
Facebook To Open Engineering Office In NYC - llambda
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/02/facebook-to-open-engineering-office-in-nyc/
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codyrobbins
I think this is a long-term vote of confidence in the NYC tech ecosystem, but
I also think they’re counting in the short term on the at least partial
unraveling of the startup craze freeing up lots and lots of talent that is
currently tied up in lackluster startups here.

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spolsky
Wha? That's ridiculous.

Mostly, Facebook just copies Google's playbook, usually because so many of
their managers came from Google. And a part of Google's playbook is that not
every good developer wants to live and work in Silicon Valley, so you simply
can't hire enough good developers if you only have one location. By the time a
company has hired as many people as Facebook, they've failed to hire hundred
of others who, for one reason or another, don't want to leave New York. Maybe
their wife is in medical school or their husband is a quant on Wall Street.
Maybe they like the arts, or nightlife, or walkability. Whatever it is,
Silicon Valley is not for everyone and at the rate that Facebook (and ebay,
and Google, and Twitter, and Microsoft) need to hire programmers, they have to
consider a few out-of-town campuses.

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apaprocki
I welcome the hiring competition. With a new applied science school(s) right
around the corner, it is a win for the overall area regardless of whether
there will be short-term pressure on hiring good talent in the city.

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spolsky
right around the corner? It's going to be 15 years before that thing is
generating graduates. But yes it will be a good thing!

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vaksel
doesn't really make sense, the NYC area is starving for talent + I dunno where
they got it, but most techies in this area aren't that entrepreneurial.

chances are this will end up driving salaries up by 10-15%, and will end up
hurting most of the startups here by making it infinitely harder to
hire/retain talent

A smarter move for them would be to open an office in Boston, since then you'd
be able to tap into all those grads from MIT

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shakes
> most techies in this area aren't that entrepreneurial.

I'm not sure where you get that idea? I've had the exact opposite experience
in NYC. I think the tech scene is very entrepreneurial... IMO, it's why you
see lots of people gravitating towards places like GA.

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kilovoltaire
General Assembly, or Georgia?

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shakes
Ha, General Assembly :)

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throwaway09899
I would like to apply... but I can't.

You need to be a Facebook user to apply. I find it discriminatory: you
discriminate against privacy concious people. I'll _never_ get a Facebook
account the way Facebook is right now. And I would like to fix this, but I
can't; you won't let me.

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daeken
If you aren't willing to use the product, you shouldn't be applying there in
the first place. Seriously, throwing terms like "discrimination" around for
this is just... sad.

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gujk
Why? A company can expand its user base by reaching out to non-users who can
help fix mistakes.

