10 ms·

As much as it sucks for the 2000 people who won't have their offers honored and especially who many have left other roles for the chance to work at Google, this

As much as it sucks for the 2000 people who won't have their offers honored and especially who many have left other roles for the chance to work at Google, this is the devil's bargin of contract work. You are there specifically so the company can adjust labor resources in real time and with minimal consequences or press. If you don't want to be treated as extra-disposable and second class then don't take contacts, because they are higher risk than FTE. Of course you will also be cutting yourself off from opportunities to quickly gain new experiences, and contracts can frequently lead to FTE offers if your agency structures their contract in your favor.

dudul 6y ago
Is there a significant difference between terminating a full time, "at will" employee and a contractor? Other than a few weeks of severance I can't think of any.
- rwmurrayVT 6y ago
  I don't think "at will" employees are even guaranteed severance pay every where.
  - dudul 6y ago
    True, this is just an expected curtesy, just like the 2 week notice an employee is supposed to give when leaving.
    - derivagral 6y ago
      I always thought this was an odd formality due to the asymmetry; if an employer is terminating you, they generally won't give you a 2 week notice, at least in the USA.
      - dudul 6y ago
        But they are supposed to give you 2 weeks of pay. I prefer to get the cash and have 2 weeks, at home, starting the full time search for a new job. Instead of having to show up for 2 weeks while knowing that I will be gone in a few days :)
        otterley 6y ago
        There's no such law in any US State that I'm aware of that requires a company provide you severance pay upon termination. Such severance is a courtesy at best. When the circumstances are contentious, it is frequently provided in exchange for an agreement that the terminated employee not sue the company for unlawful termination, discrimination, etc. and not defame the company in any way.
        ensignavenger 6y ago
        There are also no laws that an at-will employee must give two weeks notice- it is a courtesy at best.
        dudul 6y ago
        Yes, just like the 2 week notice from the employee. I feel like we've gone full circle twice now.
        perl4ever 6y ago
        I've always given 2 weeks notice, never been offered severance pay, but on the other hand never been marched out immediately like some people. In one instance, I gave my resignation and then they said shortly afterwards how about we make it a week from now instead of the full two weeks (or something like that). They paid me according to how long I worked and no more.
        gnopgnip 6y ago
        In CA and many other states have an implied contract exception to at-will employment. If two weeks notice is in the written employee handbook, or they have a history or doing providing it they do need to give two weeks notice or pay in lieu even if you don't agree to any other agreements
- klipt 6y ago
  Legality aside, culturally Google has a reputation of never having laid off employees. Even when a team gets shuttered the engineers are given months to find a new role on another team. That kind of positive reputation makes recruiting easier.
  - xhkkffbf 6y ago
    They may not have publicly announced layoffs, but I know several who, let's say, overstayed their welcome. They were given months, but no other position appeared. The company was still hiring like crazy, but somehow an internal candidate wasn't acceptable. Go figure. It's a company like any other and now they're acting more like the herd.
    - sida 6y ago
      Then that's just a PIP in disguise. The candidate could very well have been a false positive on the initial hire in the first place. And candidate simply got lucky into that team
      - hedora 6y ago
        I know an extremely high performing engineer that was on a successful but completed project (not at Google). His whole team was given a few months to find a new position. Multiple managers tried to get them on their teams, but the transfers all were blocked at a higher level. Eventually, he asked for and got severance pay. Shortly after, during the earnings call, the leadership told the investors they were reducing engineering spend by cutting hiring and consolidating programs, but that all redundant engineers were encouraged to seek another position in the company. Of course, they neglected to mention that such positions didn’t really exist. It was clearly a layoff, except they strung the laid off employees along for a few months. That way, they didn’t have to damage morale or customer/investor confidence by admitting it was a layoff. I’m sure people further removed from the situation would assume it was a PIP, which hurts the engineers’ careers.
        6y ago
- bob33212 6y ago
  Contracts are for a specific time period, 12 months for example. FTE has no expiration date.
  - dudul 6y ago
    At will employment can be terminated at any time. Contracts can also be terminated whenever the company decides, as per the present example. Not sure what that has to do with my question.
    - ikeyany 6y ago
      Fun fact: Montana is the only state that bans this.
      - gnopgnip 6y ago
        It is a little more nuanced than that. Many states have laws that say PTO is earned, it needs to be paid out 100% of the time, some say it depends on the written company policy, other say it never needs to be paid out. And similarly, Montana requires good cause to fire employees(except if they are new employees or meet a number of other exceptions), a number of states have exceptions to at-will that require employers to follow their own policies(and many large companies require two weeks notice, and good cause for firing) and a number have few to no exceptions to at-will.
