I worked at Google for -10 days | Hacker News Reader

I worked at Google for -10 days

andgein.ru

727 pointsvanburen444 comments

I've had a similar story happen in the past.

I was living in Japan looking for remote jobs and came across Couchbase. Interviewed well with the team who all seemed excited to get someone with my experience on board, however, the hiring manager said he wasn't sure he wanted to manage someone in my timezone. He pulled me into a separate call at the end of the rounds and asked some weird questions, which in hindsight were documentation.

When the HR person handling me called to congratulate me and sent the offer letter I was pretty excited. It seemed the timezone thing wasn't a problem then. I put my notice in with my other job, and then waited for a week. Two weeks. Three. HR person didn't know what was going on when I called them back.

Then I got any email from Couchbase's lawyers with a document stating they would hire me for 10 days total and no longer. Fuck you very much, hiring manager Larry. If you didn't want to hire me so bad why the dog and pony show?

I scrambled to see if my old position was open, but the CEO said he had closed it because, well, I put my notice in right at the end of the budget year and he moved that money.

I went unemployed for 5 months as I hunted for jobs, both local and remote. It put a massive amount of strain on my marriage, my mental health, and everything in between. Thankfully it didn't include a move as it sounds like the blog author did.

Never put in notice until background checks and all on boarding paperwork is 100% complete. Putting in notice on an offer letter is premature and, unfortunately, leads to bad results.

For clarification, by on boarding paperwork do you mean forms i9 and w4?

I’ve had a career lasting over three decades and counting. Have never gone a day without a job in that time.

Part of the reason is because I followed your exact advice. To which I would also add - don’t have a big gap between your last day at your current job and your first day at your next.

Simply walking in the door on your first day increases the amount of paperwork they have to file to get rid of you.

Why do you belittle yourself so much?

Maybe there is more paperwork if they let you go on the first day (but for the HR people it is just doing their job - to do that paperwork!), but I don't think so. It is also very common to have a short (1 week max) notice for the probation period, so they will let you go if there are any issues. The reason why you had a job was most probably not the amount of paperwork they would have had to do had they really wanted to fire you. Maybe you were doing your job right?

And what if you are without a job for some time? Unless you are just starting out from nothing, your you depend on a visa, it is not the end of the world... Some people even do it on purpose.

>Some people even do it on purpose.

Yeah, when I took my current job I was more in the vein of "How much time off can I take that you won't mind?" We settled on something like 3 or 4 weeks and I booked a vacation.

Sure, stuff can happen. But I try not to be paranoid about what are low probability events at the end of the day that I only have limited control over.

> Simply walking in the door on your first day increases the amount of paperwork they have to file to get rid of you.

How? I have fired an employee for walking in on their first day smelling like cannabis and being high as a kite and it did not it change any “paperwork” I had to do. Everywhere in the US has at will employment, so barring a union agreement, all the employer has to do is document that they no longer want to employ the person anymore.

How's that supposed to work, when the process dictates that onboarding begins on your start date? If only we could give -10 days notice.

> If only we could give -10 days notice

Don't let your dreams be dreams!

Then you give -10 days notice. 2 weeks is a nicety and not legally required in the USA. Probably not required in many other places as well. It's unfortunate but I've never had a manager get too upset about it.

Also jobs often/usually fire people with 0 day notice and no severance. I don't know why it's an expectation that employees would give notice without any reciprocation.

0 day notice and no severance is unusual, at least for skilled professional jobs in the US. It does happen, but usually only for some unusual circumstance, like some kind of employee misbehavior or a sudden financial calamity for the company. Two weeks notice by the employee or severance by the employer is the most common case on both sides, probably for roughly 80% or so of professional jobs including all of my own. Of course it does suck to be in the outlying 20%, and the anecdotes will trend towards reporting that case, but is the minority. Most actors on both sides behave well, even if there is a substantial minority of problems.

(Edit since some replies seem to have the wrong idea - termination effective immediately without notice is common, but usually there is severance pay except in cases of misconduct or disaster.)

i have worked full-time at 6 different companies in engineering and management roles (admittedly none larger than ~300-500 people) and this wasn't the case for anyone at any of them, and have also never heard anecdotes from people in my life in general about this happening to them.

i don't not-believe you, but I would be super surprised if the 80% figure is accurate

the more common thing i've seen time and again is someone giving two week notice and then being told to not bother with the last two weeks (and not getting paid for it either). after one of my employers did this to a coworker i liked who was relying on that final paycheck for rent, i quit a couple months later with 0 notice "because it seems like you guys don't do 2 week notice here". I got threatened with a baseless lawsuit for that cheeky stunt and they abused DMCA claims on my consulting website to try to get it taken down

> I got threatened with a baseless lawsuit for that cheeky stunt and they abused DMCA claims on my consulting website to try to get it taken down

I obviously don't know anything about the company, but it sounds like you dodged a bullet by leaving.

Anecdotally, I have never heard of a US company giving two weeks notice for a termination of any kind. The vast majority of terminations I've seen are immediate, but I've also seen companies give termination dates in the (relatively) far future to employees (generally a couple months, but I've seen 1-2 years).

Severance is also only common in large organizations. I've seen few small startups or bootstrapped companies pay severance when letting people go.

I've seen it once in 25 years. Management told an engineer that she would be layed off/terminated "when she is done with the project she is working on". She milked the project for almost four months and then quit on her own after finding a new job. Turns out she did almost zero work during those four months. Can't say I blame her.

I did something similar about 15 years ago. I worked in a small remote office far from the company's headquarters. On an all-hands call one of the executives let it slip that they were going to shutter our office and close down the remote branch in 7 months. We kind of saw it coming, as 90% of the people who worked in that office had been laid off in the previous months, and we didn't really have any new work coming in or projects left to finish. They didn't just lay us off, though, so the 15 of us that were still there just got paid to go to job interviews for 6 months. It was pretty surreal, but I'm glad we got the heads up regardless.

Right, termination is usually done immediately, nobody wants to keep a jilted employee on hand to cause damage on their way out the door. But unless the termination was for some kind of misbehavior, severance pay is most common, even among fairly small companies in my experience. (Maybe not a startup in immediate danger of insolvency, of course.)

Same. Never seen a 2 weeks in the US from the company. It's either "get out, now." or else it's a layoff situation where there is usually 2-3 months to let them gracefully out.

Exceptions being PIPs, if you want to characterize it that way; usually a gracious way to push people out without the drama or severance.

I now live in Canada and there are some different requirements re: getting terminated.

I knew approximately two months ahead of a layoff and was offered a stay bonus to stick around until the last day.

I have also worked at two other companies where we informed certain workers of an impending layoff and provided stay bonuses to them. One of them included basically a non-disclosure agreement since the impending layoff was not publicly known yet.

It may not be common knowledge but it definitely happens.

Once here too.

We were told the company was shrinking by almost half once we hit 1.0 on our project, which was still six weeks away. We would get extra severance if we stayed and if we hit the deadline.

I've never had notice of a firing or severance so I don't know how common it is.

>>Also jobs often/usually fire people with 0 day notice and no severance.

That is not typical nor the norm.

Most companies have established PiP policies, and severance even in the cases of "for cause" terminations (though that is rarer)

"Fire with 0 day notice and no severance" is more likely to be found at startups, and/or small owner led companies with no real policies, or HR Depts.

Don't know what the law is like in most states in the US but in the EU if the employee has been with the company for longer than 6 months it wouldn't even be legal to fire with 0 notice & no severance - generally companies wants you out asap but continue paying your salary for the minimums require by law. In my experience at least 2 weeks and more commonly 1+ months (I've seen people get 3 months, that have worked at the company for several years).

This of course doesn't apply if the employee did something like outright breaking the law or the terms of their contract (rare).

I think it goes without saying that the EU is different.

Here in Germany, in fact things are problematic in the other direction. For the last 2 hires I made, their previous company forced them to work through their 3 month notice period.

That's becoming more and more widespread. It's idiotic and counterproductive but apparently companies love some fake sense of security.

I think this is more for "traditional" companies, I've never seen a startup here (Berlin) do that in the 10 years I've been living here.

I have 3 months notice. It is unreasonable.

It's unreasonable for the company to want you to stick around for 3 months before you switch jobs, but it's not unreasonable to ask a company to let an employee who has been with them for years 3 months' (notice or severance) before they fire them (as the power balance is not equal - the employee is supposedly dependent on that salary for their livelihood and not everyone can instantly land a new job after being laid off).

Overall even as a business owner myself I prefer the pro-employee German system over the free-for-all American one.

In my experience it's becoming more and more widespread specifically in startups. I hope you're right and I'm just seeing the bad outliers.

> Also jobs often/usually fire people with 0 day notice and no severance.

This is only true in the US.

In many places the notice period is enforceable, with a standard period of three to six months for senior positions.

Yeah that my experience outside of the US. And it’s kinda nice. Less rushed.

What places?

Three months is fairly common in Sweden, and longer than that isn't all that rare (often depends on how long you've worked at the company).

In Germany at least 4 weeks depending on how long you have been with the company up to 7 months.

Other countriesin the world, besides the US. In European countries you can't just tell someone tonnit come tomorrow and not pay anything. Sure you csn tell them to not come anymore if you want to keep your secrets or whatever but the company has to pay for this notice period like the person was working there.

When I or colleagues have changed jobs then we have given a month or more notice, continued working etc. Only when someone is fired for total incompetence or just not showing up you don't want to see them anymore ever in the office so the company pays for the notice period time.

Varies by province in Canada but generally there is a fixed amount of time you need to be at the company before they can just kick you out. For example in Alberta if you've been with an employer longer than 2 years you must give them 2 weeks. They can terminate you immediately after you resign, but they own you 2 weeks of pay.

Likewise, if the company lays you off, they have to give you up to 8-weeks notice depending on how many years you were with the company; 10+ years warrants the full 8-weeks, while 2-4 years in service gets you 2-weeks. These are also mandatory minimums; some companies or employees with contracts or collective agreements may get / offer more.

Plenty of loopholes there, like for "just cause", and some industries are "exempted by custom" or by law, like construction or forestry.

* https://www.alberta.ca/termination-pay.aspx

I know it’s common in Switzerland, Italy and France.

Many, but definitely not all. And Google and other big tech companies usually have “at-will” employment on both sides. Just know that it very well might be an option for you.

Many places, as in physical places. Google definitely has notice periods enforced by law in Europe.

At my company, there is no 2 weeks. The day you give your two weeks notice is your last day. We might pay you for those two weeks, depending on circumstances, but your building and network access is cut off within the hour. So, I personally would not give my notice until the day I actually want to be my last day.

That has never been the case at any company I have ever worked for. My impression is that two weeks notice with continued access is pretty standard so long as you're leaving on good terms.

his username is literally irrational... kinda makes sense

> That has never been the case at any company I have ever worked for.

Many companies are essentially antagonistic with all IT resources. It's very common where positions are not well paid or the company is not tech-centric, eg Mike Ferry Organization

At Microsoft, the standard practice is that if you say you're leaving to take a job a company they consider a competitor, they cut off all your access at the end of the day, even if your manager wants you to stick around for knowledge transfer. If it's not a competitor, it's up to you how much notice you want to give. If you say you're leaving but don't say who your next employer is, they assume it's a competitor.

Facebook was classified as a competitor, Amazon was not.

I can confirm based on my experience that at Microsoft, depending on a lot of factors like your level, role, information you have access to, and where you’re going, that they may terminate immediately as soon as you give them notice.

Amazon has rapid termination processes as well but I’m not as clear on their criteria.

If you work for a big technology company and are jumping to a perceived competitor, and/or if you have access to sensitive information, then you should expect that the day you give notice will be your last day.

> that they may terminate immediately as soon as you give them notice.

Which is nonsense, because it’s the employee that chooses when to tell the employer. If I want to exfiltrate confidential data, I’ll do it first, then I resign.

It’s different on layoffs, where disgruntled employees could break havoc.

That's not how Corporate Accountability works. If you tender your resignation and I continue to provide you access to the systems then I'm accountable for having continued your access to those systems.

If you exfiltrated confidential data prior to tendering your resignation then no one remaining in the organization is responsible for your actions. It may trigger a policy review to minimize the exfiltration of confidential data, but no one remaining is accountable. Moreover, the exfiltration of confidential data will put you in felony land and your employer will prosecute. You're guaranteed to lose your new job too, and likely never work again.

No, what most employees do instead - for those who do these kinds of things, which is exceedingly rare - is destroy data. That is extremely damaging to an enterprise.

There are plenty of motivations to get your rear end away from the keyboard! Some are legally mandated, depending upon which industry you're working in.

Which is still bonkers. Plenty of people with high level access have notice periods of 6 months in some European countries and work their remaining time after giving notice or at least part of it, because they negotiated the 6 down to 2 or 3.

