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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?

#571

Post by bogomipz »

EddySchauHai wrote: post #337
ransom1538 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Go on angel.co and filter for jobs in the Bay Area and you'll find roles around 250k base salary. 250k including bonuses and stock is far more common. This isn't just Bay Area btw, take a look at the contract market in London and there are multiple > 200k GBP roles (roughly 250k USD).

What's a decent resource for London contract market gigs?

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

#572

Post by nowherebeen »

ascar wrote: post #551
nowherebeen wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 be…

> 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. How do you assess and verify past experience of doing the actual job? That's the tough nut to crack and that's why they ask questions to assess your ability on the actual job. There are a lot of decent engineers out there w…

> why they ask questions to assess your ability on the actual job

You already said LC isn't an ideal proxy to the job. So I am not sure what point you are making.

If I work at Stripe for 5 years as a software engineer, are you saying I am lying about my experience? How about Google? How about Coinbase? How did these people survive for so long?

It seems like you default to the candidate being liers. Maybe you are young, but it will happen to you one day, once you learn the full-stack and then realize no-one cares because you need to pass LC to even get a job. Something you don't need because software engineering encompasses much much more than some DSA algorithm.

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

#573

Post by bogomipz »

woadwarrior01 wrote: post #43
__exit__ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say the compensation was very close to the current market rate, I assume you mean the market rate in Poland, correct? No fancy Silicon Valley salaries for devs in Poland, that is.

I left G in Ireland about 4 months ago for a fully remote position at a startup. Up until then, G's Polish salaries were low even by Western European standards (which is ~ >= 1/2 of SV pay).

I'm curious did you move from Poland to Ireland then for the salary bump? I'm guessing Google Ireland pays similar to Google SV, is that correct?

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

#574

Post by dragonwriter »

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.

> We are by the most common definition: two quarters of negative GDP growth.

That’s a common rule of thumb, but not the definition.

> Some folks in the US are weirdly insistent that recessions are defined by the NBER

These people include the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics [0] and the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis [1], among others. The US has used a tripartite definition where a recession has three required dimensions, “duration, depth, and diffusion”, for a long time; the 2-quarter-decline thing has long been cited as a guideline for the duration component, with separate rules of thumb sometimes cited for the other two. [2]

[0] https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2012/recession/pdf/recession_b... – stating “the National Bureau of Economic Research (the official arbiter of U.S. recessions)”

[1] https://www.bea.gov/help/glossary/recession – stating “The designation of a recession is the province of a committee of experts at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a private non-profit research organization that focuses on understanding the U.S. economy.”

[2] See this about the BLS criteria from 1974: https://web.archive.org/web/20200325140941/https://www.nytim...

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

#575

Post by seabrookmx »

jeromegv wrote: post #519
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…

> I work for a US company but I'm a contractor for this reason. It works for me but if you don't have extended health through your partner or don't want to deal with the tax implications of being "self employed", it can be less attractive. It's extremely easy to be self employed in Canada with a foreign corporation. You just start getting your money wired through Wise or whatever service and declare it on your income…

I'm aware.. as I said I currently contract.

But "extremely easy" is relative. It's still more hassle than being a salaried employee. If you make a non-trivial amount of money you'll need to pay your income taxes in installments and set it aside yourself (no deductions after all). You need to pay 100% of your CPP contributions. You're likely getting paid in non Canadian currency so need to get set up with a good forex provider or get ripped off by your bank (I use xe, but there's a few out there).

Also your point about not needing to charge sales tax depends on what country your employer is in. In my case it's true I don't need to charge because we have a tax treaty with the USA; for other nations this may not be the case. If no tax treaty is present, you need a GST registration #, charge your employer said GST, hold it yourself and then pay it out just like your income tax.

Also the extended health can't be overstated. If you have dental issues, bad eyesight, are on prescription drugs etc. it can make a real difference.

Generally I'd recommend contracting to people but I just want to be realistic.. it has it's downsides.

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

#576

Post by dragonwriter »

nostromo wrote: post #513
lamontcg wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/193280/seasonally-adjust... That isn't the unemployment graph of any recession I'm familiar with.

Recessions are by definition a decline in GDP, not a rise in unemployment.

> Recessions are by definition a decline in GDP

No, recessions are by definition “significant, widespread, prolonged” declines in economic activity [0]

[0] from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/recession.asp but the three dimensions are, with various terms, common (BLS and NBER use “duration, depth, and diffusion”, CD Howe Institute in Canada uses “pronounced, persistent, and pervasive decline in economic activity” [1].) The two-quarter-GDP-decline rule is a rule focussed on the prolonged/persistent/duration dimension, but which does not capture the other two dimensions.

[1] https://www.cdhowe.org/council-reports/canada-entered-recess...

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

#577

Post by dragonwriter »

nostromo wrote: post #539
colinmhayes wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's simply not true. Policymakers may speak about NBER's findings, but there is no formal recognition of them in U.S. law. They are private organization, they do not release their decision criteria publicly, and they were formed by random collection of academics that decided to start a club. They are entirely self-appointed.

> > The governments formal definition is that the NBER decides.

> That's simply not true

Yes, it is.

> Policymakers may speak about NBER's findings, but there is no formal recognition of them in U.S. law.

Not all official government actions are done by Congress as law.

US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis says “The designation of a recession is the province of a committee of experts at the National Bureau of Economic Research” [0]

US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics describes NBER as “the official arbiter of U.S. recessions” [1]

[0] https://www.bea.gov/help/glossary/recession

[1] https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2012/recession/pdf/recession_b...

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

#578

Post by Gunnerhead »

alasdair_ wrote: post #421
vidarh wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turned down Google receuiters way too early to know if that's typical, but Facebook recruiters told me from the outset the process was 6 months and that they'd provide me with a reading list, and was then surprised when I told then I'd let them know if I was willing to consider that if they provided me with a compensation range. Days after, once they'd figured out the comp range, I told them I wasn't interested. This…

> Facebook recruiters told me from the outset the process was 6 months That's crazy. When I joined FB a few years ago the total time was under a month. The reading list thing makes sense for some people who have never done a FAANG-like interview before. I remember moving from London to the USA early in my career and I had no idea how the process worked and so I got my first phone screeen with Amazon, thinking I'd exp…

Hahaha, I enjoyed your comment, gave me flashbacks to some of my first FAANG interviews.

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

#579

Post by doteseth »

ljw1001 wrote: post #444
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…

> Once Google and Facebook started growing it's clear they realized that every talented engineer on the market is a potential threat. You could count on one hand the number of startups that are serious threats to either. And when one arises, they can pretty much just buy the company, as Facebook has done repeatedly. They hardly need to be concerned with individual engineers, and even if they were, the idea that they…

You don't have to hire all of them, You just have to raise the market rate and raise everyone's expectations. That's all. The more money you got, the more you can manipulate the market.

Its the inefficiencies of the first price auction.

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

#580

Post by BlargMcLarg »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #540
RestlessMind wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know "more than enough" decent developers, you can make a great business connecting them to prospective employers.

Who will then fuck up the interview process and then return to complaining that there are no decent developers. There isn't a lack of them, there's a lack of being able to identify them.

Thanks for this. It's not just the interview process either, it's the entire industry which works against utilizing decent developers. If we really needed more decent developers, we've got thousands of companies pushing them into management, obtuse hiring practices and wades of middlemen to account for.
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