    - dougmwne 6y ago
      Sure that's true in theory. In practice contractors are let go at the end of their contract unless there's a renewal and often due to co-employment risk they can only be renewed for a certain length of time before they must either be hired or let go. It's also seen as no big deal to end a contract early. You are there fully at the convenience of the company. Often there's no need to go through HR, they just make a phone call to your agency for you not to come in the next day. That's much different than most companies treat their FTEs, even though in the USA employees have almost no protection in most states anyway. Just because something is legally similar does not mean it's used the same in practice. This is very true of contracts.
- C1sc0cat 6y ago
  Well if you have accepted a contract offer isn't google in breach of contract? Self employed contractors seem to get a really bad deal in the USA. If I had agreed a contract in the UK for x months work id expect the employer to honour it and also be paid 2 to 3 times the FTE rate .
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    This article is using “contractor” to mean whatever they want it to mean. They’re not talking about highly paid independent software developers working on contract. They’re talking about at-will employees of a third party that Google contracted with to fill low-skill positions.
    - 0xffff2 6y ago
      That's not "whatever they want it to mean". That's industry standard terminology. And it's not all low-skill positions. A friend of mine is a PhD optics researcher and he was a Google contractor (the employee of a third party kind) for a few years before moving on to an FTE position elsewhere.
    - bob33212 6y ago
      The difference is that contractors can be removed from the company without any action on part of the employeer. If an employer wants to remove contractors one option they have is to do nothing and let the contracts expire. They cannot do that to an employee. They must explicitly tell the employee that their employment is being terminated.
    - C1sc0cat 6y ago
      Even for higher skilled "contract positions" you don't seem to command a premium in the USA.
      - geodel 6y ago
        I have seen people getting paid a lot on contracts. But of course it depends who considered them high skilled - Company contracting them or contractor themselves.
- kirubakaran 6y ago
  Layoffs (especially of 2k people) are interpreted as the company being in trouble. Letting contractors go is interpreted as business as usual. Defaults matter. FTEs are default live; they stay unless laid off or fired. Contractors are default dead; they're gone unless the contract is renewed. In this case they've rescinded offers that were made, which makes it unusual and newsworthy.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  There's a legal difference at these volumes. The WARN Act applies here and states may have their own laws that also apply.
- momokoko 6y ago
  You can’t sue for discrimination or wrongful termination. You are not protected by the WARN act. There are more but that’s just off the top of my head. If there wasn’t a difference, companies wouldn’t do it. Remember, they have to pay these people more money than they would for a direct hire because the staffing agency takes a cut of their weekly pay.
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    Contractors can sue for discrimination in some states.
  - gnopgnip 6y ago
    Contractors for Google are still employees working for a contracting company. They could sue if they were discriminated against for membership in a protected class.
    - mamon 6y ago
      Usually this is not true: they are not employees at all, contracting company also hires them as subcontractors, each of them running their own sole propertiorship (at least that's how it works in my country). But even if they were employees, they are not really getting fired from the contracting company - it can still try and find them another gig, for a different client. So you can say they are not getting fired at all, just suddenly have no work to do (but still have a valid employment contract). Of course if contracting agency can't find them another position in reasonably short time they will fire them as well, but that's not on Google anymore, so Google can't be sued for that.
      - pyuser583 6y ago
        I’ve worked as a contractor. Was definitely an employee of the contractor company.
- excursionist 6y ago
  A lot of contractors are incorporated, so the contract is not between google and the contractor, but between google and the contractor's corp (sometimes another agency in between google and corp). So the contractor is not an employee of google and employment laws do not apply. Termination rules (typically a few weeks notice) are defined in the contract.
- gnopgnip 6y ago
  Yes there is. In CA and many other states the at-will employment doctrine has an implied contract exception. That means employers need a good faith business reason, or good cause to fire employees, but not contractors in this context.
gowld 6y ago
Your solution is "if you can't get a good job, just get a better job?" And you think no one's thought of that already?
- dougmwne 6y ago