If an employee has been malicious during their tenure then other systems should have detected and caught that. That scenario can be decoupled from the termination scenario.

Think about making a 2x2 matrix (nod to Pascal’s wager):

Across the top: fire immediately, don’t fire immediately.

Down the side: employee is benign, employee is malicious.

There’s only one square where the company is at risk- bottom right.

The algebra is easy: terminate immediately and the company is not at risk.

And for some reason there's a particular country in this world where this is interpreted in one way and one way only (well not 100% true either but the odds of being treated one way are waaaaay skewed towards what you're saying) while in other countries it's interpreted in other ways and they're all just fine. I've personally witnessed and been part of the other squares over my entire career.

If entire countries can run on the other squares, why can't the US?

Some countries selectively put some people in the "you have a very long notice period" and "you will not be working for us, but still be paid, during your notice period" (so-called gardening leave).

Not unusual in the finance industry, somewhat unusual (but I have heard of it) in "more pure tech". Probably also more common the further up you get in the corporate hierarchy.

> No, what most employees do instead - for those who do these kinds of things, which is exceedingly rare - is destroy data.

So the employee could destroy data first, then resign.

> If you tender your resignation and I continue to provide you access to the systems then I'm accountable for having continued your access to those systems.

Well, if the employee is still an employee, and they need access to the systems to do their work… what would the alternative be? How could you honour the pre-resignation time otherwise?

I’m perplexed by the sudden drop in trust at resignation time. If an employee is trustworthy, why should their attitude change just because they resigned? And if they aren’t trustworthy, you have a problem even before their resigning.

> I can confirm based on my experience that at Microsoft, depending on a lot of factors like your level, role, information you have access to, and where you’re going, that they may terminate immediately as soon as you give them notice.

I saw Apple do this. Not to me.

Many companies require staff to leave immediately upon tendering their resignation - including non-IT companies like mine. You tender your resignation and all your access is removed within 24 hours. I work for a utility company that manages what the Department of Homeland Security classifies as 'National Critical Infrastructure', i.e. generation plants, transmission, distribution, metering, and FERC mandates your access is cut off ASAP. You'll get paid for your last two weeks, but you can't do anything.

My friends in health and finance have said they have similar mandates. Us folks in IT can mess up too many things to be granted continued access. We need to be cut off.

Even prior to working for a utility I've worked at places where people were escorted off the property by security when they tendered their resignation. Their personal items in their office would be packed up and shipped to them. This has been going on for decades.

There was one job I had where I was so well-liked and we had considerable mutual respect that I was still granted visitor access to the facilities, meaning I required an escort. I no longer had access to any of the systems, but I could guide those who did. That worked out really well, too. Heck, they negotiated an extra six weeks instead of two and paid me 50% more to boot! That made a helluva impression at my new company! Then I got a great sign-on bonus at my new company! Boy, those were the days!

Wow!

I have almost 30 years in tech and thankfully have never run across that. But I can see how that could be a thing for other companies/industries.

Every place I have worked I have given 3 week notice, and every potential employer has been ok with me starting in 3 weeks (except one).

The one exception was a company that balked at my request to start in 3 weeks in order to give my current employer time. They countered with "Well, take it now and start immediately, or leave it. You must not be serious about working here." I countered with "You are probably looking to hire people with no sense of responsibility to their current employer". Bullet dodged.

I have quit before I have started. I accepted an offer from a company (after being jobless) but my interaction with their HR the day before I was to start was so rude and combative that after I left, called my future boss there (who I really liked) and told him I was rescinding my acceptance. I then grovelled back to another job whose offer I had turned down (and they re-made the offer). It all worked out.

I worked at one company that was like that, but it was a result of the CEO being pretty awkward about people leaving the company, something he wasn't used to until huge growth hit. That's a red flag IMO.

Your company is doing the something that is legal but still a jerk move.

Not really, they could be exposed to risk and it's typical to just pay you for the 2 weeks and cut off access so the risk is mitigated

Not paying out the 2 weeks would be sort of a jerk move. But simply cutting a check and saying "It's been good having you" as they show you the door is perfectly reasonable in some circumstances.

The risk isn't that you'll call them a jerk, it is that when your new job falls through, your old job can no longer credibly claim that you left voluntarily because they moved your quit date. You were fired. So you'll be able to claim unemployment and the business' unemployment insurance premiums could rise.

It's bound to be cheaper to pay the two weeks than to pay the increase in unemployment insurance premiums for every remaining employee in perpetuity. In that sense, it's short-sighted to not pay you through your notice period.

I'm pretty sure they can accept your resignation effective immediately and it not be a firing. Post dating it is a nicety you offered and they declined.

Of course you can be terminated at any time, but that would not be your resignation anymore. You are an at-will employee at all times. You can be fired, or you can quit. But let's not conflate the two.

https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/fired-after-giving-notice-...

I'm pretty sure this lawyer knows a thing or two. And anyway, nothing is open-and-shut. Giving notice isn't "cause for termination" by any reasonable standard.

We were talking about risks. You can be pretty sure, and then a judge rules against you. Are you willing to take that risk? (Sure, maybe you know a judge. Or you live in a state with fewer worker protections. IDK, but I'm not making this up, and laws vary from state to state.)

> Are you willing to take that risk?

The financial risk is small, can often be less than the cost of paying the salary over those 2 weeks. The risk the person is going to lawyer up is also fairly small, but at that point you just settle, you've probably lost the gamble at that point. If let it go to court, you're definitely going to lose on a financial perspective.

Either way, it's not a hill I'd die upon, my policy has always been to pay it out because it's just the right way of acting from an ethics perspective. I think the link you posted makes sense in our current world, but it's also using CA as an example and my gut tells me where I live is not as progressive; along with ~half or more of the US.

It is a courtesy to give notice, and one must generally be prepared to extend courtesies in order to receive them in kind. You sound like a person who understands all of this. It is certainly going to vary from state to state.

As far as risks go, increasing UI premiums is one risk; it might be easy to invent a valid cause for immediate termination when someone gives notice, but also quite transparent in terms of ethics as you say. Concretely, that would also be leaving employers at a greater risk that word gets around with the remaining employees, and then you likely won't see employees giving notice anymore, or affecting morale of the remaining employees, or what else.

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-...

To be fair, I'm pretty sure that I won't find the precedent I'm looking for in my own state either, but the link above is interesting: if your company has a policy that employees must give notice to quit, whether it was legally enforceable or not, with a termination after notice is given that policy could be used as evidence against you!

I guess it's a good idea to have a firm grasp of the law and review your own company's policies regularly, to be sure they align with the law! For another example in the same vein, I thought that only California made non-competes illegal but there are at least two other states, and it may be illegal to try to enforce a non-compete at a federal level soon.

https://www.foxrothschild.com/publications/ftc-proposes-rule...

(Not that this has anything to do with notice or unemployment...)

In what way would they be exposed to risk? If I had a desire to exfiltrate to your competitor, I would just not bother telling you I'm leaving, exfiltrate, and give zero notice. Having this policy just makes you look like an idiot.

Nah, it’s pretty normal. Particularly for sales positions.

One of my employer's had that policy too; until I quit. They made an exception and wanted me to stay to help transition. I did help where I could (because I liked them and knew they needed it, I know I didn't have to)

I quit a place that had the opposite, you were required to work your last two weeks, no vacation. It was frustrating because I had mapped out using up my vacation before the job change, unaware of the policy.

What are they going to do? Fire you?

Even worse, they might even try to _hire_ you!

Sounds like you should've been "sick" during those last 2 weeks.

If I quit and gave two weeks notice (and expected to be paid for that time), I would absolutely expect to be working for those two weeks doing the whole handoff thing which is why notice is often the custom. Past that, I'd expect vacation to be either paid out where those are the rules or taken after "last day of work" (which has some benefits for the employee).

In this case, you probably weren't actually required so if you really wanted to take the full vacation, you should probably be have been "I won't be here on Monday."

This is pretty common. Even more so outside of tech. I did sales for a while and this was normal.

You push back the start date until they've finished that process. It's a common request, I've made it several times, my wife has made it several times and it's always been granted in my experience.

I have never worked for a company that does the background checks, drug screens, etc on your start date,

Typical process that I have had both as employee and a manager is

1. Offer Letter

2. Offer Accepted

3. Pre-Employment Activities start. Start Date is set 2 weeks out

4. Pre-Employment Activities Completed 1 Week out

5. New Employee Starts.

It would/should not be an issue for an incoming employee to request a start day 2 week after Pre-Employment Activities are cleared if they wanted to give notice

I don't think it's that uncommon. I have personally worked at two companies that didn't do the background check until after employment (which I would never do again), and I've heard this anecdote a few times from others.

hmm I know for some position there has been a high first day no show rate, I wonder if that is what drives that position? Background checks while not super expensive are not cheap either and if you have a high number of people noping out before the first day I could see where they would want to mitigate those costs.

With the changes in drug laws, and this I have seen some companies starting to forgo pre-employment drug screens, which IMO is a good thing.

I am not sure what value most of these Pre-Employment checks provide anyway really.

Were these companies startups or outside the U.S.? I’ve never heard of a big company doing a background check after start date, that makes no sense.

Bank of America did this for outside US contractors.

These were US-based startups, to be clear. I would be surprised if very many larger companies did it this way since they generally have a formal process for this.

>How's that supposed to work, when the process dictates that onboarding begins on your start date?

You remind them that they better finish their background check and sign the final documents fast if they want you on that date.

Whatever is the minimum notice period you have to give your current job (eg. 2 weeks), the countdown starts after you get the real signed offer from the future job.

you shouldn't risk fucking up your career over loyalty for a job that has not even hired you yet. If they want that loyalty, they need to first sign the papers that makes you an official part of their team.

> Whatever is the minimum notice period you have to give your current job (eg. 2 weeks), the countdown starts after you get the real signed offer from the future job.

At least in the US, I know of no requirement for 2 weeks notice, anywhere. It's just considered polite.

> If they want that loyalty, they need to first sign the papers that makes you an official part of their team.

Again in the US, I know of no papers that I've ever had from a company that guaranteed anything important. You might end up with something guaranteeing moving expenses or something, but they can still fire you on day 1, if you even make it that far.

In previous jobs I’ve always given notice after receiving an offer. In hindsight, I realize that was pretty dumb, but it was a different time, long ago. Going forward I will absolutely wait until my first day on the new job to give notice to the old one. It’s not fair to either employer, but getting an offer pulled after quitting an existing job scares the hell out of me.

No it's not dumb. It's perfectly normal and, especially in a non-remote situation and even more especially with relocation involved, pretty hard to do any other way. And it's not like you can't be laid off during a trial/probationary period with probably very little severance involved.

Sometimes stuff does happen and you can't protect 100% against every eventuality. And your current employer can lay you off too and then you are 100% certain of being unemployed. (Yes, there may be severance is that case but there is absolutely no guarantee that severance generally amounts to much.)

> Going forward I will absolutely wait until my first day on the new job to give notice to the old one.

So... you'll give -1 days notice? "Hey old boss, you may have noticed I didn't come in today..."

I work remote, and will continue to do so. Not impossible to manage that situation. Just let the old job know that you're giving your two weeks for brain dump.

I think OP meant they’ll be moonlighting 2 jobs for 2 weeks.

Ah.

I still don't understand how this isn't considered fraud, or people aren't worried about being prosecuted or sued over it. Getting paid to do two "full-time" jobs simultaneously, without them knowing about it. Maybe just confident they won't get caught.

I think that they might be fired if new employer somehow finds out about it. (Though I doubt anyone would bother suing.) I don't understand all the people counseling getting some incremental protection against a low probability event (offer being withdrawn) when that incremental protection is something you'll probably get away with but better hope no one finds out.

Or if the OLD employer finds out about it -- that you were working a new job for two weeks while still taking a paycheck from OLD employer for those two weeks, I can't see them being happy about. but I guess there's little they could do to you, but try to stop payment on your last paycheck.

My current (non-profit, academic) employer says in the employee manual that you can't do ANY outside work without disclosing it to them and getting approved -- so I'd be in violation of that policy if found out. At first I was annoyed by this -- why shouldn't I be able to do some consulting on the evenings and weekends without their permission? But as long as the process for approval is quick and easy and they generally approve... I can see how maybe it was actually intended, in a remote work world, to make it clear you are violating their policies if you take a second full time job and imply to both jobs you are on the clock simultaneously!

https://www.wired.com/story/remote-tech-workers-secret-multi...

They mention the legal "murkiness" a little bit there.

I'd honestly expect if an employer found out I had been doing this for a year, they would not just fire me, but could sue me to get my salary back.

It seems to me super unethical, and probably at least hypothetically a legal liability.

But people actually pretty frequently talk about doing this on HN. Which doesn't necessarily mean it's widespread, but I'm surprised by how matter-of-fact HN commenters are talking about it. Assuming, as in this case, that everyone is doing it or willing to do it, that we all understand that of course we could continue to collect paycheck from former employer for the first few weeks we're also working for new employer.

