Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

blog.interviewing.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 637 posts

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

#521

Post by WWLink »

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…

So the argument I see proposed again, again, and again here on HN, is that companies are paying programmers too much money and they should all agree to offer Are you guys all bitter business owners?

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

#522

Post by BurningFrog »

mym1990 wrote: post #460
BurningFrog wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demand for pretty much anything is infinite, if you assume a price of 0. So in reality we almost always end up with a non zero price where supply equals demand.

This most certainly is not true. There are plenty of free things that don’t result in 100% consumption. Demand is based on peoples needs and preferences, not on how much is out there already. Think about libraries as an example.

Agreed. That's why I wrote "pretty much".

My go to example is oxygen. There is more than enough of it for everyone, so there is no possibility/need to charge money for it.

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

#523

Post by dls2016 »

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…

> Once Google and Facebook started growing it's clear they realized that every talented engineer on the market is a potential threat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Remember that Google and Apple were caught trying to control the employment marketplace. Keep 'em happy, but not too happy!

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

#524

Post by nobleach »

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…

I _might_ be able to find comparable salary, but I sure won't find the other benefits of working for my employer. The 401k match, the on site clinic with a doctor that I really like, etc... those things do add up.

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

#525

Post by ska »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #406
seabrookmx wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian here, and this checks out. I think the reason this isn't more popular is that our talent pool is small enough that unless you already have a Canadian presence it's not really worth opening up a business unit/office/whatever here. Obviously some big players have done it (MS, Amazon, EA) but if you're a medium sized company it may not be worth it. I work for a US company but I'm a contractor for this reason. I…

Yep I had a job offer fall through after several months of verbal offering & negotiation because the company was acquired and the new parent company had logistical problems hiring Canadians. Though mostly due to their own incompetence, it sounds like (their employer of record situation was charging insane overhead for Canadians). So I'm also working as a contractor for a US (well, international remote but US incorpor…

> And, yeah, no benefits isn't great. But I have also found that paying out of pocket for dental, etc. is better than buying a plan for myself.

The idea is you scale your rate to include enough for a benefits package.

Or they use a POE/EOR service, that's possible in Canada I think.

Either way, incorporation still has some advantages, one being that you time shift your pay as needed. It can make it easier to subcontract people too. And it's easy, and only costs a few hundred dollars.

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

#526

Post by atlasunshrugged »

alasdair_ wrote: post #387
golergka wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not hire completely international then?

Timezones and IP and labor laws mostly. Having a team completely unavailable during the USA working day is a real pain for collaboration and it's hard to sue people in other countries that "borrow" your source code to make their own version. Also, knowing exactly how to pay (say) a German developer and how taxes work and what the labor laws are is always an issue. Aside: The very best contractors I ever hired were Uk…

+1 I've only had incredible experiences with Ukrainian devs and designers- I hesitate to say best because I've worked with amazing people all over (I was at two gig economy companies that did custom software dev with freelancers) but Ukraine as a destination often stood out for high quality, low prices, and not needing a ton of supervision/detailed instruction.

Shameless plug- a buddy runs a dev shop out there, they have great devs and exceptional designers (and also are doing a fund for Ukrainians impacted by the war). If you're looking for help in that region, they're great people to chat with: https://beetroot.co/

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

#527

Post by leereeves »

lamontcg wrote: post #489
leereeves wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're not in a recession. Yet. Based on what? Perhaps we can discard the classic "two quarters of negative GDP growth". But if we do, then from whose perspective does a 3% drop in real wages in six months [1] (and a 4.4% YoY drop in real weekly earnings [2]) not count as a recession? 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/216259/monthly-real-aver... 2: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.htm

You don't have recessions without job losses and unemployment claims: https://www.statista.com/statistics/193280/seasonally-adjust...

First, is there any precedent for that restriction?

And second, why not? If everyone still has a job but their wages have decreased, that's still an economic contraction, at least from the worker's perspective.

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

#528

Post by colinmhayes »

nostromo wrote: post #490
lamontcg wrote: post #336

We're not in a recession. Yet. Google and Facebook are ahead of the curve and mostly using the headlines to shake things up internally right now. It does show that the billionaires are kind of enthusiastic though about the coming recession and economic pain being inflicted on the lower classes, and getting those uppity workers a bit more under control. They're not so worried about asset prices / stock prices / sales…

> We're not in a recession. Yet. We are by the most common definition: two quarters of negative GDP growth. Some folks in the US are weirdly insistent that recessions are defined by the NBER -- a self-appointed group of wonks at a private and secretive non-profit. But they're just one measure, and an arbitrary one at that.

The NBER isn’t self appointed. The governments formal definition is that the NBER decides.

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

#529

Post by TimPC »

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…

Start-ups don’t have to pay Google or FB size comp to attract people who like to work in start-ups but my feeling is that if they want to compete for the senior end of the talent pool they are going to have a hard time. Most start-ups are offering what I call below-mortgage compensation. Simply put to not be house poor your mortgage is supposed to be 30% of your pre-tax income. You can calculate what a typical mortgage on a property looks like and extrapolate the payment but $90,000 USD is pretty reasonable in the Bay Area. That takes $300,000 USD/year to not be house poor. As long as start-ups continue to treat unsellable equity as sellable RSUs and offer similar base to google they get almost no one who needs to pay a mortgage. And I’m willing to bet a fair number of start-ups have failed from being too junior in engineering.

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

#530

Post by smaryjerry »

ajross wrote: post #426
smaryjerry wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are intentionally conflating nominal and real wages, most people are not making more money. In real wages they are declining as per the link in my previous comment. If you make $100K per year and your expenses are $100K you make zero. If you make $150K but your expenses are now $150K then you have not made any increase in wages in real dollars. Wages are not flat or going up with inflation as per my link, they ar…

And my point, which you missed, is that this is a confounded argument. "Real wages" are an after-the-fact metric, you can't measure it in immediate data because wage growth and inflation are highly correlated. And the other point, which you skipped, was that this was a digression anyway from the upthread discussion about whether or not the labor market indicators are "strong" or not. And they are: wages are tracking…

Both inflation and wages are lagging indicators and thus can be used together to get real wages historically. Correlation to inflation does not mean anything other than inflation and wages both increased, you can be highly correlated but not exactly correlated. Real wages demonstrate both wages and inflation in a single metric and they are not increasing at the same rate, real wages have been declining continuously since 2020. The strength of a labor market (low unemployment) just means people that are looking for jobs can find them but doesn’t measure the wages or inflation, that is determined by real wages. You can pay anyone more but if it doesn’t buy more it is still a pay decline.
Post reply on HN