I remember Google's recruiting slowed down in ~2008. [edit: 2009? Maybe not right at the start of the recession.] [1] So sometimes yes. On the bright side, it's

I remember Google's recruiting slowed down in ~2008. [edit: 2009? Maybe not right at the start of the recession.] [1] So sometimes yes. On the bright side, it's rare for profitable large tech companies to lay off software engineers, so if you get in, you're pretty safe. I don't think Google has seen the impact of a recession yet. It was 4 years old in the dot.com era, and insulated from the effects of the recession by a steady stream of VC money. It was 11 years old in 2008, 5 years out of its IPO, and growing insanely fast on the back of an internet boom where every business was struggling to understand how to utilize online advertising to get the best possible results. Businesses believed that online ads would protect them from the 2008 collapse, so Google were in a position to grow despite the downturn. The same is not true now. If there's a serious long term recession it's very likely to impact companies with advertising derived revenue far more than it has in the past. In Google's case it'll probably mean little more than repatriating the cash reserves it has offshore and spending them to weather the storm. We all know that some of the higher ups will want to use it as an excuse to 'trim some fat' because that's what higher ups do though. No one will be safe. The same is probably not true of other companies that are less cash-rich though. There's no reason to assume that tech will be fine this time because tech was fine last time.