> I still don't understand how this isn't considered fraud

Because there are 168 hours in a week and each full-time job only consumes 40 of them.

Now, if the employers are competitors of one another, or there's otherwise something that would produce a conflict of interest, then that's another story - but beyond that? As long as you're fulfilling your duties for both jobs, it's neither employers' business what you do on your "free time".

You really think people doing this are working 80 hours a week, 40 on each job?

That seems unlikely to me, but maybe not to you? Or you're saying it's like plausible deniability, like nobody can prove they weren't, or something?

I wonder if GP who mentioned giving his two weeks notice on first day of new job... was planning on working 80 hour weeks for two weeks while they overlapped?

> That seems unlikely to me, but maybe not to you? Or you're saying it's like plausible deniability, like nobody can prove they weren't, or something?

I mean, there were times in my career where I was working 12+ hour days for one employer, so working 16+ hour days for two doesn't seem like that much of a stretch; still leaves you with 8 hours of sleep. I've known enough workaholics in my time to know that it ain't beyond the realm of possibility.

But yes, it's more of a plausible deniability thing. Either/both employers would need to prove that you weren't working 40 hours a week for them, which is not only impossible (good luck proving a negative) but a much higher standard than is reasonable in the first place (especially for programmers, having a full 40 productive hours a week is rare and unsustainable; half that or less is more typical).

This is a core difference between salaried/exempt and hourly workers. You're paid a fixed salary to perform work for your employer, whether there's 80 hours or 2h of work in any given week, you get paid the same.

So if you're a salaried worker delivering results, meeting your obligations and overall expectations of your employer, then how could you possibly construe it as fraud?

Taking away the upsides, but not the downsides of salaried work sounds, for the lack of a better word, rigged.

I think they mean when you get completed background check and a signed offer. Though if you're wfh you might as well try to keep the old job for as long as you can keep getting paid...

Agreed, not until I have a signed employment contract.

You can still run into the same issues. As the blog author.

For me, if you're going to be making a move, you've already decided you're making a move. Worrying about the other side withdrawing the offer doesn't worry me that much, especially since in quite a few country there are legal requirements about job offers.

It sounds like OP had a signed employment contract.

> Thus, the contract with me has been terminated 10 days before it was supposed to take effect.

Apparently a contract that allowed no-cause termination. I'm not sure what that contract is good for exactly, but I think this is common in the USA. Whether it's legal in the UK I couldn't say.

In the UK you don't get the typical employment rights until after 2 years of employment. Most employment contracts have you on zero-notice until 6 month probation is completed.

> Most employment contracts have you on zero-notice until 6 month probation is completed.

No?

I've never been on zero months notice. A reduced notice period for probation yes, but never on no notice.

Always one week notice during probation in my experience.

But the point remains that the company can terminate you with very little cause and very little notice when you've just started. So while it is a good idea to wait until at least receiving a signed contract before giving notice to your current job you'll still be at higher risk for some time.

This is misinformation. Maybe you've had this situation/contract, but that is very much not the norm.

Yeah that’s wrong.

In the first MONTH of employment either side can terminate with immediate notice

1 month - 2 years is 1 week notice

After 2 years it’s one week for every year of employment with a cap of 12 weeks

That’s notice period, after the first month of service other employee rights kick in and grounds for “instant dismissal” become ridiculously strict.

Meaning after the first month, if your performance becomes substandard or interpersonal problems arise you have to be given written notice by your employer (usually 2) and roadmap for correction agreed by all parties after which termination of position can be delivered (which includes the week(s) of notice to which you are entitled, or payment in lieu if you are asked not to come back.

All the contract I signed in the US ( 5 or 6 ) were « at will » Basically a 1 pager stating the total lack of contract between you and the company. And your salary.

I think that's typical in the US. Makes me wonder why even bother calling it a "contract".

There’s a lot else in it, like the part where they typically own all your output during that period.

Yeah it’s not like I got a string of abusive contracts. Pay is handsome and some even have actual vacations. But god forbid any type of commitment to each other.

I can be fired at will without notice and vice versa.

Generally the response is to drop a few hundred on a lawyer to write them a stern letter about bad faith and failure to execute the contract. Your specific legal remedies vary so much country to country that it's hard to generalize, but I have been shocked by how quickly nonsense becomes sense when formal letters requesting negotiation and arbitration enter the scene.

A labor lawyer generally knows what regulatory remedies exist and can send the letter in a way that it gets attention outside of the HR or and Hiring managers desk.

My state job did (& it was normal) all i9 w4 stuff on 1st day of joining.

I'm sure the parent poster recognizes this is good advice in retrospect. It's a good lesson for others to learn vicariously, though.

100% this. Never hand in your notice until you have a contract in your hand. No contract means you’re relying on hopium.

Hopium?

Honestly if either one is remote, just keep them both for a little while

YUP!

This happened to me and a good friend of mine who is an Eng Manager at Netflix now...

But we both went through a three month long panel interview and I was told I did "very well" on all my interviews and to expect an offer letter in the morning.

The next day they called and told me that they wouldnt be making me an offer.

The issue was that Brin was still the final sign off...

The school that i went to in the early-mid 90s was "Mesmer Animation Labs" in seattle... one of only five animation schools at the time (because of the cost of all the SGIs)

It was later bought and merged with UW to basically become the animation dept at UW the year after I graduated...

and Mesmer no longer existed... so I put down UW on my resume because there was no Mesmer to confirm that I had gone there any longer...

So because I called Mesmer "UW" I got kicked in the financial balls by Brin/Goog as I had opened my mouth any was told I got an offer to my then employer, Lockheed...

Yeah - never tell anyone about a verbal offer.

A couple of things there.

1. A Verbal Contract Isn’t Worth the Paper It’s Written On -- attributed to Samuel Goldwyn, the G of MGM. I don't agree with all the advice to work 2 jobs simultaneously but definitely wait for a written offer. No sensible HR person is going to have an issue with that.

2. In the case of acquisitions/mergers/etc. make it crystal clear that you're not trying to claim a school/employer with maybe more cachet/recognition but where you actually went to/worked at is part of someone else now (or defunct) so if they want to confirm past attendance/employment that's where they need to go.

I'm not going to say I worked for Dell even though a string of 2 past employers are "Dell" now via a string of acquisitions. (I might say, these employers, now part of Dell Technologies though the companies are well enough known that I could probably skip the Dell reference which is irrelevant other than they'll pay me a pension someday.)

To put icing on the cake, Google recruiters kept calling me for FIVE FUCKING YEARS for the same job...

I had to finally tell them I had gone through three months of panel interviews, Ive designed parts of your data centers, video studio and have built every salesforce office in the US at that point, and designed shit for other FAAN companies so give me the damn job or lose my damn number.

They stopped calling me for the job after that. (it was for a network PM under Raligh Mann, who was the ILM CIO before he went on to google... after I designed the DC for Lucas' Presidio campus.

Also fun fact, I found out Goog was designing their own motherboards at the time - and I happened to see one when visiting a friend on-site, and saw one under his desk and said hey whats this? and he said "uh, you werent supposed to see that - lets go!"

This was before it was public that both Goog and FB were designing their own DC hardware...

Some dope engineering though.

Oh, and I have posted this here before, when I was a design eng for ILM/Lucas/Lucas Arts...

I was asked "when will you be able to deliver 'Power Over Fiber' (This was a mtg with all of the top execs at Cisco, and All tops at ILM.. and I murdered this this guy (in a polite way)

but I pissed my pants on the drive back from Bigrock about how funny that was...

Yes, that was me sitting in a design mtg with Cisco CTO and the CTO of Lucas Arts asked me to provide that... Ill leave it there...

(Just for context, the design req was "fiber to every desktop such that the workstations will be render nodes when workers leave... but they wanted Power Over Fiber"

So, if you know how, there is a dude with 15 billion dollars waiting for your call,.... and he has the best property in the US.

It is a thing!

https://www.fiberopticlink.com/product/fiber-optic-isolation...

(I mean, solar panels are a thing, so turning light into power is definitely possible, and these things do exist.. I just doubt they have the economics the people in that room desired)

In France where I work an offer letter is binding to hire. After that if you are fired you are entitled to strong compensation if there is no proof you failed at your job. On top of that there is significant unemployment benefits to support you during looking for a new job for years.

This seems like a normal societies way to secure the transition between jobs. I’m thankful I don’t live in any of these crazy places that make changing jobs seem like a severe stress way beyond what it should be.

What difference does it make if you're at-will. You could be let go on the first day, no reason given.

Or hours reduced to part-time, or salary cut. As long as they don't try to do this retroactively, or cut your wage below the state minimum, it's not illegal for employers to do that in the US. Fortunately for the rest of the world, the US laws are quite less favorable to employees than many other countries.

Just set your VPN to an EU zone country and google "unlawful termination" if you're from the US / set your VPN to US if from EU, and read for some eye-openers!

Sure. There is risk in any job change. The point here is leaving a job and being boned by the company you are joining because of their own internal fuck up.

The difference is the company knew they didn't want them. It's awful

I hope Couchbase AND Larry reads this because that's messed up. I would never even consider a job there after hearing this.

They are too selfish to feel anything. But fwiw, I will try.

“We are sorry that this incident happened and will look at our process to see how we can avoid situations like this in the future.”

Feel better?

Sounds like a procedural fuckup. All the usual hiring checks (technical etc.) got approved but Manager Larry's objection wasn't handled correctly by HR so the job offer went through anyway. They really should have paid out at least two months to be honest considering it was their fuck up.

I used to work for Couchbase and a lot of the teams were distributed, but spanning too many timezones caused problems in places. If the team you were joining were already spread across say US and Europe then they'd be totally justified in saying that adding Japan to the list would be a bad idea - although that should have been picked up much earlier.

It was very dishonest and ignorant of them, I will remember them for that! And spread how they f around people.

Apparently my strategy of not to handing in notice before a contract is discussed and executed (signed) is not a bad move. I make this clear normally when I start discussing details of employment. I usually tell "I can start x weeks after my contract is signed", where x is the noice period in the previous place. It is not a guarantee as one can be sent away still after (or even before) start, but gives a clearer picture for both parties on each other's current intent.

>Apparently my strategy of not to handing in notice before a contract is discussed and executed (signed) is not a bad move.

I mean, sure? Not quitting before you and they actually sign a piece of paper is a practice absolutely no one should disagree with. No particular reason your start date can't be a bit further out than your customary notice period though if your new employer to be is OK with it and you want to take some time off.

After 15+ years on the industry and being on all sides of the table (hiring, firing, being hired, being fired, interviewing, prospecting candidates, etc...) I haven't found a situation where HR makes things better. What's the point of HR? Can't we do without them? Really.

Edit: This tweet[0] which is pretty much a rant in disguise has a point. What if AI has a much better success rate on this? Recruiters are clueless wrt. to tech anyway.

0: https://twitter.com/adcock_brett/status/1645450069326598145

Oh God, please no. Not enough getting tons of recruiter spam, now I'd also get robots pestering me about considering an exciting opportunity in a new exciting startup about which they'd surely be glad to tell me if only I respond to their spam. And this would happen anytime I'd write something online that is tangentially related to some keyword they gave to the robot. Because if I asked a question about some Scala library, and your company uses Scala too, this means I'm a perfect match for you and surely would want to drop everything and come to work for you. Or at least it doesn't cost anything for a robot to try?

And the worst of all, if anything goes wrong - "sorry, our AI hiring system had a bug, we deployed an update. We apologize for the inconvenience".

You basically laid out what an HR-minded person would do with an AI (I want a faster horse), and yes it sucks.

Try to think of how the hiring could be improved in such way that HR becomes unnecessary. "One-click-apply" to any job you want, AI vets you in seconds and tells you yes/no/feedback. Many other good possibilities.

>"sorry, our AI hiring system had a bug, we deployed an update. We apologize for the inconvenience

LOL, are you trying to make a point for humans here? Ghosting candidates is the standard nowadays. In the example you make the candidate gets a response, at least.

I've had two companies where HR made things better, but much of that was because I became personal friends with at least one person in HR.

A lot of HR professionals genuinely want the employees to be happy and healthy and all that. A lot of HR professionals are stymied in their efforts by other executives that either prioritize money or came up in hardship and think everybody should experience the same hardship.

To be clear both of the companies in question were small US Federal government contractors. Since pay is pretty standard across the sector, the way many choose to distinguish themselves is though benefits, culture, and things like that.

Stories like these are why I probably won’t give notice at Job A until I’ve already passed probation at Job B. If both jobs are remote, why not?

>Then I got any email from Couchbase's lawyers with a document stating they would hire me for 10 days total and no longer.

I wonder what would happen to your sign-up bonus? There is usually a clawback clause if you decide to leave yourself, but letting you go after 10 days should still make them liable for it.