  Nope, not what I was saying at all. I was making a statement about personal risk tolerance. A contract is more risky than FTE because your risk of the company being done with you before you are done with the company is higher. If you are unemployed and need to get back to work then you'd usually take what you can get. If you are choosing between opportunities or leaving a FTE job then be aware of the risk, even if the company is Google.
softwaredoug 6y ago
It's also the case that some companies will hire MORE contractors at this point because they are more easily disposable than employees
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- r00fus 6y ago
  More likely they will hire more contractors in the fast ramp-up after things start rolling again (quicker to onboard a contractor). Contractors are the first to get filled and first to let go.
  - kevstev 6y ago
    I disagree. A benefit of having a contract worker is that they don't show up as a recurring cost. I used to work at Morgan Stanley (Ruth Porat's previous CFO gig before Google) and around the time I left, the tech organization was roughly 70% contract workers. This was well after the crisis, and the company was laying off full time employees in at least one wave each year, while the ranks of contractors began to swell. My breaking point there was actually that despite having a fairly senior title, I was being called in to do tons of mundane work on the weekend (checkouts after network/firewll changes) because they would have to pay contractors to do it on the weekend, and that was not allowed. I definitely felt toward the end that you had considerably more job security as a contractor than an FTE. So much so in fact, that after being fed up with weekend and late night work, I probed to see if I could go the contractor route. Then I found out that they got paid by the "day" and not even the hour, and the rates they were paying were finely tuned to make them more or less break even in terms of FTE pay when considering benefits and such.
floatingatoll 6y ago
Reminding people that took a paying job out of a need to get paid that they should expect to be treated as less human than full-time employees assumes that they are somehow unaware of this. Every contractor I've worked with in the past 5 years clearly understood the fragility of their situation, while the employees working with them often did not.
- tantalor 6y ago
  > treated as less human Keep it civil? Nobody said anything about "less human". That's a vile straw man.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - evanb 6y ago
    > treated as extra-disposable and second class I suppose it depends on the eye of the beholder. Humans aren't disposable.
    - izzydata 6y ago
      The position is disposable, not the person.
      - artsyca 6y ago
        I was let go with no notice and not even a bag to take my shit home while the asshat recruiting manager who hired me and got a promotion
    - threatofrain 6y ago
      For such statements we must observe the speech which is uttered forth from the motion of hands and not the motion of lips.
      - floatingatoll 6y ago
decafninja 6y ago
I could be wrong but: Wouldn't "contractor at Google" still look great on a resume? Obviously not as great as having been a FTE, but I'd think it would still be a positive differentiator. And as you said, there is the possibility of being flipped to FTE. Does this apply to SWEs too, and if so, is that a way to circumvent the dreaded and notorious leetcode style "Google Interview"? If so, combined with the first point above, seems like it would be worth playing the odds, considering going in the front door via the usual FTE SWE interview process is a huge gamble anyways.
- dougmwne 6y ago
  Absolutely! Contracts have many benefits to both parties, but stability is not one of them. A contract at Google sounds like resume gold to me. Many people commonly list the company they contracted for and leave off the agency and maybe say "Google May-Sept (contract)". I don't know Google's hiring practices but I do know that at many companies, going contract-to-hire let's you skip the full interview process. I have seen it personally many times from working in the industry. Contractors are usually hired after a single short interview.
- ping_pong 6y ago
  No, it looks like a contract gig. There's a big difference between the contractors hired at Google vs FTE.
  - decafninja 6y ago
    The comparison isn't one between Google FTE and Google contractor. Obviously Google FTE is the superior job. It's between Google contractor and working (fulltime or otherwise) at a "lesser" company.
- tripletao 6y ago
  Experience as a contractor (strictly, employee of a contracted agency) at a big tech company is fine, not that exciting but positive. It would probably push my estimate of a candidate slightly above the middle of the distribution, away from either the good or bad extreme; but it's a lot less important than what you did. And yes, software developers do go from contract to FTE. The interview process may become somewhat pro forma in that case, since the options are to hire as FTE, fire as everything, or get somewhat awkward. So probably sometimes that lets candidates who couldn't have passed normal interviews slip through. In a certain sense, that's fine, since you've had much more time to assess your contractor, and probably already made a better determination than even the best 1-2 day interview process could. That does feel unfair, though; and since your contractor knows the group's work well and interview questions usually (should, at least) relate to that work, they should be coming in to your usual process with a strong advantage. So I personally try very hard not to start interviews for a quasi-internal candidate unless I'm confident they'll pass the usual process, and encourage interviewers to evaluate with their usual rigor. I've seen managers deliberately bring in interviewers outside the group too, both to improve objectivity and (hopefully) to make an introduction that the candidate will find valuable in their new FTE job.
