I think the "shift" that's most interesting is this one:
> Alphabet and Facebook pay their employees so generously that startups can struggle to attract talent
I've heard anecdotally from quite a few people that this has made hiring incredibly difficult - as those comp packages continue to increase the math just doesn't work out for a startup employee even if there's a generous exit for the employees.
Not that the comp at FAANG was ever bad, just that it's gotten so much better over the past few years (undoubtedly helped by a huge bull market) that golden handcuffs have really put a drain on the startup hiring scene - mostly in cities where those companies have large offices or are growing considerably.
Further, supposedly anyway, as those companies become larger and larger and need more people it's become less difficult to get in the door there.
Super true, check out http://levels.fyi for some of the comp packages at FAANG / other tech companies. Gives some clarity on how much better it has gotten
FANG can only hire, what, 10% of all currently-employed engineers. Additionally, their hiring processes are notoriously capricious. Unless startups are exclusively targeting the same 10%, I don't see how that has a significant impact.
> That number is probably growing over time (as the article alludes to).
I don't see them growing that fast, nor do I see all that growth being in the US. Companies can only grow so fast or they end up hurting themselves.
Additionally, I have been seeing an increasing nber of online anecdotes about Google and Facebook rejecting candidates who passed the interviews because there was no head count at their level.
> I mean, just take a look at how many positions Netflix alone is hiring for:
112 is less than a rounding error when there are well over a million people currently employed in some sort of software development position.
> Supposedly, this is also changing as their demands are growing and they've had to "lower the bar", so-to-speak.
I haven't personally seen any evidence of this, and every time their processes come up for discussion here there seems to be no end of defenders of these practices.
> 112 is less than a rounding error when there are well over a million people currently employed in some sort of software development position.
But there aren't over a million people employed in software development in the bay area (where those jobs are located) - that number is closer to 60-90K [1]. Not to mention that those are 112 job postings, not positions. It's likely that many of those roles have more than 1 headcount allocated (e.g. "Senior Video Engineer").
Regardless, ultimately the question isn't "what % of software jobs are at FAANG companies?" it's "For every 100 software developer hires in the bay area, what % are at FAANG companies and is that % increasing over time?"
It may be true that the answer to the first question is "a minority", but it can also be true that the answer to the second question is "yes, at an appreciable rate".
> I haven't personally seen any evidence of this, and every time their processes come up for discussion here there seems to be no end of defenders of these practices.
As a minor-but-concrete example: I've heard that Google is starting to de-emphasize whiteboards and giving candidates Chromebooks to code on instead.
As a more gossip-y example: I've definitely heard that a few of the larger tech companies, as they've started to acquire more and more, have allowed the acquired teams to maintain control of their hiring process with some token changes. The result I've heard is that the interview process with some of these acquired teams is... less rigorous, and largely ignored by the parent company (even if they say otherwise).
I'm hesitant to draw a trend from some anecdotes, but I can say for certain that I interviewed for a position with one of those acquired companies a couple years back and the interview process was much easier than I anticipated (though I ultimately didn't take the position).
Google does give you the option of using a Chromebook with a really basic text editor on it, but it's the same whiteboard problems they want you to solve. There just isn't the friction of having to hand write code on a whiteboard.
From my experience, they only care that you can recall individual lectures from a sophomore-level college class. More rigorous, yes, but I'm not sure about harder. You can memorize CTCI and ace the interview, because that's the only thing they do during the onsite.
> Alphabet and Facebook pay their employees so generously that startups can struggle to attract talent
I've heard anecdotally from quite a few people that this has made hiring incredibly difficult - as those comp packages continue to increase the math just doesn't work out for a startup employee even if there's a generous exit for the employees.
Not that the comp at FAANG was ever bad, just that it's gotten so much better over the past few years (undoubtedly helped by a huge bull market) that golden handcuffs have really put a drain on the startup hiring scene - mostly in cities where those companies have large offices or are growing considerably.
Further, supposedly anyway, as those companies become larger and larger and need more people it's become less difficult to get in the door there.