Chris Poole visited the Facebook campus in 2011, while he was still running 4chan, for an hour-long talk and some questions. About thirty engineers attended. The Anonymous hacks had been all over the news for the last year or so, so a couple of jokers showed up in Guy Fawkes masks, and kept them on for the whole thing.
During the Q&A, Poole answered a question from one of the masked employees. After his answer, he asked, "Did that help, Steve?" Shocked, and no doubt a bit intimidated, the employee asked how Poole knew his name. His answer: "Well, I read your name on the badge clipped to your belt."
Poole was smart and thoughtful and I was quite impressed (not just with his eye for detail). Not surprised he lasted so long at Google.
I'm fairly sure that these very low numbers for median tenure (not just for Google but the other tech companies as well) are a result of the huge percentage of new hires. That number does not mean that the average Google employee will only be at the company for 1.1 years.
e.g. if nobody ever leaves the company, but you always double the number of employees every year by very aggressive hiring, the average tenure according to that metric is 1 year.
I don't think Google's hiring is increasing fast enough to explain the low rate. It looks like they increased about 10% from 2019 to 2020.
However, it's also unclear exactly how 1.1 number is calculated. It looks like it comes from PayScale, which doesn't give, as far as I can tell, a methodology:
Is that the median amount of time that all current employees have had with the company so far?
Or is it the median of all of the employees that used to work there & moved on, which would exclude people that have continued to work there?
Or is it some type of survival analysis that takes such factors into account?
It's anecdotal but my understanding as someone who hasn't worked there is it seems like either people leave < 2 years or have no plans whatsoever of ever leaving.
At least in engineering that doesn't comport with my experience at all. I knew maybe a couple of people who left the company over 4 years. If anything people seem to stay much longer at Google.
That’s tilted based on how much hiring they’re doing. A company that nobody leaves that hires 100% new employees has a median tenure of 1 year. Even if the growth is 50% per year, your median tenure will be less than a year and a half no matter how much your turnover will be.
I spent four months at Google collecting double pay and stocks and had no responsibilities. They literally paid me to vacation (e.g. I went to visit Google Japan while chilling), rest and to enjoy life without work. I didn't like any of the other teams at Google which I was eligible for so I left for Apple.
It was salary, and it was a multiplier given on that base salary while we looked for other opportunities at Google. This is how they deal with folks who are left over after reorganizations or divestments.
During the Q&A, Poole answered a question from one of the masked employees. After his answer, he asked, "Did that help, Steve?" Shocked, and no doubt a bit intimidated, the employee asked how Poole knew his name. His answer: "Well, I read your name on the badge clipped to your belt."
Poole was smart and thoughtful and I was quite impressed (not just with his eye for detail). Not surprised he lasted so long at Google.