sarcasmatwork 6y ago
Wrong wrong wrong! Companies ~20 years ago use to hire a CW (Contract worker, Contingent worker) then see if they would fit and then eventually hire them as FTE. Now, they hire contract workers as they are in a different tax bracked and companies do get tax breaks. Thus the company will pay the CW the lowest possible wage, while giving them NONE of the company perks with a contract that starts at 6 months/1-year and is ALWAYS extended for longer term, or the contract starts out as never ending. For example job's that should be FTE, are contracted to CW's. I.E system admin, validation etc.. Companies contact recruiters to find CW's, vs Companies hiring people directly as FTE instead of being forced to use a recruiter. I.E My job, I dont have an end date contract... its indefinite, yet my duties are exactly if not very simular to FTE's. How is that even fair? Companies like Google, MS, Intel, HP etc etc have excessive contact worker workforce for the main purpose of making more money. Pay CW's less, they make more $$.. CW's do not get the same FTE resources like stock, access to perks on-site as FTE's, more so treated as 2nd class people. There is a clear abuse in the industry, but none want to take it on imho. I've got stories and actual experience for daaays! I'd actually like to talk to a lawyer as I think its a complete abuse of the CW system that these big companies are getting away with. </rant>
- sudo-i 6y ago
  They don't treat them as equal because of the legal system. I believe in the eyes of the law, if you treat a non-FTE as a FTE then they are essentially as FTE. That means companies have to treat CWs this way as a means to protect themselves against litigation. It's a little more complicated then just "the purpose of making money"
  - sct202 6y ago
    Microsoft got in trouble for this in the 90s for treating permatemps too similarly to FTEs. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/13/business/technology-temp-workers-at-microsoft-win-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/13/business/technology-temp-...
    - sarcasmatwork 6y ago
mathattack 6y ago
Every company is doing this. Protect the full time employees first. Consulting and contingency companies do very well in good times but struggle in downtimes.
goatinaboat 6y ago
and contracts can frequently lead to FTE offers if your agency structures their contract in your favor. Maybe Google is different (I doubt it) but in most cases it is harder to become a direct employee from a temp position. Obviously the staffing agency wants to go on being paid it’s fee, it doesn’t want you cutting out the middleman.
- hckr_news 6y ago
  One of my buddies was hired by Accenture out of college as a contracted consultant. He was overworked with daily 10-hour work days. And they basically strung him along for 2 years with promise of full time conversion until he got fed up and left. Contracting in software has its pros but unpaid holiday, or awful benefits package just doesn’t seem worth it to me. Probably better if you run your own one-man consulting shop that accepts different contracts at high rates, than being a 40-hr/wk contingent worker and do the same work as a full time employee with none of the benefits like 401k match, pto, or health coverage. Long term I’d love to run my own software consulting shop and charge these large Fortune 500s out the ass, but until then I’ll keep chugging along as a full time employee, while staying well clear of contract work.
  - bb88 6y ago
    Being a contractor there's a certain amount of freedom that you get from a contract. You don't have to play the idiotic performance eval games, eg. I was a contractor in a company that laid off 10% of the workforce, and strangely remained on contract. I talked with my manager about why, and it turned out that a layoff was an excuse to fire FTEs without going through the firing process.
kerng 6y ago
In certain areas contractors earn good money, at times more then FTE. Like $300+ an hour and much higher. With that pay comes the risk of a less strong connection to the company. Which is expected and wanted by many contractors. Of course, this is for everyone, and not everyone does it voluntary - not getting a gig during the current situation can suck badly.
- decafninja 6y ago
  Legacy finance tech - investment banks, hedge funds, etc. Contractors arguably make more than FTEs. If your spouse is a FTE somewhere that gives health insurance, then it can be even more lucrative. Some of my coworkers in London have told me it can be considered stupid (from a monetary perspective) not to be a contractor in the UK if you're working as a SWE at a bank/hedgefund. However from what I understand, tax laws have changed recently and this is no longer the case. Contractors at Google and other tech companies are apparently treated as second class citizenry, but my observation at finance companies is that this is usually not the case.
  - p_l 6y ago
    London contract market is an outlier even with UK, which is pretty much an outlier even across EU. With some careful planning, it was possible to exploit the situation to ridiculous degree, by avoiding UK taxes altogether and keeping ones tax residency somewhere else. UK contractor might pay as high as 45% tax, there are countries in EU that would let you pay 5%

