Does. Not. Exist. Yes there are a few at FAANG that do make this, but this isn't the current market.

Yes it absolutely does lol

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

#326

Post by neuronexmachina » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 5:01 PM UTC

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-...

> two quarters of contracting GDP

Another unusual thing is that even though real GDP is down, nominal GDP is still going up: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP

I suspect that if gas prices had started coming down earlier it would've brought inflation down enough that real GDP for Q2 would've been slightly positive.

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

#327

Post by ironman1478 » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #65

TrackerFF wrote: post #5

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

Googlers responded to a questionnaire back in March and complained about bureaucracy. I'm not sure how you avoid moving slow in a company with 170k people though. Big tech went on a crazy hiring spree the last few years, and it's time to take breath and figure out how to best handle all the new people (the productivity demand). Typically this also means new hires need an increased level of justification, and they'll…

Apple has a ton of engineers and they are able to pump out high quality products with really cool features. Its possible, but it requires focus (look at how limited Apple's product line is compared to Google) and it does require people in leadership positions with very clear visions, which Apple definitely has.

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

#328

Post by anonymoushn » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

ayberk wrote: post #216

nosefrog wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's weird, most people I know with Google offers say they're good for a year or more.

Not quite. If you pass the hiring committee, you have one year to find a team. So it's more like your interview result is good for a year. After you match with a team you get the actual offer and it has the usual deadlines. Hiring processed has changed though, so I'm not sure if this is still true.

I have not found 4 days to be a usual deadline at any other company.

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

#329

Post by smaryjerry » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #208

smaryjerry wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s exactly right. Real wages are not keeping up with inflation. Inflation is confusing everyone who isn’t used to seeing it. It’s ludicrous to think we are not in a recession just because more people retired in the last few years due to COVID and exited the workforce to artificially keep the unemployment rate low. Participation in the workforce declined something like 10% - I don’t have the time find the exact nu…

> Real wages are not keeping up with inflation. Nope? For most people Year/Year and also over the last quarter, real wages have gone up. It is only for the most highly compensated workers (top 10% or so) that wages have not kept up with pricing. [0] [0]: https://realtimeinequality.org/

Real wages have gone significantly since 2020 when COVID hit per the below link. This inequality index website includes both labor and capital - meaning not just wages but income from stocks. Yes the stock market has gone down, the rich own more stocks, and so rich made less money. Wages, the payment for only labor has been declining in real terms due to inflation outpacing wage growth. See this link and the sharp decline.https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

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

#330

Post by cmrdporcupine » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

ilikehurdles wrote: post #324

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as I said elsewhere the equity portion in startups is decidedly non-competitive for anybody but founders. "tldr options" @ https://equity.ltse.com/calculators/tldr-stock-options is an eye-opener to see just how meh the packages offered are.

I think a lot of candidates (speaking for myself here) just don’t care too much to negotiate equity at privately held companies. Given the highly unlikely probability that a company I work for will have a successful exit at all, let alone while I am either employed or hold exercised stock options, it’s all Monopoly money to me. Benefits, salary, and bonuses is the only compensation I negotiate and judge a company on.…

Yeah, I mean, this is my take, too.

I have worked for places that offered equity a few times. It did turn into something once (Google bought my employer). But the actual equity conversion was minor in quantity compared to the rest of my Google TC.

There's no way out of "serfdom" other than starting your own company. I don't think this is healthy. The incentives are not there for engineers in startups to really put themselves out there.