> He pulled me into a separate call at the end of the rounds and asked some weird questions, which in hindsight were documentation.

Would you mind elaborating?

Really hope you were able to find something better. Sounds like that’s not a place you’d want to be at anyways.

Guessing the manager didn’t want someone in that timezone but had to extend an offer due to some pressure from above / internal policy so he baited gp to tell on himself in that last session and then used that as grounds to back out

Wishing you and yours less strain and more happiness going forward, mate. That's rough.

Time to learn about a relocation clause in the general employee agreement:

Clause [X]: Relocation Expenses and Redundancy Protection

The Company agrees to reimburse the Employee for reasonable and necessary relocation expenses incurred by the Employee in connection with the Employee's relocation to the work location specified in this Agreement, subject to the terms and conditions set forth herein ("Relocation Expenses").

The Relocation Expenses shall include, but not be limited to, the actual costs of moving the Employee's personal property, temporary housing expenses for up to [number] days, transportation costs for the Employee and their immediate family members, and any other reasonable and necessary expenses incurred as a direct result of the relocation, up to a maximum amount of $[amount].

The Employee shall provide the Company with receipts or other documentation evidencing the Relocation Expenses within [number] days of incurring such expenses. The Company shall reimburse the Employee for the Relocation Expenses within [number] days of receiving satisfactory documentation from the Employee.

In the event the Employee's role is made redundant before the Employee's start date, the Company shall still be liable for the reimbursement of the Relocation Expenses incurred by the Employee, provided that such expenses were incurred within [one (1) month] prior to the date the role is made redundant (the "Cut-Off Date").

The Company's obligation to reimburse the Employee's Relocation Expenses shall survive the termination of this Agreement for any reason, including but not limited to the Employee's role being made redundant before the Employee's start date.

If the Employee voluntarily terminates their employment with the Company within [one (1) year] of the Employee's start date, the Employee shall be required to repay to the Company, within [number] days of the termination date, a prorated portion of the Relocation Expenses reimbursed by the Company, calculated based on the percentage of the [one (1) year] period not completed by the Employee.

It sounds like he may not have actually incurred any non-reimbursable expenses though other than maybe canceling an airline ticket. He's obviously incurred lots of disruption with associated costs (quitting job, getting rid of most of his stuff) but these aren't the sort of things that qualify for relocation expenses.

This is not a fully-complete clause, yes, getting rid of stuff hurts and might not be coverable, but at least in this Case Google would have guaranteed to pay for the relocation. Other clauses could be that in the event of a redundancy before employment start, the signing bonus stays with the employee, etc. In his case, it still covers the financial blow to a degree, and he would have probably enough time to find a replacement job. Relocation costs are also money spent on Realtors, etc.

Wouldn’t it be simpler to just ask for a signing bonus?

What's that from and in what jurisdiction?

It's a general clause that any employee who is moving for a certain job should put into their contracts. If the company does not agree to cover at least the basics, then hey, maybe it's not a good idea to move for that job in the first place?

EDIT: to your point, this should be enforceable in any jurisdiction that generally holds up with the law?

literally no big tech employer is going to allow you to add clauses to your employment contract

Literally they will if tech workers unionize, which has its own baggage and list of disadvantages for everyone but if tech companies get in a bad habit of treating employees poorly that’s exactly what will happen.

Perhaps so. But until that happens, I can't stick it in an employment contract.

And also, unions don't exist to give workers the ability to stick arbitrary clauses in employment contracts, they exist to try to lobby for better standard terms for union members. And relocation packages for new employees are a very long way down a union members' list of concerns, since people tend to join the union after they've relocated...

No! A union explicitly means a random employee will lose the ability to add or remove any clause from their contract as the Union will negotiate that. That doesn't mean the Union wouldn't negotiate a better contract then the employee would on their own but you absolutely lose that power in almost all Union setups.

There's a lesson here: such employers near-exclusively hire cogs who are supposed to fit in place. Many might find it useful to ask about such a clause as a sort of "canary" test.

Tech employers have their own relocation clauses usually that have the same wording.

Then it can just as well be called ToS, instead.

Then you tech employee are not big enough. Of course they can do this. Goes to HR, Hiring Manager, HM approves sends back to HR, HR sends to legal, HM pings because legal is slow, bam it's done. Everything can be done between humans.

It can be done. As in, the systems won't spontaneously combust if people try to do this.

But the number of people who can pull this off is unimaginably small. Even for highly desirable hires the immediate response is going to be "we don't do custom contracts, end of story."

Goes to HR, HR says "are you kidding me?", informs HM that candidate did not accept the offer, hires different candidate

Goes to HR who thinks about executive relocation packages for a moment, then looks again at what salary band the applicant was in and how much extra they're asking for expenses and informs HM that candidate did not accept the offer, hires different candidate

Goes to HR, HR forwards to HM, HM says "wow, this candidate sounds like an absolute nightmare to manage", hires different candidate

Goes to HR, HR forwards to HM, HM approves and sends back to HR, legal says "no, I don't care how good the candidate is, this provision is too messy". A lucky candidate might at least get "take it or leave it" with the original contract at this stage

Goes to HR, HR forwards to HM, HM approves and sends back to HR, legal is slow so HM pings legal who might have carefully considered precedents with executive relocation but is annoyed to be put on the spot and says no with some cautionary tales about employees who think they're lawyers instead. Another candidate is hired...

All of these scenarios are more likely for most positions than the sequence of events you've described. Humans are good at doing things you don't want them to do too! And if you're in the category of employees who are so special the company will rewrite their standard employment terms just for you, your probably not in the category of employees who risk financial hardship from being made redundant before they start

Have you ever accomplished this?

Please get back to me once you've gotten a multinational corporation to agree to this (or any other candidate-provided clause) for a non-executive employee.

I never had to deal with multinationals - not much of a corporate guy. I was reading through the comments here and it seemed to be common that "well, there's nothing you can do". Actually, there is, write it in your contract and see what comes back. If your new employer does not allow for this, at least a) you tried and b) you are fully aware of the risk that the employer might just leave you out cold. In which case, going all-in as the author did could have been avoided.

> write it in your contract and see what comes back

The issue is that in many countries, employees don’t actually have contracts. Lawyers will go to great lengths to ensure that offer letters are not structured as contracts. It’s important to keep the distinction in mind.

I've also not worked for mega-corps, but I've also had good experience with writing things into contracts and having them agreed to.

I find it odd that people are fine with contract negotiation when it comes to remuneration but treat actual contract clauses like holy text that can't be changed.

There's even a good chance that what you think is "unchanging boilerplate" is boilerplate that gets updated all the time and barely anyone is on the same contract anyway, or that it is very job role or department specific.

That said, I've mostly worked at SMEs which can be more flexible anyway, and getting a contract change is a good indicator of their general flexibility so perhaps works as a good filter too.

I think the standard experience is “this hiring rep is barely competent enough to call me back, why the hell would they have the pull to change a contract?”

This. Even big multinational corporations can change the contract to your liking, but that involves sending it to their legal team and waiting.

Last time I requested a change in the contract it took them almost one month to approve.

So if they need to hire someone asap, then it may not work, but on the other hand that is a red flag.

It's of course easier in smaller companies, where there is not many people in the chain that need to look over the paperwork.

I think many people fear that if they start "making problems" they won't get hired, because next candidate may not be too fussy. But I think that is a wrong way to look at it. If you don't stand for yourself, you are unlikely going to stand for other things, seemingly less important and employer may see this as a bad trait. Like imagine a task is being proposed and from your own experience you know it is not going to work, but everyone agrees it should be done. You could keep quiet and hope you'll not be the one to do it or you can start "making problems". Which worker would be more preferred?

> If you don't stand for yourself, you are unlikely going to stand for other things, seemingly less important and employer may see this as a bad trait.

I don't think there are many situations in which an employer is positive about a non-executive employee rejecting their contract offer and proposing an alternative with fancy legalese clause awarding themselves a [$amount] bonus up front in a manner which creates the most complications for the company's lawyers and auditors. It's certainly something (and someone) very easy to say no to.

oh, it can be changed. The real question is, would they bother changing it (and having legal review blah blah) for you.

Getting a completely custom legal document from a big company is not going to happen outside of extraordinary circumstances.

That said, the relocation packages I’ve seen have been effectively similar to this. Having the offer revoked for cause (e.g. you lied) might cancel it, but getting laid off wouldn’t. Obviously not true everywhere though.

I've seen similar clauses in a bunch of contracts, it can't be that rare. You are unlikely to be able to add your own language (as per your case of non-exec) but you may not have to.

As other commenters have mentioned, you're not going to be able to insert your own clauses into any standard employment agreement.

However, every large employer has already relocated hundreds, if not thousands, of employees. They have similar clauses that are approved, but as a candidate you may need to ask to have such a clause included.

Depending on the hiring market, the specific position, and your unique circumstances, you may or may not be able to get something added to the agreement, but it would rarely be unjustified to ask for some kind of relocation protection.

A much simpler solution I have seen to this that is _actually_ used in big companies is just relocation bonus paid on start. In short it basically goes 'Company agrees to pay you $X flat for your relocation. You are entitled to do whatever you want with this money, no questions asked. You may keep this money presuming you are not terminated for cause within Y months'

X and Y negotiable of course.

All of my “paid on start” bonuses/reimbursements were paid weeks after I started, often with my first paycheck.

The point is that they would owe you this even if they let you go immediately. Obviously they implement it in a way that’s easier on their payroll system.

The problem is that if you’re laid off before your start date, you wouldn’t get paid. Despite relocating.

Are you suggesting asking Google to add this to their contract ?

If that's the case then you are delusional.

These companies are "the law" and they will not change their contract for you. It's hard enough to even get a verbal offer from a company like Google far less get them to add relocation costs to a contract.

You'd be surprised by what you can get by simply asking for it.

Relocation clauses are very common, often included right from the start in your initial offer and if not these big corps have prepared clauses that they can add upon request/negotiation.

I've heard several stories about companies rescinding offers in a timeframe where it's obvious the candidate would have already made irreversible decisions.

Funny thing is that the same HR people will tell their own stories about candidates backing out with huge eyerolls, distain, etc.

I suppose the more common it becomes, the less the "offer" process will mean in practice. Candidates will hedge their bets.

Edit: If it becomes really common, that will probably also destroy the "2 week notice" thing. Why out myself if I'm not 100% sure I have my new job?

> HR people will tell their own stories about candidates backing

A few years ago a recruiter who ghosted me once posted how tired they were of candidates doing the same to them.

George Carlin: Everyone who drives slower than you is an idiot, and everyone who drives faster than you is an asshole.

It's a good joke, but isn't that accurate? If I'm driving at the proper speed, anyone driving faster or slower is wrong.

What's the proper speed? If the majority of traffic is going 70 in a 65, and you consider the speed limit the proper speed, to the majority trying to squeeze around you: you're the idiot.

If you consider "the going rate of traffic" the proper speed, then everyone going the speed limit will look at you as the speeding idiot.

What absurd statement. Speed limit isn't "proper speed." It's even called a limit. You go rate of traffic, faster or slower as they adapt. Yes that means going over or under the limit.

Sometimes people facemashing into the keyboard also reveals idiocy.

First you have to define proper speed. At least in the US, it's not the posted speed limit. It's condition-dependent (rain, fog, etc)

> I suppose the more common it becomes, the less the "offer" process will mean in practice. Candidates will hedge their bets.

My partner was shocked I was still interviewing after accepting an offer - this kind of story is generally why. Sucks for the hiring managers, I guess, but I care more about my mortgage/income/whatever than their time.

I will one up you, I don't put in notice until I'm 1-2 weeks into my new job. Don't really have any justification except for paranoia, which is only getting more validated from other anecdotes in this thread.

So you take vacation from the previous job I assume?

But then you're not really giving notice. Presumably the purpose of giving notice is to give the company a couple weeks of grace period to transition your work to someone else while you're still around. (It depends on the situation of course. No one may care if you come back from a vacation and quit.)

I would be onboard to try something like that, but how is this practically possible? you have to pose for 1-2 weeks like you're working both jobs, and then the 2 more weeks for the notice? how is that possible?

Presumably you'd take PTO for 2 weeks and give no notice.

2 weeks of PTO is enough time to justify "offboarding" any major efforts, and then you just leave.

Not sure I'd go for that but math checks out

That seems just as risky as quitting the old job, if not moreso. One of the few things employers will confirm on a background check is employment status and period. If the new employer runs the check late and finds out you'll lose both jobs and burn two bridges.

I think they are pretty used to stale information due the batch nature of these things. That is, employment status showing "current" probably wouldn't raise any eyebrows.

Meaning you just stop showing up to job A?

It really sucks that some companies get it and some take it super personally.

Rescinding offers will mean employees won't give 2 weeks notice due to risk of offer being rescinded. Google and other companies who rescind offers are screwing over everyone by doing this.

