

Google, Facebook and Zynga on a hiring binge in California - pathik
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/03/high-tech-industry-on-hiring-binge-in-california-google-facebook-and-zynga-lead-the-pack.html

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djb_hackernews
I joined linkedin this week, 16 hours later I was contacted by a Google
recruiter "impressed" with my software engineering experience.

I listed my current job title 'Software Developer'. No description, no
technical bullet points, nothing, just a title. Thats what they were
"impressed" with.

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muhfuhkuh
How about the "5 million dollar bonus" (I'm guessing restricted stocks) to
retain one top engineer? We must be switching over from brawn to brains in the
human value chain, which is apt, as the ENTIRE value of NFL teams doesn't even
equal the value of any ONE of the companies mentioned (Total value of Facebook
is $50B while total value for combined NFL teams is ~37B for example). Either
that, or we're in a bubble. I, being the incurable optimist, vote for the
former.

~~~
gxs
Well it depends on how you look at it.

Elite brawn (elite NFL player): 20M / year.

Elite brain (elite programmer): (way)<1M / year.

Note: I didn't compare brawn to say, Zuckerberg, because that would be more
like comparing the owners of the team.

Just my $0.02.

~~~
muhfuhkuh
"Elite brain (elite programmer): (way)<1M / year"

"Elite brain" isn't some clean up hitter lighting up code or architecting for
you. Elite brain is CTO, or EVP of technology. In terms of e.g., basketball,
the Micky Arison of Apple is undoubtedly Steve Jobs, so LeBron is someone like
Jony Ives. I'm quite sure Jony is walking away with way more than $20M after
designing the iPod, iPhone and iPad (some speculate it's somewhere in the
$150-200 Million range).

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mkramlich
I've noticed a spike in emails from recruiters for jobs/gigs in California
recently, both from the companies cited (I've had emails from all 3) and from
others. I've lost track of how many times in the last week alone I've had to
tell recruiters "I'm not willing to move to California at the moment".
Thinking of making a macro for it.

Also, I've come close a few times to telling recruiters to tell their clients
to please discover the joys of ssh/sftp/dropbox/basecamp/email/irc/phone, ie.
telecommuting. I'm increasingly finding it funny that employers care where my
body is considering how an extreme gap there is between the demand for
qualified engineers and the supply of available+interested+affordable ones.

~~~
jshen
And some of us would love to work for company X, but bought houses during the
bubble and are now effectively stuck where we're at.

I'd would be great to telecommute, but most aren't up for that as jedberg
illustrates.

~~~
larsberg
If you are a superior candidate (significant years of experience, many
successful products that you were one of the couple key dev members on),
interview anyway. There are relocation benefits usable to the large players
with deeper pockets, one of which includes third-party companies that will buy
and resell your house from you via a subsidy provided by your new company.

~~~
jshen
I'm over $150k upside down on my house. No one is going to make up that
difference.

~~~
nradov
If you're that far in the hole, does it really make sense to keep throwing
good money after bad?

~~~
jshen
Im not sure what you mean exactly. Sadly I have a recourse loan because i
refinanced which means the bank can come after my assets if I default. Being a
well paid programmer for a decade means i have assets to take unlike many
people in my situation. They aren't limited to taking just the house and
ruining my credit, so I'll be gambling to some degree if I try to walk away
from it.

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jedberg
No kidding! They keep stealing my people! ;)

Seriously though, it's been making things tough. We've really had to step up
our game lately to make compelling arguments. Luckily, we have some advantages
over those guys, like being able to push code live to millions of people with
pretty much no bureaucracy.

~~~
rdtsc
Play against their giant corporate structure. They can't adapt and be
flexible, but you can. You might not be able to match their salary + bonus,
but you can do other things. How about giving your employees more vacation
time? A lot of them are not living in the same town as their family, they will
value having time to spend with family, or to travel. Google has what? 3 weeks
of time off? Give them 6 if you can. Pitch it as, "sure you can make all that
money, but will you have time to spend with you kids or to travel?"

Also, let some people work from home if possible. Let them keep flexible
hours, make 11 to 3 core hours and let people come in early or leave late ...
It is stuff that might take lots of red tape in large companies.

~~~
rdouble
Google does all that stuff already.

~~~
rdtsc
6 weeks of vacation? starting up?

~~~
EmployedRussian
3 weeks at start; 4 weeks after 3 years; 5 weeks after 5 years:
[http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/lifeatgoogle/benefits/ind...](http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/lifeatgoogle/benefits/index.html#ta)

By "does this already", rdouble probably meant: work from home, flexible
hours, etc.

More vacation time in lieu of salary may also be a tough sell: Google allows
up to several (3? 6?) month of unpaid personal time off, making it pretty easy
to trade salary for vacation "on demand".

~~~
rdtsc
So no 6 weeks starting up then. Yes he might have meant 'work from home' and
'flex hours' but the main point was extra vacation time.