dudul 6y ago

Is there a significant difference between terminating a full time, "at will" employee and a contractor? Other than a few weeks of severance I can't think of any.

rwmurrayVT 6y ago
I don't think "at will" employees are even guaranteed severance pay every where.
- dudul 6y ago
  True, this is just an expected curtesy, just like the 2 week notice an employee is supposed to give when leaving.
  - derivagral 6y ago
    I always thought this was an odd formality due to the asymmetry; if an employer is terminating you, they generally won't give you a 2 week notice, at least in the USA.
    - dudul 6y ago
      But they are supposed to give you 2 weeks of pay. I prefer to get the cash and have 2 weeks, at home, starting the full time search for a new job. Instead of having to show up for 2 weeks while knowing that I will be gone in a few days :)
      - otterley 6y ago
        There's no such law in any US State that I'm aware of that requires a company provide you severance pay upon termination. Such severance is a courtesy at best. When the circumstances are contentious, it is frequently provided in exchange for an agreement that the terminated employee not sue the company for unlawful termination, discrimination, etc. and not defame the company in any way.
        ensignavenger 6y ago
        There are also no laws that an at-will employee must give two weeks notice- it is a courtesy at best.
        dudul 6y ago
        Yes, just like the 2 week notice from the employee. I feel like we've gone full circle twice now.
        perl4ever 6y ago
        I've always given 2 weeks notice, never been offered severance pay, but on the other hand never been marched out immediately like some people. In one instance, I gave my resignation and then they said shortly afterwards how about we make it a week from now instead of the full two weeks (or something like that). They paid me according to how long I worked and no more.
        gnopgnip 6y ago
        In CA and many other states have an implied contract exception to at-will employment. If two weeks notice is in the written employee handbook, or they have a history or doing providing it they do need to give two weeks notice or pay in lieu even if you don't agree to any other agreements
klipt 6y ago
Legality aside, culturally Google has a reputation of never having laid off employees. Even when a team gets shuttered the engineers are given months to find a new role on another team. That kind of positive reputation makes recruiting easier.
- xhkkffbf 6y ago
  They may not have publicly announced layoffs, but I know several who, let's say, overstayed their welcome. They were given months, but no other position appeared. The company was still hiring like crazy, but somehow an internal candidate wasn't acceptable. Go figure. It's a company like any other and now they're acting more like the herd.
  - sida 6y ago
    Then that's just a PIP in disguise. The candidate could very well have been a false positive on the initial hire in the first place. And candidate simply got lucky into that team
    - hedora 6y ago
      I know an extremely high performing engineer that was on a successful but completed project (not at Google). His whole team was given a few months to find a new position. Multiple managers tried to get them on their teams, but the transfers all were blocked at a higher level. Eventually, he asked for and got severance pay. Shortly after, during the earnings call, the leadership told the investors they were reducing engineering spend by cutting hiring and consolidating programs, but that all redundant engineers were encouraged to seek another position in the company. Of course, they neglected to mention that such positions didn’t really exist. It was clearly a layoff, except they strung the laid off employees along for a few months. That way, they didn’t have to damage morale or customer/investor confidence by admitting it was a layoff. I’m sure people further removed from the situation would assume it was a PIP, which hurts the engineers’ careers.
      - 6y ago
bob33212 6y ago
Contracts are for a specific time period, 12 months for example. FTE has no expiration date.
- dudul 6y ago
  At will employment can be terminated at any time. Contracts can also be terminated whenever the company decides, as per the present example. Not sure what that has to do with my question.
  - ikeyany 6y ago
    Fun fact: Montana is the only state that bans this.
    - gnopgnip 6y ago
      It is a little more nuanced than that. Many states have laws that say PTO is earned, it needs to be paid out 100% of the time, some say it depends on the written company policy, other say it never needs to be paid out. And similarly, Montana requires good cause to fire employees(except if they are new employees or meet a number of other exceptions), a number of states have exceptions to at-will that require employers to follow their own policies(and many large companies require two weeks notice, and good cause for firing) and a number have few to no exceptions to at-will.