This has become common for us when hiring in India where the offer to start dates are measured in weeks to a month or two.

The candidate will accept the offer, keep interviewing other places then, shortly before the start date(usually as we begin getting hardware shipped to an office for pickup, assign mentors), they pick the job that pays best/more prestige, etc.

We had one case where the person worked with us for one week then quit because they got a better offer after starting.

Probably works out well for them, so I can see the reason why.

My manager moans about this all the time. I also side with the candidate. If they get more money or prestige, good for them. What my manager refuses to do: Call them up and ask what it takes to stay? He knows what the answer will be most of the time: money or title. Then he moans about "over inflated expectations". Awful. I point out time and time again: If they are getting better from another place, then we need to pay better. If you think too high, then stop hiring in the location.

I will out myself to some folks, and hope they keep me pseudo-anonymous :). I rescinded my Google offer to take another which had a more personally meaningful role and paid significantly higher (I think 50% higher?).

Google then put me on a call with a "senior" recruiter who said they'd beat the offer no question, which would have had me start at N level but be paid at the upper end of N+1 level. I refused.

Then they proceeded to tell me how my interview scores were barely passable. How my work will be meaningless at this other FAANG. Meanwhile the actual recruiter I worked with was on the call and stated disappointment but was respectful.

Now to this day, every year or so, a Google recruiter reaches out to me asking me to consider a role because my interview performance was so great.

So I follow the line of, if an employer gives me respect I will give it back 2x. If they disrespect me or violate a personal boundary, then I prioritize myself. This has resulted in many employers who love me, and a few who I imagine despise me. I recommend others do the same. I arrived here after many years of therapy and consequently find work more enjoyable.

With all the companies I interviewed with in the past, Google was the one where it seems no one managing the process gave a damn about the candidates. I swore off working for them just based on that.

Yeah this resonates with my experience with a group at Apple. When I declined an offer the hiring manager made all sorts of deeply personal attacks seemingly trying to bully me into accepting the offer. I bet this stuff isn't all that uncommon, especially at the FAANGs where hiring managers are probably not used to hearing "no".

Great username. I’d like to think that you’re working from the inside to take the whole system down :~)

A few questions:

1. What does giving it back 2x mean? You work overtime voluntarily or something like that?

2. Is what you’re describing a type of self-care or confidence? Trying to understand what your recommendation is and how to put it to action because it sounds great.

3. If you were serious about the therapy comment, can I ask what concrete steps you took in therapy to build up this confidence/self-care? What did you discuss with your therapist?

There’s no great solution to this apart from the economy and company doing well so that this doesnt happen. I’ll lay out the reasons below:

1. Let’s say we pass a law that prevents offers from being revoked. This will make hiring much harder and increase 5 rounds to like 10 and involve many more committees and even then most candidates other than sureshots getting rejected.

2. Ban revoking offers only for overseas employees (who are hurt most by this). This will ensure that the hiring bar for overseas employees is set sky high and it will already be harder for them to compete since they likely won’t have prestigious firms on their resume already compared to FAANG that American Employees would have.

Open to policy suggestions but I don’t see any good methods that prevents new candidates from being unfairly disadvantaged and stops months of preparation being put to waste due to offers being revoked

>There’s no great solution to this apart from the economy and company doing well so that this doesn't happen.

Google is making 25% profit on massive revenues, they're easily in the 10 best performing companies in the US. There's not a good economic reason for them to do something like this.

On a general level sure maybe, but for this particular case, there was little economical need for Google to have any layoffs. They're swimming in money and are highly profitable.

Pulling the rug out underneath a new employee who is days away from starting and moving his whole life to a new country is simply shitty behaviour.

Per The Goal, these sorts of broad untargeted cost-cutting measures usually hit revenue as hard as they do costs, I do wonder if Sundar’s “we're heading for a different economic reality” doom mindset will become a self-fulfilling prophecy... At Google that looks like "oh we lost our gov't contacts because we couldn't meet the new software build-chain rules in time because we were understaffed and trying to bet more people on Bard... now we have to lay off more people" and so on.

But they are definitely so flush with cash that any prediction of a doom spiral of every increasing cost-cutting measures would be way way premature.

They at least lost some money from ads from new possible products, if everything is doom and gloom. But these cost-cutting measures are just to be in the news and protect the price of their stocks (look, we are decreasing our costs). Because otherwise in the news it would be "look, people don't care about online products like it was 2020, so stocks should go down a bit".

> there was little economical need for Google to have any layoffs

The trouble is, public companies like Google aren't owned by their execs anymore. They've lost control to a bunch of idiots on Wall Street. They optimize for stock price, not employee satisfaction, not customer satisfaction.

What about Meta? Zuckerberg can't be axed and controls 50+% of the voting shares. They are still doing big layoffs and cuts. They have also always been very aggressive about growth and hiring.

They are positioning it as more of a flattening, which may actually be what's happening but I'm guessing plenty of IC's are still losing their jobs there.

You only need to control about 10% to 15% of the stock to force through the kinds of layoffs and money saving activity that is happening. You don't even have to own that much, just band together with similar minded shareholders to form a voting block.

Zuckerberg is culturally very different to Larry and Sergey. VR was definitely an unusual choice, but if you look at the other choices he has made, he responds to the market.

The point with dual-share class is not that the person will automatically do things that are financially terrible, it is that you are beholden to that person's choices. Larry and, to a lesser extent, Sergey are known largely for making bad choices that benefit their employees/friends.

I think this is also due to the nature of their business: Google's search business is the most profitable business in the history of capitalism, you need to deploy almost no capital, you need almost no employees, and you can produce hundreds of billions in revenue...there is no business like it. Zuck is clearly aware that their core business is in decline and has been for a number of years so has been forced to make strategic choices. Google have had to do nothing, their execs are comical, the founders are clearly not up to it...but it doesn't matter. The result they get is nothing to do with the inputs going in.

>>They optimize for stock price, not employee satisfaction, not customer satisfaction.

Are you suggesting that CEO's don't have exactly the same motivations and incentives?

Larry/Sergey is firmly in control of Google. Even if you buy up all the available GOOGL shares you will be outvoted by them. The company is not owned by Wall Street. Employees and most investors have GOOG stock that has no voting rights.

Sergey? He's busy partying all the time. He shows up at every other party I've been to in the bay and is constantly surrounded by women.

Larry -- his personal wealth is still determined by shareholders, not employees or customers.

> They optimize for stock price,

Of course, understanding the reality of this situation and acting accordingly would be good for stock price.

What you're talking about is optimizing for short term stock prices or the perception of what's good for them.

    a bunch of idiots on Wall Street

Usually, those "idiots" are pension funds, mutual funds, and ETFs owned by retail investors. And, this is normal for a mature company to no longer have insiders control the vast majority of voting shares.

Also, Netflix free float stock is no longer controlled by a few people. It is widely held, and it hasn't lost sight of its mission. It continues to optimize employee and customer satisfaction with great success for their stock price. (No, I am not a shill for Netflix.)

> there was little economical need for Google to have any layoffs

There is. These large tech companies were growing headcount at 20-30%/year, maybe even more at peak. And their revenue is now flat. If you are growing headcount 20% year and revenue isn't going up, what does that indicate?

The purpose of a company is to sell things that people want, not provide welfare for the well-educated (Google is one of the worst for this, they are still massively, massively, massively overstaffed but the dual share class has insulated them...they are basically a bureaucracy attached to a monopoly...btw, almost every monopoly I have seen in the wild ends up this way, execs always go native).

I get that the HN crowd is sensitive to FAANG layoffs. That being said, it's hard to take seriously an anonymous comment claiming they know better than Google's executive board about whether or not they needed layoffs. Unless you were in those discussions, your ideas probably come from the same blog posts posted to HN in the last 6 months.

I don't stand to gain anything from defending them, but can we drop the hubris that almost any of us knows how these decisions are made at that level? I'm sure there's a C-suite or two skimming HN every once in a while, but most of us are regular old tech employees slinging code and talking to customers.

That doesn't make it any less awful for the people involved, and I feel for their situations.

I feel the opposite way, when you look at blunders like the Metaverse or Google's complete failure to capitalize on its work with LLMs, you really have to question whether the executive boards of FAANGs really know how to do anything but make themselves more money these days. I can't help but wonder if Google and other FAANGs would making more money and producing better products if the people slinging code and talking to customers were running the company.

I have no input on HN in general, but personally I don't work for FAANG nor do I want/intend to. I don't take issue with layoffs in general. I take issue with HOW they're done.

It's clear from all the news and HN coverage that whoever is responsible for the layoffs put in absolutely zero thought about compassion and empathy. For some well-paid engineers those layoffs probably didn't have a large effect on their financial situation. For a lot of other people, they probably did.

Take Google for example. Instead of notifying people about their layoff, a lot had to find out that they don't have a job anymore by trying to swipe their badge at the office entrance. They couldn't even bother to send an email.

That said, you're right. I don't know what's going on inside Google. But I don't need to know all the internal details to see that hiring thousands of people and then letting them go just 2-3 years later is simply stupid planning. From OPs story it also looks pretty apparent that there is not enough internal communication. They've had a hiring freeze for months, then apparently lifted it, then let people go. What exactly is the logical reason behind that? What business reason could there possibly be to do that?

Money needs to have a return, even internally. Saying "we can afford it" buys you goodwill, but the same way employer goodwill towards employees shifts with the wind, so does consumer and employee sentiment.

People do not generally pick their grocery cart or smartphone based on how the brand makes them "feel". Upper middle class professionals with six figure plus salaries might, but they are far in the minority.

I will only respond to the last paragraph: Google could have done themselves a huge (reputational) favour by offering 5-10K USD compensation to these people. It was already budgeted -- usually 5K+ for single person to move country. And, they should have gone on a PR blitz about "making things right". Whether or not you agree with these PR campaigns, they work for many people. It's hard to resist feel good propaganda spread by marketing pros.

Another trick they could have used to avoid this problem: Replace each signed new hire with another layoff. Sure, in the very short term, it is harmful to the org, but how many people are we talking about? Maybe 500 signed offer letters? Also: Try offering money first. If candidate refuses, layoff another person internally.

>There’s no great solution to this apart from the economy and company doing well so that this doesnt happen

Blaming firing people before their start date on economy and company seems like one hell of a stretch, especially a profitable one like google.

What's wrong with a termination fee, as already exists in many contracts?

Even that would just be another debate about how much the fee “should” be.

I doubt it. I expect most people could agree that it should be some small number of months of salary.

> 1. Let’s say we pass a law that prevents offers from being revoked. This will make hiring much harder and increase 5 rounds to like 10 and involve many more committees and even then most candidates other than sureshots getting rejected.

The problem isn't quality of candidate, the problem is unknown business changes. Sitting on your hands for 10 rounds vs 5 won't fix those unknowns.

Certainly companies might respond this way, but it makes no sense and won't actually prevent them from giving an offer to someone in the face of unknown layoffs.

Agreed, I don't think there would be any benefit to increase the number of rounds. Guessing there would be no extra signal with the marginal rounds, but candidate frustration would be through the roof. I'm already frustrated with 5 ha.

Random thought... maybe international offers have relocation costs up to just several thousand dollars if the offer is canceled like this. The cost scales with revenue of the company and salary offered, so it's almost nothing for small business. I don't think it would be too onerous on Google to take a hit of a few thousand dollars for cases like this. Not nearly enough to ignore international talent. Unfortunately it will likely never happen because it's a USA law to protect foreigners against USA companies.

Why do you think rounds would be higher if an offer is unrevokable? That makes no sense to me. At the very least, companies rescinding offers should make a payment equal to a few months of pay. This trend of companies revoking offers and saying "too bad, sorry you quit your job, sold your house and most of your belongings for us."

i'm not saying that the company has no responsibility... any company (even one as massive as google) can do better than an email and "so bad so sad".

However, regardless of economic factors, the process of quitting your job, selling your house, and most of your belongings is inherently risky! In this case its VERY high risk VERY high reward (at least in my estimation).

This definitely disadvantages people needing to relocate for that dream job, but we can't eliminate the risk of such a massive decision.

> we can't eliminate the risk of such a massive decision

Lol we literally can, or at least mitigate. It’s easy to pass a law (if the particular legislature works for its people and not the corporate interests) that makes job offers binding and getting out of them requires making the other party at least partially whole.

Promissory estoppel already exists.

>This will make hiring much harder and increase 5 rounds to like 10

Not sure if I agree with this... Is hiring in European countries with stronger labor laws harder? AFAIK the number of rounds is the same. In European countries they have the concept of probation period to protect against an employee who isn't the right fit. We do as well in America, it's just called "at-will employment", so it's pretty much your entire tenure.

Different on a country-by-country basis but generally not really. For example, it's pretty common to have a 6 month probation period in Germany where both the employee and employer can quit/let go at any time with a 2 week notice period.

