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Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

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Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#271

Post by samspenc »

Robelius wrote: post #189
csallen wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly right. For example, many media organizations right now are reporting record traffic numbers, but are struggling to make ends meet as advertisers pull out.

Is there actually any numbers people can point towards? I’ve read similar comments over different forum postings about advertisers tending to cut advertising during times like these to help their financials. And it makes sense to me. But now I’m sitting here, just wondering if anyone has actually looked at numbers during other financial downturns. Or is it just some catching conversation that’s been kicking off....ma…

WSJ: Facebook Usage Soars, But Online Advertising Plunges https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-warns-that-skyrocketin...

WSJ: Facebook Ad Rates Fall as Coronavirus Undermines Spending https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-ad-rates-fall-as-coron...

Bloomberg: Facebook’s Ads Business Weakening Despite Surge in Usage https://www.bloombergquint.com/technology/facebook-says-ads-...

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#272

Post by mywittyname »

whoisjuan wrote: post #49
xenihn wrote: post #37

People on Blind are posting that it's more than just slowing.

It can't be more than a simple slow. This crisis decimated their revenues while increasing their huge subsidized operational costs like bandwidth. Take for instance YouTube. Just imagine the cost to operate the site increasing exponentially overnight (because of all the quarantined people) while their ad business goes down. You're in the worst possible situation for a business with a model that is heavily dependent o…

The threat to YouTube has also never been higher.

The spike in usage means that YT needs content creators to make more, but also earn less money. A forward-thinking startup could capitalize on this by paying content creators more to migrate to their own service, and work to get the attention of those eyeballs which are bored of YT content.

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#273

Post by londons_explore »

deegles wrote: post #245
JSavageOne wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the topic of not having enough work to do, here's a couple questions to any Google employees: 1. As someone generally frustrated with the quality of the search results I get on Google, is improving search quality seen as any kind of priority within the company? To be fair I can't think of any other search engine that returns better results. But I feel like Google's gotten very complacent with their search, which i…

The cynical view about search quality is that the metric being optimized for is not how satisfied people are with the results, but the amount of ads and therefore revenue earned. Search results only need to be good enough to get you to come back and not worse than the competition. I wish Google had a subscription option (with actual support) that eliminated all ads across their products. Imagine Amazon's customer obs…

Google Contributor was their ad-free subscription option.

It was always a curious product, never really seemed to have management buy-in, and was pretty much a one-man product, which a 'subscription to get rid of ads across the whole web' shouldn't have been.

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#274

Post by mywittyname »

eitally wrote: post #253
defectbydesign wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a joke? In many industries it's not uncommon to subcontract a service by a subcontractor which himself subcontract the same service to another subcontractor (usually cheaper). In the end it is only a question of money! Actually top american tech companies don't have to go directly to India to get cheaper workers but instead they call american subcontractor to get cheaper workers anywhere in the world. Even more…

i don't know why you were downvoted -- you're exactly right.

It was right 10-15 years ago, but less so now. There's been a huge pushback on off-shore development in the past decade for a variety of reasons, mainly poor results, issues with time zone differences, and the negligible cost savings. Most of the big consulting firms we associate with off-shore contracting (like TATA) are supplying mostly on-shore (engineering) consultants to domestic companies (but maintaining services like help desk offshore).

Middle management got tired of having daily meetings at midnight or 6 AM, and it got too expensive to bring people over who were fine with doing so. The India job market got pretty tight around '14 or so, to the point where engineers were leaving jobs every 4-6 months for greener pastures. And even though the consulting companies are supposed to be in charge of KT, so that transitions don't impact the clients, the rate of change was just too high to maintain good quality.

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#275

Post by downerending »

JSavageOne wrote: post #229
cletus wrote: post #176

So years ago this came up with Eric Schmidt, who was CEO of Google through the GFC. After 2007, Google had selective layoffs (probably not in engineering) and slowed hiring. They also paused construction projects in Mountain View and probably elsewhere. Eric said when asked about it that it was a mistake. He said that if Google was healthy there was no need to have a kneejerk reaction to the slowdown. And this caused…

On the topic of not having enough work to do, here's a couple questions to any Google employees: 1. As someone generally frustrated with the quality of the search results I get on Google, is improving search quality seen as any kind of priority within the company? To be fair I can't think of any other search engine that returns better results. But I feel like Google's gotten very complacent with their search, which i…

My list:

1. How about an option to Maps to stop suggesting unprotected left turns at busy intersections?

2. Also, a Maps option to stop routing me through residential neighborhoods to save ten seconds.

3. Find existing, dormant Google accounts that obviously belong to the same human as another active Google account, and offer to restore access.