  - dougmwne 6y ago
    Sure that's true in theory. In practice contractors are let go at the end of their contract unless there's a renewal and often due to co-employment risk they can only be renewed for a certain length of time before they must either be hired or let go. It's also seen as no big deal to end a contract early. You are there fully at the convenience of the company. Often there's no need to go through HR, they just make a phone call to your agency for you not to come in the next day. That's much different than most companies treat their FTEs, even though in the USA employees have almost no protection in most states anyway. Just because something is legally similar does not mean it's used the same in practice. This is very true of contracts.
C1sc0cat 6y ago
Well if you have accepted a contract offer isn't google in breach of contract? Self employed contractors seem to get a really bad deal in the USA. If I had agreed a contract in the UK for x months work id expect the employer to honour it and also be paid 2 to 3 times the FTE rate .
- jeffbee 6y ago
  This article is using “contractor” to mean whatever they want it to mean. They’re not talking about highly paid independent software developers working on contract. They’re talking about at-will employees of a third party that Google contracted with to fill low-skill positions.
  - 0xffff2 6y ago
    That's not "whatever they want it to mean". That's industry standard terminology. And it's not all low-skill positions. A friend of mine is a PhD optics researcher and he was a Google contractor (the employee of a third party kind) for a few years before moving on to an FTE position elsewhere.
  - bob33212 6y ago
    The difference is that contractors can be removed from the company without any action on part of the employeer. If an employer wants to remove contractors one option they have is to do nothing and let the contracts expire. They cannot do that to an employee. They must explicitly tell the employee that their employment is being terminated.
  - C1sc0cat 6y ago
    Even for higher skilled "contract positions" you don't seem to command a premium in the USA.
    - geodel 6y ago
      I have seen people getting paid a lot on contracts. But of course it depends who considered them high skilled - Company contracting them or contractor themselves.
kirubakaran 6y ago
Layoffs (especially of 2k people) are interpreted as the company being in trouble. Letting contractors go is interpreted as business as usual. Defaults matter. FTEs are default live; they stay unless laid off or fired. Contractors are default dead; they're gone unless the contract is renewed. In this case they've rescinded offers that were made, which makes it unusual and newsworthy.
mywittyname 6y ago
There's a legal difference at these volumes. The WARN Act applies here and states may have their own laws that also apply.
momokoko 6y ago
You can’t sue for discrimination or wrongful termination. You are not protected by the WARN act. There are more but that’s just off the top of my head. If there wasn’t a difference, companies wouldn’t do it. Remember, they have to pay these people more money than they would for a direct hire because the staffing agency takes a cut of their weekly pay.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Contractors can sue for discrimination in some states.
- gnopgnip 6y ago
  Contractors for Google are still employees working for a contracting company. They could sue if they were discriminated against for membership in a protected class.
  - mamon 6y ago
    Usually this is not true: they are not employees at all, contracting company also hires them as subcontractors, each of them running their own sole propertiorship (at least that's how it works in my country). But even if they were employees, they are not really getting fired from the contracting company - it can still try and find them another gig, for a different client. So you can say they are not getting fired at all, just suddenly have no work to do (but still have a valid employment contract). Of course if contracting agency can't find them another position in reasonably short time they will fire them as well, but that's not on Google anymore, so Google can't be sued for that.
    - pyuser583 6y ago
      I’ve worked as a contractor. Was definitely an employee of the contractor company.
excursionist 6y ago
A lot of contractors are incorporated, so the contract is not between google and the contractor, but between google and the contractor's corp (sometimes another agency in between google and corp). So the contractor is not an employee of google and employment laws do not apply. Termination rules (typically a few weeks notice) are defined in the contract.
gnopgnip 6y ago
Yes there is. In CA and many other states the at-will employment doctrine has an implied contract exception. That means employers need a good faith business reason, or good cause to fire employees, but not contractors in this context.