You can negotiate that clause away. An employer that wants at-will employment periods should pay US wages or at least contractor rates for those periods.

It's not. You can always fire someone who doesn't do their job. It's slightly harder to fire someone for having the wrong haircut. You can always try constructive dismissal, the penalties are peanuts. Or buy out their permanent contract, it's pretty cheap like an American sign-on bonus.

> There’s no great solution to this apart from the economy and company doing well so that this doesnt happen.

I'm absolutely not interesting in arguing for any great solution but I do think people would serve their own interests better applying for jobs that fill needs and not that fill seats. I recognize it's easier said than done, but I really despise the livestock-based personnel management approach that infests most of big corporate.

> Let’s say we pass a law that prevents offers from being revoked. This will make hiring much harder and increase 5 rounds to like 10 and involve many more committees and even then most candidates other than sureshots getting rejected.

I don't see what one has to do with the other. You only extend an offer after you've vetted the candidate, and afterwards there is no more screening, so sudden revocation doesn't have anything to do with candidate quality and everything to do with economic conditions. One might imagine that strict laws against early termination of a contract would lead to less hiring when the company fears that they might be affected by a downturn... but that would then pretty much be the intended purpose, to think twice before you can afford someone before hiring them?

The Effect of that kind of policy was already tried in Italy to a certain extent. The result was that For every new "Temporary Investment" (meaning a project that needed 1-3 years of pushing) Noone was hiring and everyone, no exceptions was "renting" bodies from "consultancy firms". The result was distatrous for the companies that needed to pay Consultancy prices because they could not afford to hire without being able to downsize after 1-3 years and the employees who ended up in the consultancy sweat shops because they were pratically the only ones who would offer to hire. The salaries stagnated because the market stagnated (and still Italian Salaries in Tech are among the lowest in all EU). The only ones who profited from this were the middle men. Many still see this kind of a policy as something to be admired but I would rather have a vibrating market and change jobs every 2-3 years rather than "settling for life" like the proponents of this system predicate at a sweat shop.

That's a completely different topic. We're talking about revoking someone's contract before they even started, not 1-3 years after they came on board.

> I don't see what one has to do with the other.

It is incredibly connected. There is business risk introduced for making an offer. Increasing that risk means that the vetting process can be increased to make up for that extra risk incurred. If companies feel they need 4 or 5 rounds of interviews today before making an offer and you all of a sudden mandate that there's more of a risk for making an offer, they might decide on an extra round or two of interviews to try and be even more certain about their decision.

Personally I think a lot of the issues around hiring could be solved by making firing much more trivial and less risky for businesses: this would make a lot of the process around hiring and the many extra rounds of interviews less important. Companies would be a lot more incentivized to give people they like a shot and see if they can hack it in a role or not. This would IMO be a big improvement for say self-taught developers or those with non-traditional backgrounds who can get easily dismissed because they present more of a risk than somebody who went to X good school and worked at big corporation for Y years.

> There is business risk introduced for making an offer. Increasing that risk means that the vetting process can be increased to make up for that extra risk incurred.

Why does it increase the risk? Are they regularly screwing over hires like this? If so, it's good to force the behavior change. If they only screw over hires like this in economic downturns, then "more rounds" wouldn't affect that so they wouldn't add more rounds.

I understand your perspective here. I think everybody is rightly outraged and has their blood boiling when they hear stories about employers screwing over hires. I'm right there with you for wanting fairness and a good process.

What's the solution to improving job-seekers lives though? I think this is a case where the incentives are really counterintuitive and solutions that sound good are the wrong ones to make peoples' lives overall better.

On the surface, it sounds great to focus on a goal oriented outcome and give employees better protections and make firing harder. Giving Americans European style workers rights sounds great. But in practice, I think that just makes the hiring process a nightmare and makes it a risk for businesses to try and add anybody because there's always a chance that things don't work out for some reason. This is why there's so many stupid rounds of interviews and hoops to jump through for every position now.

I think we'd go a long way to making hiring much better by doing the counterintuitive thing: making firing much easier and reduce business risk as much as possible. Make the risk for businesses nearly zero for hiring anybody because it's so easy to reverse things if they don't work out, and all of a sudden the incentive for multiple round interview processes goes away because you'd want to rush and snatch up anybody you like and want to give a shot without risking losing them in a 6 week multi-round interview process.

Adding more risk for hiring IMO just increases how awful the hiring process will become.

Feel free to hate me for saying all of that. I know it sounds bad on the surface and I can't really articulate this theory in a way that's perfectly convincing. But this is one of those things that for some reason makes perfect sense to me and is a strong gut feeling as the correct thing. Also note that I'm a job seeker at the moment, and I'm saying all of the above through a self-interested lens of wanting to make the hiring process as simple as possible.

> Adding more risk for hiring IMO just increases how awful the hiring process will become.

I'm not disagreeing with that in general, but I want an explanation of where the additional risk would come from in this situation. And why, because of that specific risk, companies would do something like add more hiring rounds.

If the additional risk is just getting stuck with an employee during a downturn, more hiring rounds wouldn't affect that, so there would be no reason to add them.

Also it seems like it's currently pretty easy to fire people. I'm not at all confident you could reduce the hiring process by making firing even easier. And how do you propose handling the people that already have jobs and need a commitment before quitting them?

Or companies will simply use the trial period to terminate. Painful as it is it's much better to get a revocation of offer than for the company to go through the motions just to arrive at the "clear" moment of trial period and terminate you position after 1 month.

Is there really no solution?

What if laws required companies with > N employees to pay M months of severance + any relocation reimbursements they promised if they terminate the employment agreement for reasons other than employee misconduct?

> Ban revoking offers only for overseas employees (who are hurt most by this). This will ensure that the hiring bar for overseas employees is set sky high and it will already be harder for them to compete

Laws are generally created to benefit people who are not described as “overseas”

Well fuck your laws if they will discriminate me based on whereever seas I come from or whatever.

So much for the land of the free, supposing these people have their visas and shit in order, I don't see why the law shouldn't protect them too

I’m not sure why you are referring to the “land of the free,” as I was referring to laws of countries in general. Laws are nearly always created to benefit the country creating them.

Sorry in HN I default to US centrism.

Anyways I'm assuming you can be legally imigrating to a country at which points laws should be make to protect you too.

I don't see how is there any morality in laws that disregard a human being due to their passport or lack of thereof.

I understand it is what it is, still madness.

It was my understanding we were talking about laws making companies want to hire from within at the expense of hiring people from “overseas”.

That is, I was under the impression we were discussing things that happened before the legal immigration process had began.

Please see: https://www.businessinsider.com/stanford-professor-mass-layo...

I felt the same way about the big tech layoffs and hiring freezes in 2008-2009. (Followed by huge, across the board, non-merit based salary boosts in 2010 and a hot job market to follow.)

For the startups maybe it's a different calculus, but for the big guys they're mostly doing fine and it's not really about cutting costs. It's that some group of consensus-makers decided that laying off is the appropriate, responsible, even inevitable trend in business.

Relatedly, when the socially acceptable thing was to over-hire blindly, few people called them out.

I fail to see the reason for why ban on revoking offers would cause 2x more interview rounds.

It's a strawman. If a company decided they were going to hire someone, they wouldn't suddenly decide to spend twice as much hiring that person, just in case they have a layoff in the future. It just doesn't follow

Those are extreme solutions. You don't want to make it impossible to revoke offers or to fire people, but companies should be liable for actual costs.

In this case, Google should pay for:

1) The costs of replacing discarded items

2) Move-related costs (e.g. plane tickets, etc.)

3) Some reasonable period of unemployment

Those should not be offloaded onto candidate employees.

I'm a big believer in automation. To me, it's kinda the point of being a programmer. But it intrigues me how eager some are to eliminate all human aspects from everything. Hiring, firing, building, shrinking. Let's just automate it all with a recursive algorithm. It's just business. Nothing personal.

I'm a human. I want to be personal.

Yes, there are billions of us and I'm pretty interchangeable. But...

I get interested in silly things like when somebody gets a pay raise because they got married. What kind of business sense does that make? It's debatable. But it makes obvious people sense.

I rather enjoy living in a people world, even while I work every day to automate it.

[Edited for clarity]

Here in Germany nobody would move based on an offer, only based on a signed employment contract. Of course you can terminate the contract, but there commonly is a clause that you can't terminate the contract before it starts (to protect both parties from the other party backing out). And even if that clause doesn't exist, by law there is at a minimum a two week notice period, so this example of a company walking back on it a week before isn't possible. And while relocation reimbursements typically would contain a clause that effectively vests it over X years (meaning you have to pay part of it back if you quit) this clause legally can't apply in a case like this where there's no fault of the employee (he wasn't even there to potentially do something wrong).

Despite these basic protections, we still manage to hire people around here.

In this case, you could probably just impose a severance if an offer is terminated before X days (say 40) on the job without employee malfeasance; the problem with banning revoking offers is that the downside is very large. If companies had to pay out a few thousand bucks every time they screwed up like this, they'd have to be more cautious, but I don't think it would tip the scales towards not hiring at all or depending on consultants, etc. To avoid excessive moral hazard, the severance value should be calculated based on (X - Y)/2, where X is the minimum days worked and Y is the actual days worked.

This simply isnt true. The idea that every cost of regulation is born entirely by the non-corporate party is corporate PR.

Unionizing does not result in worse outcomes for employees or new hires. Lawsuits don't raise the prices of McDonald's coffee. And stronger labor laws won't stop companies from needing personnel. It might move the needle a little, but these things are subject to more forces than you are imagining here, and most of them are much stronger than the offchance that you would need to pay to relocate someone you are immediately terminating.

You can do something softer, like mandate 3 mo severance for not for cause revocation of offer. The problem is that they can still fire you on day 1.

3. Any offer revoked before the agreed start date implies mandatory payment of 6 months of salary, automatically, without exception.

So they'll just "revoke" the offer the day you start.

For an international relocation that would be much, much worse than what happened here.

We could make it so that making an offer implies the immediate payment of 3 to 6 months of salary, against the fiture actual salary.

If the offer is later rescinded the candidate doesn't have to pay it back.

Google is profitable. They are not losing money, and they are in no danger of becoming unprofitable because of payroll. If we lived in world where folks measured things in a normal light, Google would not have frozen hiring, rescinded offers, and laid-off thousands. We live in the upside down world. We have to stop accepting the crazy, upside-down values of the modern world. The world would be better if Google just wanted to be an awesome search engine that made money by being great, instead of trying to grow quarter after quarter (unsustainable in the long run).

eh... Google, more than your average publicly traded company, does rely on external investment by way of the stock in order to conduct its operations. In particular, a very large percent of compensation, especially for the most valued employees, is equity-based.

Google's revenues were flat last year but costs were up. Hence, profits were down. The C-suite's insight into the future seems to be that future revenues are not going to make up for the current cost structure. The stock price is roughly correlated with profits (let's ignore NVDA for a moment). So to keep the stock price afloat, profits must be propped up. If the stock price drops, all employees are suddenly paid less, especially the ones you value most. So not doing layoffs is equivalent to giving everyone a pay cut. Pay cuts are even worse for morale and long-term company performance than layoffs. The choice seems clear to me.

On top of that, when you're a publicly traded company, your obligation to your shareholders is at least as great as your obligation to employees. If you don't like that agreement, don't go public (as a worker, don't agree to work for a for-profit company). Google is a for-profit, not a cooperative.

> Google's revenues were flat last year but costs were up.

Wrong. Google made 181.69 billion in 2020, 256.74B in 2021 [1] and 283B in 2022 [2]. A 10% YoY increase [2] is better than most of the years they have been public. They possibly made more money in last 2.5 years than all the years they have been public combined.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266206/googles-annual-gl...

[2] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204423...

> Are you saying most employees would prefer losing their job or living without job security over a pay cut with job security?

Pay cuts don’t come with job security. You can get laid off after a pay cut as easily as without one.

Employees prefer not having their pay cut. The ones that are dismissed aren’t employees any more, so from the narrow perspective of the organization dismissing them, their morale doesn’t matter. Pay cuts impact the morale of the people still working more than lay offs do.

Now, where pay cuts – especially explicitly and enforceably temporary ones – come with some real measure of job security as a way of avoiding layoffs, that can be different, but that usually only happens where there is a specific contractual arrangement, usually via a preexisting union and labor-management negotiation (and even there its tricky, especially in the private sector, because firm guarantees are hard.)

The point is that profits were down --- over 20% as per your source. Are you denying that?

The fact that revenues were actually up while profits were down reinforces that Google has let costs spiral out of control.

Point taken.

