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

501–510 of 637 posts

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

#501

Post by cmrdporcupine »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #362
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.

They need to start at the top. The current phase of complacency, organizational lethargy, repeated pr disasters, people wondering wtf people are doing at Google, and general tone deafness started with the current CEO. Time for him to go. His vision is speaking in corporate cliches almost exclusively and just looking after things. If there is a grander plan other than "get people clicking ads", I have yet to learn of…

For sure, I agree.

I was never essential or important there. So my opinion is just.. whatever.

And I never really drank the kool-aid, either, really. But...

The kool-aid tasted way way way better when it was Larry, Sergey, Eric, Patrick, etc.

I can see what Ruth Porat brought to the table. Sky high stock values is one. That was nice when I still had RSUs.

But Sundar? I don't get it.

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

#502

Post by lysergia »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #250
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're projecting a very specific SV bubble. More than enough decent developers exist outside of it, willing to work for a fraction. It's the fat profits and the big boys' eagerness to poach talent that got us this far, which subsequently inflated the QoL in these tech hubs, in turn creating the current standard.

Small startups need to be poaching ‘Big Boys’ employees, not the other way round. I see many boutique shops offering (nearly) the same pay, and poaching from FAANG+M (The M is Micro$oft)

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

#503

Post by iamevn »

dixie_land wrote: post #283
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.

Google level (L3/4/5 etc) * 100k is a very realistic expectation for TC. At L7 or above double that number too. Source: recent offers and friends who recently got offers

former L3, here. my total comp was around 160k USD with base salary at 113k USD (based in Seattle area).

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

#504

Post by dghlsakjg »

908B64B197 wrote: post #414
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hire Canadians. Currency conversion advantage. Same time zones. Same language. Mostly same culture. Very well educated. Cheaper health care benefits. And $150k USD is a generous compensation level, and $250USD is about what a Canadian Googler @ L4 gets paid. $100-$125k USD gets you reasonable non-senior talent.

It's what we ended up doing (indirectly through an acquisition). But it didn't end-up costing less in the long run. I'd say about a third of employees ended up coming to the Bay anyways during the first year. Something you have to keep in mind is that there are two parallel markets over there: SV caliber developers and the rest. The former won't have any issue getting a job in the US (takes maybe a week for a talente…

Implicit in your argument is that people would always value SV > the rest of the US > Canada > Poor countries.

There are a lot of very talented people that have values that don't align that way for a variety of extremely valid reasons.

As someone who has the right to work in both Canada and the US, and who has been attempted to recruit by SV companies, I prefer the benefits of living where I do in Canada over the lifestyle costs of living in SV with 3x the money.

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

#505

Post by whydid »

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.

A friend did some high-end contract work for Google, and was hired many months before the project started. This person was paid a very high contractor rate to "review documents and onboarding" and was told by a director this is a common tactic that Google uses to ensure availability of high end engineers, and to prevent their competitors from hiring.

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

#506

Post by efsavage »

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…

Two things that I can say with certainty I've heard literally every single one of the ~25 years I've been in this game:

1. "We're in a bubble!, it's only a matter of time before it all comes down" 2. "The market is hot for developers right now!"

I've been through hiring sprees and layoffs, I've had startups succeed and fail, and I don't think my experiences are exceptional in any way. Things wax and wane, trends come and go. Keep a bit of savings, live within your means, and do good work and things will most likely work out well for you in the long run.

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

#507

Post by advael »

rco8786 wrote: post #481
advael wrote: post #475

As others have commented, this seems like a smokescreen rather than a real freeze. But as someone who wants to see every monopolistic company broken up or fail spectacularly, I think a hiring freeze at FAANGs is a great opportunity for talented people to consider growing a spine and working somewhere less big and lucrative. To people facing that choice, I would say this: The world is in a weird place right now, and y…

For someone who seems to agree that this is a smokescreen it’s odd to continue on to admonish FAANG engineers for sticking with something that’s only illusory stable? If it’s a smokescreen that would imply that no stability has been lost for existing employees there.

I am not claiming the hiring freeze makes the stability illusory, I am claiming that the entire concept of stability is fictional

EDIT: Actually, you've also missed my point in another respect: Even if there's a real hiring freeze the immediate impact would be on people seeking FAANG jobs, not those who already have them. Honestly I don't even know what you think you're responding to. Maybe you're at a FAANG and think I'm admonishing you? There's no need to be defensive. I am trying to offer advice, not to moralize at people

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

#508

Post by tcmart14 »

alecbz wrote: post #344
time_to_smile wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the business cycle Just an aside, that this rebranding of Marx's theory of crisis never fails to get a chuckle out of me. In mainstream economics is presented as some magical property of the way economies work, where Marx specifically predicts cyclically economic crisis created by contradictions inherent in the structure of capitalism, the periodically build to a tipping point leading to crisis and ultimately the r…

> For Marx, these crises ultimately culminate in the unavoidable collapse of capitalism. But I mean that's exactly the whole difference, right? Both Marx and others identified this pattern, Marx believes this ultimately will explode, others don't, so it makes sense that others would want to label it in a way that indicates their view that the pattern is "normal" and sustainable. I'm not even saying Marx is wrong, but…

This is where I think people try to pull 'gotchas' on Marx because Capitalism hasn't reached the point of bursting yet. I don't necessarily think he was wrong, nor right. The reality, the persistence of capitalism will happen so long as people/systems are willing to be flexible enough to "resolve the current set of contradictions." Now, those resolution's sometimes don't remain resolved because many of us have the memory of a goldfish when it comes to economics. But as long as people who have the powers to make the calls are willing to bend over backwards enough (even temporarily), capitalism won't cease.

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

#509

Post by dghlsakjg »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #394
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're projecting a very specific SV bubble. More than enough decent developers exist outside of it, willing to work for a fraction. It's the fat profits and the big boys' eagerness to poach talent that got us this far, which subsequently inflated the QoL in these tech hubs, in turn creating the current standard.

Yeah, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure that I or most silicon valley coders making 250k+ can singlehandedly outperform a dozen "decent developers" by pretty much any metric you can pick. I'm not saying we're smarter or innately better, but coding is a tradeskill and the masters of the trade are almost all here. I'm interested to see how much this changes over the next decade, though, since a lot of people have scat…

The absolute hubris of SV people thinking that they can individually perform the jobs of 2-3 competent teams of people at literally any company outside of SV is why a lot of talented people want nothing to do with SV.

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

#510

Post by cmrdporcupine »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #497
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…

As a Canadian PR I've always thought this would be a good option except that the Canadian government seems determined to make it difficult. When the most practical option is to form a corporate entity with a single employee, and BTW you may have to pay GST + PST on labor depending on if other Canadians use the service, it begins to look really unappetizing. I get that employees as contractor relationships are rife fo…

CRA now frowns heavily on "personal service corporations." There is no tax advantage (in fact there's disadvantages) to incorporating unless you have more than one client.

So it ends up being sole proprietorship only, which has far less tax advantages.

I mean, as a tax payer and citizen who paid exorbitant personal income taxes for years as an employee of a FAANG, I think this is probably equitable. But as a contractor, now... damn I'd like to be able to take advantage of corporate tax rates like I could 13 years ago when I did this last.

Post reply on HN