gowld 6y ago

Your solution is "if you can't get a good job, just get a better job?" And you think no one's thought of that already?

dougmwne 6y ago
Nope, not what I was saying at all. I was making a statement about personal risk tolerance. A contract is more risky than FTE because your risk of the company being done with you before you are done with the company is higher. If you are unemployed and need to get back to work then you'd usually take what you can get. If you are choosing between opportunities or leaving a FTE job then be aware of the risk, even if the company is Google.

softwaredoug 6y ago

It's also the case that some companies will hire MORE contractors at this point because they are more easily disposable than employees

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
r00fus 6y ago
More likely they will hire more contractors in the fast ramp-up after things start rolling again (quicker to onboard a contractor). Contractors are the first to get filled and first to let go.
- kevstev 6y ago
  I disagree. A benefit of having a contract worker is that they don't show up as a recurring cost. I used to work at Morgan Stanley (Ruth Porat's previous CFO gig before Google) and around the time I left, the tech organization was roughly 70% contract workers. This was well after the crisis, and the company was laying off full time employees in at least one wave each year, while the ranks of contractors began to swell. My breaking point there was actually that despite having a fairly senior title, I was being called in to do tons of mundane work on the weekend (checkouts after network/firewll changes) because they would have to pay contractors to do it on the weekend, and that was not allowed. I definitely felt toward the end that you had considerably more job security as a contractor than an FTE. So much so in fact, that after being fed up with weekend and late night work, I probed to see if I could go the contractor route. Then I found out that they got paid by the "day" and not even the hour, and the rates they were paying were finely tuned to make them more or less break even in terms of FTE pay when considering benefits and such.

floatingatoll 6y ago

Reminding people that took a paying job out of a need to get paid that they should expect to be treated as less human than full-time employees assumes that they are somehow unaware of this. Every contractor I've worked with in the past 5 years clearly understood the fragility of their situation, while the employees working with them often did not.

tantalor 6y ago
> treated as less human Keep it civil? Nobody said anything about "less human". That's a vile straw man.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- evanb 6y ago
  > treated as extra-disposable and second class I suppose it depends on the eye of the beholder. Humans aren't disposable.
  - izzydata 6y ago
    The position is disposable, not the person.
    - artsyca 6y ago
      I was let go with no notice and not even a bag to take my shit home while the asshat recruiting manager who hired me and got a promotion
  - threatofrain 6y ago
    For such statements we must observe the speech which is uttered forth from the motion of hands and not the motion of lips.
    - floatingatoll 6y ago

decafninja 6y ago

I could be wrong but: Wouldn't "contractor at Google" still look great on a resume? Obviously not as great as having been a FTE, but I'd think it would still be a positive differentiator. And as you said, there is the possibility of being flipped to FTE. Does this apply to SWEs too, and if so, is that a way to circumvent the dreaded and notorious leetcode style "Google Interview"? If so, combined with the first point above, seems like it would be worth playing the odds, considering going in the front door via the usual FTE SWE interview process is a huge gamble anyways.

dougmwne 6y ago
Absolutely! Contracts have many benefits to both parties, but stability is not one of them. A contract at Google sounds like resume gold to me. Many people commonly list the company they contracted for and leave off the agency and maybe say "Google May-Sept (contract)". I don't know Google's hiring practices but I do know that at many companies, going contract-to-hire let's you skip the full interview process. I have seen it personally many times from working in the industry. Contractors are usually hired after a single short interview.
ping_pong 6y ago
No, it looks like a contract gig. There's a big difference between the contractors hired at Google vs FTE.
- decafninja 6y ago
  The comparison isn't one between Google FTE and Google contractor. Obviously Google FTE is the superior job. It's between Google contractor and working (fulltime or otherwise) at a "lesser" company.
tripletao 6y ago
Experience as a contractor (strictly, employee of a contracted agency) at a big tech company is fine, not that exciting but positive. It would probably push my estimate of a candidate slightly above the middle of the distribution, away from either the good or bad extreme; but it's a lot less important than what you did. And yes, software developers do go from contract to FTE. The interview process may become somewhat pro forma in that case, since the options are to hire as FTE, fire as everything, or get somewhat awkward. So probably sometimes that lets candidates who couldn't have passed normal interviews slip through. In a certain sense, that's fine, since you've had much more time to assess your contractor, and probably already made a better determination than even the best 1-2 day interview process could. That does feel unfair, though; and since your contractor knows the group's work well and interview questions usually (should, at least) relate to that work, they should be coming in to your usual process with a strong advantage. So I personally try very hard not to start interviews for a quasi-internal candidate unless I'm confident they'll pass the usual process, and encourage interviewers to evaluate with their usual rigor. I've seen managers deliberately bring in interviewers outside the group too, both to improve objectivity and (hopefully) to make an introduction that the candidate will find valuable in their new FTE job.