The issue is these businesses are hiring without strategy, consideration to risk, or proper forecasting. There should never be a situation within a fortune 100 business where the forecasting is so poor that offers are rescinded. I began making household budget accommodations for the macro economic situation in the first half of 2022. What was google doing at this point? How does a business spend $20-30K on the search process, send out an offer, then all the sudden realize they don't want to hire that person? What cascade of management failures is required for that to even be a possibility? How is it that these businesses don't consider the human cost of these decisions?

This sort of action is unprofessional, questionably moral, and unforgivable. I think the FANG companies were/are overrated. Why would you want to work for a business displaying this level of incompetence?

The reason is that they are deadly afraid of mass layoffs being leaked beforehand and causing the stock price to slide or a bunch of negative press about it, so the people who know aren't telling anyone but the VIPs in the company about it until the last possible minute.

They are getting a bunch of negative press for rescinding job offers. This doesn't seem any better. Better would be just not hiring people you don't need and not chasing growth like an unmonitored heroin addict.

Advice about what to do after you've already done something else isn't very useful, but when my wife and I moved internationally for her new job, we made sure to have it be a slow process. First she went, rented a short term apartment, while I moved all of our belongings into a storage facility, then once she felt good about the position she found us a nicer more permanent home, then I sold our home in the US, the car, and moved to meet her in the other country. Yes, it was more expensive, and we certainly wasted some money, but my feeling was if the company can't compensate us appropriately to take this risk, it's not worth the risk. They helped with moving expenses and apartment selection and the first two month's rent.

If something had gone wrong, or she'd felt like it was a bait and switch, we had months of buffer to fall back on.

This is far more sensible advice than all the "there ought to be a law" (in which jurisdiction?) comments on this thread and probably also more realistic than trying to figure out how to protect yourself 100% against any eventuality.

Even without moving internationally, managers change, executives decide to cancel projects or cut back headcount, etc. Sure, that can happen a year down the road too. But if something is going to be a big move, it makes sense to find ways to at least reduce the harm if it turns out there really wasn't a meeting of the minds or circumstances changed.

> in which jurisdiction?

It'd be the country of employment, but that presents a huge enforcement problem for people like this. Navigating your own country's legal system is hard enough, but another country's?

I mean, the advice is "use a giant pile of money to set up and maintain a dual-home situation until you are satisfied that the job will pan out."

Laws are supposed to protect people who don't have the resources to proactively hedge against stuff like this.

A situation can "not pan out" in lots of ways that laws can't/won't protect against. Pretty much no law is going to handle "This job/place isn't like I thought it was going to be and I want to pull the plug before we have to commit" absent gross misrepresentation and probably getting lawyers involved. The parent specifically used the phrase "once she felt good about the position."

Maybe you cross your fingers and hope for the best or you use resources you have to hedge things. (Where hedging implies spending some upside to guard against serious downside.)

Anyone who owns a house is going to have to "set up a dual home situation" I think. Houses don't sell overnight - and in this case I got an offer the day it went on the market. Still took almost a month to close.

If you're one of the millions of Americans 2-3 missed paychecks from poverty, then yes, it can be difficult. Generally speaking though, this is not the crowd considering international moves for jobs, especially within this forum.

I did something similar when I relocated. I made plans with the company to be remote for the first month, though I was coming into the office on odd weeks. They understood I'd be out for a day or two here and there as I tried to find a new residence. That allowed time to find housing and move the family and I didn't have to terminate my lease until I already had a new house lined up.

Seems Google treats its employees like they treat their customers. My experience with Google as a customer is just as frustrating (have had corporate accounts locked out with no avenue for recourse except sending emails over weeks, to simply be denied again because their bots think I'm doing something strange, and products my company was relying on and using simply stop being supported one day).

I stopped using or supporting Google related products, and declined moving forwards on an interview offer as a result. This story just reinforces this view.

It's all correct, though they do pay good money. Otherwise it's just a large, messy organisation where blame deflection is everyone's basic survival strategy. This is for example why he got such cryptic messages all the way through, nobody wanted to tell him that things are actually shit and unlikely to result in an employment before their boss' boss' boss announces that this is the case.

> though they do pay good money.

When my wife was looking for a VP level position at a tech company last year, Google's interview process was by far the most cumbersome and their offer was the lowest she got by a sizeable amount. When she mentioned this to them, they said she could begin the process all over again to see if she could maybe get more. She thanked them for their time and then accepted one of the reasonable offers she got.

I cannot actually believe this. Can you share actual numbers?

Google pays well above most Fortune 50 companies at the VP level. Definitely over a few million per year.

I can think of a handful of companies that pay more, unless I’m totally mistaken.

It sounds like somebody being a VP at a 50-person company, submitting a resume, and getting an interview for a L6 eng manager position.

Having an offer rescinded for 'business reasons' is unbelievably annoying, and the author has my sympathy. That said, it's kind of understandable too. Things happen. The landscape changes. Some people will be affected. You kind of have to roll with it sometimes. I wish the author the best of luck finding something else quickly.

What I find truly incredible though is that it took a full year to go from application to having a start date. That's glacially slow even for a giant company. How can any team get anything done if it takes that long to bring additional resources in?

I imagine for gargantuan companies with significant amount of pull for talent there is always a good pool of candidates in later stages of the hiring process to pick from.

"How can any team get anything done if it takes that long to bring additional resources in?"

From the candidate's perspective, it took a year. But from the team's perspective, it might have been only a month or so, because team matching typically starts only after interviews are complete and the hiring packet has been reviewed.

> How can any team get anything done if it takes that long to bring additional resources in?

You're misunderstanding the timing. Google doesn't hire for a specific team -- it determines you pass the bar for hiring, then they have to match you to a team.

If a team inside of Google needs a new employee, it often only takes a couple of weeks, whether it's an internal transfer, or whether it's a new hire who's been waiting around to be matched with a team.

Obviously it can take a little longer if a team decides the candidate they want is in another city/country because of relocation and visas, but that's nothing to do with Google.

> Having an offer rescinded for 'business reasons' is unbelievably annoying, and the author has my sympathy. That said, it's kind of understandable too. Things happen.

It's not understandable, Google is doing financially fine. If they determine they made a mistake they should have to pay a penalty. You would not get that grace in your own personal life, I don't know why we grant it to companies in employment contracts. Sign an apartment lease and change your mind? You'll be on the hook for a huge payment. Companies revoking offers should be subject to penalties and to make the other party whole.

The candidate can also accept the offer and then take a job somewhere else without penalty, so it is at least symmetric.

Sometimes I do wish HN were Reddit so I can snap at people who genuinely believe such things. Equating the damage of a rescinded offer to an employee who packed their life into two suitcases and to a multi billion company is outright delusional.

That is not symmetric.

> it is at least symmetric

No, the cost for individual would-be employee and a big FAANG company is nowhere near "symmetric".

The larger the company, the longer the process. We got into Amazon as a supplier only because they figured it would take them at least a year until they would have hired the first person starting to tackle the topic internally…

Google is a bit notorious for taking extremely long from the candidate's perspective, even among the tech giants.

I'm always astonished at the incredibly slow, inefficient, and bureaucratic hiring processes of what are held to be the most capable companies in the world. I imagine it's also incredibly expensive and -from what I've read- doesn't seem cut down on the cases of false positives it's supposedly there to prevent.

I wonder why these companies don't try and emulate something like what a military does: take in the willing and motivated, give them all the basic skills valued by the organization, asses their existing capabilities, and then place them where needed after more targeted training.

Now I'm not sure that's quicker, cheaper, more efficient, or less bureaucratic; rather I'm just surprised none of these companies have at least tried it in the face of their current systems.

> I wonder why these companies don't try and emulate something like what a military does: take in the willing and motivated, give them all the basic skills valued by the organization, asses their existing capabilities, and then place them where needed after more targeted training.

This was how many German giants operated. You got in with 16 as a trainee/apprentice and rose up the ranks.

The problem is, employers risk taking up duds with that, and paying the fees for the dual-education schools ("Berufsschule") and exams isn't cheap either, so they went for requiring university degrees as a proxy instead. Bonus effects for employers:

- the government picked up the tab on running the university, which means that employers can save on that as well and only provide new hires organization-specific knowledge

- you can't be a complete moron if you managed an academic degree

- it weeds out normally-protected classes such as people with mental health issues or, frankly, poor and immigrant people as well because belonging to either (or multiple) of these categories is closely correlated with lower success ratios in academia.

Nowadays, almost all the apprenticeship trainees come from small tradespeople-style companies, at a lot of expense to them, and the big companies come in and sweep the freshly exam'd people with sometimes twice or thrice the tradespeople's wages. Understandably the small companies are pissed at that, but they can't do anything.

heh, funny you should bring that up as I grew up in Germany. I hadn't realized the Berufsschule system has become so discarded. But what you point out would (and does) plague a military as well if it wasn't A) a fully-funded state enterprise and B) traditionally required to be large and self-sustaining enough to have jobs that even the duds would be useful at. Needless to say a Google would not be able to squirrel the duds away so easily.

> take in the willing and motivated

how do you select the willing and motivated among the millions of resumes you receive?

they've self-selected for you: they applied :)

>most capable companies in the world

Ever wondered why you say that about a company which is living off the network effect (ie monopoly) and fails at pretty much everything they try except for two products they did two decades ago?

> companies

I didn't say that about a company

s/that said/having said that/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5DCns_n9_M

Thus illustrating why the argument in the link doesn't make sense

> Things happen. The landscape changes.

During the dot com bubble burst, 2008, or March 2020, sure. Or if something is happening to that specific company.

There wasn't that during this window with Google. This was just sloppy HR. With how they were dragging their feet, I doubt many people were in this position (which is actually an argument for sucking it up and actually hiring him).

That said, it sounded like Google was more cagey than usual, so that should be a red flag. Demand some contractual protections, and if they're denied, wait another 3 months to see how things shake out.

...asking to connect with me regarding “an update on my Google offer”. I chose to connect the following day.

It's nice to know that Google is consistent in the use of the phrase "An update on...". If you see this, it's dead.

A similar phrasing happened to a rescinded MongoDB offer I had last week.

I had a company use this as a scare tactic, I think.

They emailed me with an "update on my offer" only to make me wait an entire day for them to say that a lot of other people were accepting their offers and that I should hurry up. I thought it was rescinded for an entire day.

I'm not sure why anyone hasn't brought up the elephant in the room. OP, you're now an unemployed male of draftable age living in Russia, which is doing poorly in a war with your neighbor. Depending on how the anticipated Ukranian spring offensive fares, extremely bad things could happen to you very soon.

You already made yourself mobile. This would be a good time to take a six-month vacation anywhere outside Russia. Look for remote work after you cross the border.

IT professionals are supposedly exempt from mobilization in Russia AFAIK.

That’s generally not true. Only some companies have this «accreditation». Many of my IT friends were drafted.

yep, it's not even guaranteed to be allowed to leave russia at this point. And it'll only get worse.

When I left Yandex (pre-pandemic), I was told that I can return with no conditions in 3 months. I believe it is a general practice as I had non-senior position and was considered an average performer.

So, his situation is not as dire.

Is your visa still valid? If so, move to London anyways. You've already quit your job and sold your stuff. Chances are if you qualified for Google, you'll find work there. In for a penny, in for a pound, as the Brits say.

It's definitely possible to thrive here but moving somewhere with a _much_ higher cost of living without having a job is a bold move.

for a software engineer, i think the risk is close to 0 :)

That's a big assumption to make.

And, to be frank (if sympathetic), I'm not sure unemployed Russian wanting to move to London has the strongest hand to play right now, even if the software developer job market is still reasonably strong.

A sponsored Skilled Worker Visa becomes invalid 60 days after employment ends.

In this case the employment never even started. The 60 days is for people already in the country to either move out or find another visa sponsor.

Only 60 days? Wow. Given how long the interview process can be for some skilled positions (as evidenced by the author's lengthy hiring process), I'm surprised this window for finding a replacement job is so short.

A rule of thumb for dealing with the Home Office is that nothing is done out of kindness or common sense (or even legality). Everything is done with the aim of removing from or denying entry to as many people as possible. And even at this "job" it is mostly ineffective.

UK work visas are linked to the specific employer so they become invalid if the offer is withdrawn.

Hi! I'm not sure if my visa is valid, and all "immigration consultants" can not answer me directly. My short-term entry visa is attached to my Certificate of Sponsorship, which has been revoked together with the contract. Be default I assume that my visa is revoked too, because I don't want to take that chance.

That's fair.

Assuming this is a T2 Skilled worker visa, working for an approved employer that sponsored the visa application is one of the conditions of this visa type. Very similar to H1B.

Entities with massive wealth, such as Google, should always use money to soften the blow of their mistakes.

Giving this person a small chunk of cash would make me respect Google so much more than just screwing this person's life up and saying "Whoops, you're fired, lol!"

But it's been a long time since Google was a cool company.

It's simple profit motive. What you're asking for is something else

I agree, but as 'Bill Gates' said on The Simpsons: "I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks."

