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Comment by DannyBee | Hacker News Reader

It also said that Google doesn't have enough higher level work for people if it promoted them (because the promo rate is so much higher than industry average, and Google has shifted right in levels) but just about everyone ignored that.

You can't create larger scope/etc roles out of thin air (you actually have to need the work done), and levels always seem to right shift over time.

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Then maybe Google needs to stop advertising that it needs and has the most intelligent engineers in the industry. If they don't have enough work to feed them, they don't need to have them.

Does Google hire them to work at Google, or to not work somewhere else?

This is the key insight that many people ignore, straight out of The Monopoly Operating Manual. When you are Google size, many of your investments are, and should be, wisely targeted at buying insurance against risks to future revenues and cash flows, not just growing them.

I don’t remember who talked about this on one of the YC podcasts but they brought up that google hires the smartest people for 3 reasons: to kee them from going to competitors, keep them from starting something that may challenge google, use them when they need to build something incredible.

This is my biggest issue with their hiring process. They clearly need grunts like me to do shit work and fix bugs in products like Android, but they won't hire me because I don't reflexively vomit whiteboard code and lack knowledge of website design. They are so intelligent in so many ways yet they fail to have enough self-introspection to adapt to their current situation.

Haha. It’s the first time I hear Google finally admitting to this under duress. Normally, in the recruiting propaganda there’s always room for “Doing Things That Matter”, and the lobbying for immigration expansion message always echos the need for additional “best and brightest” folks, who when hired get assigned to do the most basic gruntwork (affectionately known as “moving protos”).

> It also said that Google doesn't have enough higher level work for people if it promoted them

That's job title inflation! Banking is the poster boy for that. Any junior has the title of "Vice President", and a typical large bank has a few thousands "Directors". Zimbabwe-style job title inflation!

All service jobs, consultants, lawyers, bankers etc. That sell services get better sounding titles so they can sell to similar titles in a big org.

Any junior has the title of "Vice President"

It’s partly that sure, but it is also that to enter into financial contracts on behalf of the company you need to be an officer of the company, and VP is the lowest reasonable title for such an officer, and entering into such contracts is a bank’s core business.

VP is mid-level too, you would expect a VP to have 8-10 years experience usually. More experience than many who call themselves senior software engineers!

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