sarcasmatwork 6y ago

Wrong wrong wrong! Companies ~20 years ago use to hire a CW (Contract worker, Contingent worker) then see if they would fit and then eventually hire them as FTE. Now, they hire contract workers as they are in a different tax bracked and companies do get tax breaks. Thus the company will pay the CW the lowest possible wage, while giving them NONE of the company perks with a contract that starts at 6 months/1-year and is ALWAYS extended for longer term, or the contract starts out as never ending. For example job's that should be FTE, are contracted to CW's. I.E system admin, validation etc.. Companies contact recruiters to find CW's, vs Companies hiring people directly as FTE instead of being forced to use a recruiter. I.E My job, I dont have an end date contract... its indefinite, yet my duties are exactly if not very simular to FTE's. How is that even fair? Companies like Google, MS, Intel, HP etc etc have excessive contact worker workforce for the main purpose of making more money. Pay CW's less, they make more $$.. CW's do not get the same FTE resources like stock, access to perks on-site as FTE's, more so treated as 2nd class people. There is a clear abuse in the industry, but none want to take it on imho. I've got stories and actual experience for daaays! I'd actually like to talk to a lawyer as I think its a complete abuse of the CW system that these big companies are getting away with. </rant>

sudo-i 6y ago
They don't treat them as equal because of the legal system. I believe in the eyes of the law, if you treat a non-FTE as a FTE then they are essentially as FTE. That means companies have to treat CWs this way as a means to protect themselves against litigation. It's a little more complicated then just "the purpose of making money"
- sct202 6y ago
  Microsoft got in trouble for this in the 90s for treating permatemps too similarly to FTEs. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/13/business/technology-temp-workers-at-microsoft-win-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/13/business/technology-temp-...
  - sarcasmatwork 6y ago

mathattack 6y ago

Every company is doing this. Protect the full time employees first. Consulting and contingency companies do very well in good times but struggle in downtimes.

goatinaboat 6y ago

and contracts can frequently lead to FTE offers if your agency structures their contract in your favor. Maybe Google is different (I doubt it) but in most cases it is harder to become a direct employee from a temp position. Obviously the staffing agency wants to go on being paid it’s fee, it doesn’t want you cutting out the middleman.

hckr_news 6y ago
One of my buddies was hired by Accenture out of college as a contracted consultant. He was overworked with daily 10-hour work days. And they basically strung him along for 2 years with promise of full time conversion until he got fed up and left. Contracting in software has its pros but unpaid holiday, or awful benefits package just doesn’t seem worth it to me. Probably better if you run your own one-man consulting shop that accepts different contracts at high rates, than being a 40-hr/wk contingent worker and do the same work as a full time employee with none of the benefits like 401k match, pto, or health coverage. Long term I’d love to run my own software consulting shop and charge these large Fortune 500s out the ass, but until then I’ll keep chugging along as a full time employee, while staying well clear of contract work.
- bb88 6y ago
  Being a contractor there's a certain amount of freedom that you get from a contract. You don't have to play the idiotic performance eval games, eg. I was a contractor in a company that laid off 10% of the workforce, and strangely remained on contract. I talked with my manager about why, and it turned out that a layoff was an excuse to fire FTEs without going through the firing process.

kerng 6y ago

In certain areas contractors earn good money, at times more then FTE. Like $300+ an hour and much higher. With that pay comes the risk of a less strong connection to the company. Which is expected and wanted by many contractors. Of course, this is for everyone, and not everyone does it voluntary - not getting a gig during the current situation can suck badly.

decafninja 6y ago
Legacy finance tech - investment banks, hedge funds, etc. Contractors arguably make more than FTEs. If your spouse is a FTE somewhere that gives health insurance, then it can be even more lucrative. Some of my coworkers in London have told me it can be considered stupid (from a monetary perspective) not to be a contractor in the UK if you're working as a SWE at a bank/hedgefund. However from what I understand, tax laws have changed recently and this is no longer the case. Contractors at Google and other tech companies are apparently treated as second class citizenry, but my observation at finance companies is that this is usually not the case.
- p_l 6y ago
  London contract market is an outlier even with UK, which is pretty much an outlier even across EU. With some careful planning, it was possible to exploit the situation to ridiculous degree, by avoiding UK taxes altogether and keeping ones tax residency somewhere else. UK contractor might pay as high as 45% tax, there are countries in EU that would let you pay 5%