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#276

Post by jl2718 »

deegles wrote: post #245
JSavageOne wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the topic of not having enough work to do, here's a couple questions to any Google employees: 1. As someone generally frustrated with the quality of the search results I get on Google, is improving search quality seen as any kind of priority within the company? To be fair I can't think of any other search engine that returns better results. But I feel like Google's gotten very complacent with their search, which i…

The cynical view about search quality is that the metric being optimized for is not how satisfied people are with the results, but the amount of ads and therefore revenue earned. Search results only need to be good enough to get you to come back and not worse than the competition. I wish Google had a subscription option (with actual support) that eliminated all ads across their products. Imagine Amazon's customer obs…

Controversial for google.com, unquestionable for YouTube.

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#277

Post by zelly »

m0zg wrote: post #166
zelly wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Americans (richest country in the world btw) don't know how they will pay their rent next month or buy food. No one's signing up for a new subscription now lmao.

Those Americans have just received $2900 for the family of 3.

One time payment. If they were getting $2900 every month, it would be a different story entirely (probably a worse one). Most of that money is going to living expenses.

During recessions, people reel back in their spending, even if they are garbagemen or teachers who don't lose their jobs in recessions. This is shaping up to be the mother of all recessions, so you do the math.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_effect

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#278

Post by apotheon »

netjiro wrote: post #269
apotheon wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once worked at a nine person company where a three-minute fix to a piece of internal software ended up taking about two months of screwing around with revising a project proposal and, in the end, it was decided to drop the fix because what amounted to the #2 person in the company decided the tool would "eventually" be thrown away anyway.

Sad stories. Just get it done. Don't ask. A potential customer had been debating a problem for a couple of months with feasibility studies, lots of meetings, etc. They asked me about it as an aside over a coffee. I implemented a quick prototype while they were describing their intended project structure to me. I gave it to them for free. I did not continue with this customer. But I heard later on that a VP refused to…

> Just get it done. Don't ask.

Yeah, I didn't think it would go the way it did. That was the first time I noticed a problem.

What I really should have done is start searching for another job a week into this "process".

I'd rather give employers what they want, and -- if what they want is stupid or insane like that -- leave before I have to give the employer very much of what it wants, because I don't want to be a part of that.

> I heard later on that a VP refused to accept the solution because he insisted it must be wrong since it was completely inconceivable that it could be solved that quickly.

I loathe crap like that.

Re: Google to Slow Hiring for Rest of 2020

#280

Post by imprettycool »

sytelus wrote: post #108

Before everyone starts painting bleak picture, reminder: Facebook's Sandberg announced last week or so that they are going to do accelerated hiring spree this year, opening massive 10,000 more positions! Google as well as Facebook both depend on ads so I'm wondering why one is tightening the belt and other is moving full speed on expansion.

If I were to guess, Facebook's recruiting pipeline is centralized. Whether or not to hire is done at the executive level. When Facebook hires someone, they are first a "Facebook employee", go through the bootcamp, and decide on a team 1-2 months into the job.

Google on the other hand, the recruiting pipeline is more spread out. Whether or not to hire is done at the organizational level (i.e. Cloud, Ads, Search, Core, etc), and that depends on whether or not there are openings in any teams. You are matched with a team before you are even hired.

So, like, obviously, if you have the cash to burn, now is the right time to hire employees. You can get good talent pretty cheap right now. So it's in Google's best interest to ramp up hiring. Unfortunately Google's recruiting pipeline does not support hiring a bunch of people and figuring out what team to be on later.

So yeah, basically, Google has shitty hiring practices. It has nothing to do with them "losing money", they have so much cash in the bank which will easily last till this is over.

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