I think it appeals to younger people as they like to travel, and many probably
live away from their parents and friends, and it appeals to developers that
have children, as they would like to more time with their family, and most
importantly, that time is not arbitrarily convertible to cash.

Sure Google would let them take unpaid time off, but paid time off is even
better.

The main point is that Google being a large company it is harder for it to
adjust and make changes. That vulnerability should be exploited and taken
advantage by smaller startups.

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spif
Which is why for some reason's it's good to be an entrepreneur outside of
California. Recently traveling to the US this was quite a revelation: being in
Europe (Amsterdam) can also be a competitive advantage.

~~~
woan
I don't follow unless you are saying that other areas are less competitive.

There is a good reason that CA is hot for tech companies. It's the whole
ecosystem.

Were it not for the ecosystem, these same folks are smart enough to found or
move their companies elsewhere.

~~~
nkassis
I think he meant that not being in California is an advantage because you
don't have 3 hulking giants (and more) taking practically 100% of the
available engineers. Whatever is left is fiercely battled for by the smaller
companies.

~~~
dlsspy
Some people just want to work in small companies. I get recruited from Google
and Facebook regularly. I'm not ready to work in that kind of environment. I
know lots of people who aren't. I work with several of them. We want to do
things those guys aren't going to do.

~~~
ardit33
ditto here. After my experience with Amazon, it definitely made my mind that
big corporation are not happy places in general.

Sure, I could tell people I worked on the Kindle and I did a bunch of the ui
and framework (worked well in bars with girls), but the bureaucracy of a large
company just sucks your soul. You have to cut through so much b.s. to just get
anything done. I remember at some point the documentation of some features
were taking more than the implementation and testing itself, just to satisfy
some guidelines.

Aslo, unless you are starting your own company, a lot of smaller companies are
a crapshoot.

I really think that mid-sized nimble companies are the best (between 50 and
180 people). If they are doing well, and are growing, there is a lot more
opportunity in such companies career wise, and friendship/social wise than in
a large corp. You just create better bonds with your mates, working towards a
common goal, without political bs., and you have the chance to see all parts
of the business closer (in large corps, you are just in some part of
engineering, with no visibility to the business decisions).

This month I just moved to Yammer, and so far it has been awesome experience.
(btw, if any of you guys are looking for something new in SF let me know
ardit33@gmail.com. We are looking for great engineers, both server and client
side. Also this is a company that practices <http://programming-
motherfucker.com/> for real. There is no forced scrum, tdd, tbd, or whatever.
It is up to the individual engineers in teams to come up with something that
works well for them, as long as things go well.

I would say other similar companies to Yammer in the Bay Area are: EventBrite,
Square, Evernote, etc...

Stable, growing, real business models, and yet fun to work at.

If you are an up and coming hacker, join one of these companies, work for a
while (and get real salaries, and equity), meet great people, and move on to
your own thing when you are ready.

Just my 2 cents.

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patio11
Anyone here in California not asked for a raise in, say, six months? Headlines
like this mean the demand curve has shifted. If you don't communicate that
fact to your bosses, they will likely not recalculate the market clearing
price for your labor for you. (If it had gone down, on the other hand...)

~~~
jbarham
> Anyone here in California not asked for a raise in, say, six months?

Sure, the suckers on H1B work visas who are waiting for their green cards,
which can take several years... Given that your H1B visa is tied to a
particular job at a particular company at a particular salary, and your green
card application resets if you change jobs, it obviously discourages H1B
workers from fully participating in the free labour market.

Not that I'm bitter or anything, ;), but I was exactly in that situation last
year, getting hounded by recruiters for jobs much more appealing that the one
I was in. But my H1B visa and green card application, not to mention the
financial responsibility of providing for my family, prevented me from
considering those positions.

So I said adios to the US, played my trump card of being married to an
Australian, and I now have permanent residency in Australia without any
restrictions on who I can or cannot work for (unless it's a government
position that requires I be a citizen, which doesn't interest me anyway).

FWIW, Amazon's Singapore AWS data center is working out just fine from Down
Under as I work on my startup...

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keane
"San Francisco's Twitter… has more than 400 employees and plans to grow to
3,000 employees by July 2013."

Wow. Planned staff increases:

    
    
      Google: 25%
      YouTube: 30%
      Facebook: 50%
      Twitter: 650% (over 2 years)
    

That is amazing. I am very curious what organization and methods Twitter has
planned to manage scaling up like that.

~~~
fizx
I hear Facebook has internal guidelines that say they can't grow by more than
60% y/y.

~~~
gwern
In _Founders at Work_, McKinsey's consultants are quoted as recommending
growth be no greater than 25% because past that, the corporate culture is
lost.

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Tiktaalik
These three companies have each now opened offices in Seattle too. I suppose
that could end up heating up that market as well.

