2 ms·

> Once they started pulling out of expensive cities and opening offices in cheaper foreign countries, it became an uphill battle to hire anyone in the United St

by mc10 6y ago

> Once they started pulling out of expensive cities and opening offices in cheaper foreign countries, it became an uphill battle to hire anyone in the United States at all. Facebook, Google, etc. have offices around the world, but that hasn't led them to close any of their US offices. If there were enough equally qualified candidates in these areas that would accept compensation at a fraction of Bay Area salaries, why wouldn't they follow suit?

stubish 6y ago
Companies with huge cash reserves are not optimizing things to save money. Companies dripping with cash will continue to have their offices in prestigious locations and continue to pay absurd amounts of money for acquisitions we roll our eyes at, because money to them is cheap. Same way some people buy absurdly overpriced luxuries, because the price is not an issue.
- Hydraulix989 6y ago
  OP was contending that even the FAANG gravy train is over. My claim is that if increasingly talented engineers exist elsewhere, they would have already been hired and emmigrated to the US Tier 1 city HQs in the first place. We already have a majority immigrant workforce, and talent is still scarce as it is. I am originally from the American Midwest growing up within driving distance to a top ranked CS university that attracts diverse students from all over the globe with near perfect standardized test scores, literally contending with the likes of Stanford and MIT. However, our graduates all leave town afterwards for greener pastures at the usual suspects. We just recently got out first homegrown unicorn startup, and there are plenty of satellite offices for brand name companies here. Still, hardly anybody ever stays. World class engineering talent abroad wants their golden ticket to the US, in particular, to a handful of specific cities only. The vast majority of my FAANG coworkers are immigrants, for example, and our interview bar is more selective than Harvard in terms of raw acceptance rate. Tech companies are essentially in an arms race for brains, even lobbying for more favorable immigration laws. Surprisingly, none of the people we have hired (and cleared our challenging bar for algorithm interview performance) have any desire to return to their home countries. Meanwhile, this global workforce has not dropped total compensation one iota.
jjeaff 6y ago
Because they aren't just trying to hire the top talent. They are also trying to lock up top talent so that their competitors can't benefit from it.

by mc10 6y ago

stubish 6y ago

Companies with huge cash reserves are not optimizing things to save money. Companies dripping with cash will continue to have their offices in prestigious locations and continue to pay absurd amounts of money for acquisitions we roll our eyes at, because money to them is cheap. Same way some people buy absurdly overpriced luxuries, because the price is not an issue.

Hydraulix989 6y ago
OP was contending that even the FAANG gravy train is over. My claim is that if increasingly talented engineers exist elsewhere, they would have already been hired and emmigrated to the US Tier 1 city HQs in the first place. We already have a majority immigrant workforce, and talent is still scarce as it is. I am originally from the American Midwest growing up within driving distance to a top ranked CS university that attracts diverse students from all over the globe with near perfect standardized test scores, literally contending with the likes of Stanford and MIT. However, our graduates all leave town afterwards for greener pastures at the usual suspects. We just recently got out first homegrown unicorn startup, and there are plenty of satellite offices for brand name companies here. Still, hardly anybody ever stays. World class engineering talent abroad wants their golden ticket to the US, in particular, to a handful of specific cities only. The vast majority of my FAANG coworkers are immigrants, for example, and our interview bar is more selective than Harvard in terms of raw acceptance rate. Tech companies are essentially in an arms race for brains, even lobbying for more favorable immigration laws. Surprisingly, none of the people we have hired (and cleared our challenging bar for algorithm interview performance) have any desire to return to their home countries. Meanwhile, this global workforce has not dropped total compensation one iota.

jjeaff 6y ago

Because they aren't just trying to hire the top talent. They are also trying to lock up top talent so that their competitors can't benefit from it.