Easily justified as good marketing. This #1 post on HN will Google (in various ways) much more than the cash they could have used to look like good guys, even if it wasn't done out of goodness.

Much more than the cash to handle potentially thousands of applicants who were in a similar position?

(Don't get me wrong, I do think large companies should be held to higher ethical standards, but we don't seem to be there yet.)

No mention of the relocation bonus. Was there one? Did they rescind that as well? Since I'm 90% sure Google would pay for international relocation, and the blog post didn't mention it (which it surely would have if Google had offered then rescinded one), I suspect he did get to keep that.

Those don't get paid in advance. They're paid as part of your paycheck.

I am pretty sure for most corporations you get the bonus after you moved, unless they contracted a relocation company and you accepted their service.

Remember in the hot 2021 hiring market when Coinbase revoked offers because of a layoff? I remember deciding they were on my blacklist after that. I thought their leadership and recruiting were too disorganized to trust with my career.

Of course you can lose your job at any time, but letting a candidate quit their old job and relocate and then get laid off is not something that should ever happen.

And now it's layoff season, and every big company has recently done this to huge numbers of people.

So as a labor force, what do we do about this? How to we protect ourselves now that the deal between employers and employees has broken down even further?

Keep growing that blacklist and put it online. The cornerstone of the free market is that you have to exercise your power of choice in intelligent pursuit of your best interests

If you buy a nice domain and add references to the list it would definitely end up on front page of HN.

Form a guild. Other professionals have organizations to protect them, engineers should too. This is the way.

What existing organization would have prevented what happened to OP?

None. A guild would fight with government for rights on his behalf.

Worked at a startup, hired a guy - we got bought his first week, they closed our office.

So on one check he got his hiring bonus, relocation expenses, first paycheck and severance.

It sucks, but at least he got all the payouts. And unlike Google, the office was closed, so it's more understandable.

Probably not, but I wonder if it would be prudent to try to ask for pre-hiring retention agreements. If you make me an offer and I accept, if you retract or downsize between that signature and 90 days after starting - then you pay me some amount?

But... few would probably agree to it for non-executive positions. Executives of course, play by different rules and can have all sorts of special things negotiated.

Signing bonus. I think the way a number of contracts are worded you keep it.

It was enlightening to me when I started applying to jobs to find out that the companies which were renowned for their innovation and productivity had a several week, 5-stage+, committee-based hiring process that made you feel like a sow getting its haunches graded before slaughter

This is why I suggest not giving two weeks notice when leaving a job for another.

Instead send a resignation email the morning you start at the new company.

This seems fair and reasonable given that companies are willing to pull offers.

I posted this on your other comment, but I'll post it here again.

Leaving without 2 weeks notice seems like a good way to incinerate your professional relationship with your outgoing manager/teammates. I guess if you would never use them for a reference anyway, that's fine, but what if you do want to use them as a reference in the future? Or is your experience that your former team didn't actually mind that you just quit one day?

Explain to them why you had to do it this way; it’s a consequence of companies rescinding offers at the last second.

Are you speaking from experience?

If you are a good employee and you handle your departure professionally, you can instead tell your old employer that your new job fell through and go back to your old job.

If you burn your bridges on your way out, then you can never go back. What happens if your new job lets you go after a week? If you are worried about a job pulling an offer a week before you start, you should be worried about it being pulled a week after you start.

You are protecting yourself from an offer being pulled before you start by exposing yourself to extra risk if they pull the offer after you start. It seems like a poor trade.

My general advice to new folks entering the workforce for the first time is that they remember "the company" (especially big public cooperations) does not care about them. The company's only real priority is to provide value to its shareholders and the best case scenario for employees is that management sees an alignment between treating employees well and increasing the stock price. As such, the company does not deserve any more from you than you are contractually obligated to provide.

That being said, for many roles a lack of notice for your resignation is going to have the most significant negative impact on your immediate team, manager, and coworkers. HR and the CTO will not care, but the engineers you have been sitting next to for the last few years could be put in a tight spot.

Why would it be fair and reasonable to the company that didn't pull the offer? Seems pretty bizarre to justify being a jerk to someone yourself because a completely unrelated party is a jerk to you (or, in your scenario, you don't even know whether they'll be a jerk to you, making it even weirder). All you're doing is making it impossible for your own company to start the process of spreading the loss of an FTE, and actively making the lives of your colleagues terrible.

I'm not sure which part of the world you are in, but for example in Europe it is common to have 1 month as a minimum notice period, and not uncommon to have 3 or even 6 months (this latter usually if you stay at a company for a long time).

It is also common in certain countries to either get a "reference" letter from previous employers or provide a reference about a person in email or on the phone - going back to 3 or 5 years.

And finally, we are talking about moving countries, if not continents. Maybe if you are 18 you can stop working on a Friday in country A, travel with a suitcase over the weekend and start working on Monday in country B, but as you get older, the number of people and stuff attached to you just grows... and this becomes a rather more difficult and time consuming process.

> I'm not sure which part of the world you are in

Most likely the US, where at-will employment is the norm. Companies can let you go immediately but you're "obligated" to provide an at-minimum 2 week notice.

OP is stating they don't have to give such notices, so we should change the narrative and treat them the same way we get treated.

I agree wholeheartedly with this.

> Maybe if you are 18 you can stop working on a Friday in country A, travel with a suitcase over the weekend and start working on Monday in country B, but as you get older, the number of people and stuff attached to you just grows...

Hum... If you are on the middle of your life, with all of the responsibilities of the world, this becomes more important, not less.

Get your suitcase and move there, then slowly detach your responsibilities from your previous city. Doing it beforehand just adds a lot of time when everything will break.

Yes, it's hard. The other way around is hard too, and way more risky.

That punishes your old employer, not the one who's in a position to pull the offer.

It's fine, as long as you never want to go back.

Every single job I have had since my first have been working with people I worked with before. If you burn all your bridges every time you change jobs, you are going to have a bad time.

I've been in this industry for 25 years, never once have I ever felt the need to go back to a previous job. Can we please stop parroting this notion that we have to bend the knee to companies who would drop us without questioning?

I am not saying going back to the same job, I am saying working with the same people at a new job. All of my former bosses have tried to recruit me to any new company they move to, and that is partly because I am always professional if I leave a company.

I have zero loyalty to a company, but I have loyalty to my coworkers.

Not giving a 2 week notice is not unprofessional. And if you don't get recruited/"a good recommendation" from them for it, chances are that bridge burning was worthwhile.

So giving zero notice is not unprofessional? I have a ton of important things I am doing at work, if I left without doing any work to transition that work to new people, it is going to put all the people at my company in a tough position. They could figure it out eventually, but it would be a lot of extra work for my coworkers that could be avoided if I spent two weeks working with the team to transition the work.

Sounds to me like the company didn't plan correctly or have adequate staffing in place for the workload.

If they did, an abrupt loss of an employee wouldn't put them "in a tough position"

I hope you don't die and put them in a tough position for not giving a 2 week notice beforehand.

I am not saying they wouldn’t survive without the two week notice, that isn’t the same as saying it wouldn’t be difficult. Same with my death. I am sure that would be hard on my team.

I don’t understand your position. Any time a coworker leaves, it is hard to deal with. That doesn’t mean people shouldn’t leave or that anything is being done wrong; if someone leaving causes ZERO difficulties, then why were they employed in the first place? It shouldn’t be devastating, but it should matter when someone leaves.

I am just saying as a professional who cares about my coworkers, I want to do right by them when I leave. Just like a good company has a severance package for layoffs, a good professional will have a transition period when they leave a company. If you despise the companies you work for so much that you won’t do the smallest thing to help them when you leave, I feel very bad for you. That sounds like miserable working conditions.

I get paid good money to be a professional, and I take that responsibility seriously. I don’t think my company owns me, but the fair trade for my salary is to act like a professional, which includes giving two weeks notice when you leave.

This attitude has done me very well in my 20 year career, and I have a huge network of former coworkers and bosses who know they can trust me if they hire me, and that has lead to very good jobs for good pay and the ability to choose exactly where I work.

> I don’t understand your position

My position is that in the US at least we're an at-will employment country. Companies very rarely give notice of termination, it's usually on the spot. While yes if you want to give notice, go right ahead, but lets stop shaming people for treating companies the same way they treat us.

Russia has enacted a law today that basically says that you can't leave the country from the moment they decide to draft/mobilize you. So good thing you already have your belongings sold. Time to jump on a plane to Tbilisi.

Most tech people in Russia are rich enough to bribe themselves out of that.

Treat yourself like your own mega Corp. Don’t give notice until you’ve already basically started at your new job (nowadays easier than ever), passed your background check. You don’t owe anyone anything, you have to look out for yourself, just like mega Corp is looking out for themselves. You can still be polite about it, but put yourself first always. Even if you sign and are employed at a Corp for one day and you find something better, never think twice about taking the better opportunity. Remember you are labor being exploited to provide the mega Corp with their multiples

That sucks. I moved first, then started looking for a job, because I was afraid of this exact scenario. I am not Russian but I imagine that for Russians it is likely very difficult to immigrate into a western country without a job offer in the current geopolitical situation. Good luck.

The current SI job market definitely made me reconsider my previous approach of finding greener pastures every 2-3 years. Being the newest person in a company during mass layoffs would be butt-clenching. A good reminder to all of us that we are not special and good times don't last.

>for Russians it is likely very difficult to immigrate into a western country without a job offer in the current geopolitical situation

It's difficult for _anyone_ to immigrate to a western country without a job offer.

Fair point.

To be precise, by difficult I meant 'practically impossible', which to your point would certainly apply to pretty much anyone from outside of what is considered 'western' countries. While there certainly always is a process, if you are already a citizen of any western country, immigrating to another one is relatively easy in comparison.

I ended up in London (moving from Melbourne Australia) after a similar (but not quite the same) situation with Facebook in 2008.

At the time, I worked for IBM's dedicated Linux division, and before then had worked for Red Hat. Facebook wanted an SRE, and I had 10 interviews between Melbourne and Palo Alto all about SRE topics - Linux, iptables, sockets, systemtap, VLANs, DNS, python, etc. They were tough questions which I loved, and I tried my best to answer, always getting to the next round. Interviews were often at unsociable hours but I didn't mind.

The final stage was to leave Australia, travel to London, and "meet the SRE team and start work". This was a cursory check to make sure I was a good fit, but they were already ordering a machine - did I want Mac or PC? - and a big monitor.

The "meet the team" interview with the other "SREs" consisted of"

- Why don't you have a CS degree (I have a business degree obtained in my teens)

- We mainly fix badly written PHP? Do you code PHP?

- Here's some maths, convert it to code (I didn't know what a particular symbol meant)

Literally nothing SRE related, and nothing like the Palo Alto folk (which were actually much harder interviews) were looking for.

I ended up in London in September 2008 with no job and no life in Australia to go home to. I ended up making it and I hope this person does too.

Sorry for your loss. Been there, kinda.

I got a job at IBM in the mid 90s. They sold the division to Loral before I started but I decided to stay in the position. Then congress cancelled the 2billion dollar contract.

I was laid off before I started.

They had the decency to send me two weeks pay in return for signing something that I wouldn’t sue them. So at least I got paid a little bit.

The emergent behavior from devs now is going to be overlapping employment between jobs to safeguard themselves from this kind of shenanigans. Your first day on the new job should be the day you put in your two weeks notice at your old job. Ramp down and ramp up accordingly. This advice only applies to USA though.

It seems in UK your role can be put redundancy but you are not technically fired. It is the position that needs to be decided and they need to compensate you accordingly to the law. They chose you because most of the factors are time dependent, so as you had not start it was cheaper to cancel the contract.

I think the worst part is that probably they knew about this 2 or 3 months ago but held the information because they "cannot" speak openly about layoffs because of inside trading rules and etc.

For me, they should have told you that months earlier and compensate for, at least, the financial loss you had.

And never send a notice to quit before having anything triple checked.you can condition your move to their speed in sending the contract and offer, out of any contracts, to start preparing for the change.

Sorry to hear this story and hope the author finds a new job soon.

I had a similar (but significantly lower stakes) experience with an internship which was canceled. At the end of the day, thanks to the generosity of the company's severance-for-zero-days-worked and the help of a stranger to find new roles for us, I think I came out ahead. The experience profoundly shaped my career and I wrote about it here: https://bobbiechen.com/blog/2021/11/5/the-layoff-the-landing , and I hope the situation works out for the author as well.

The last time I saw this happen regularly was in Spring 2002. Tech had a big wave of layoffs after 9/11, and a lot of college hires got their offers and then had them rescinded before starting. Some of them even got their sign on bonuses.

But the best story was the guy who got both his sign on bonus and full severance, and never showed up for a day of work.

Between the bonus and severance, he ended up with almost a full year's salary, all up front. He decided to fly to the southern hemisphere to extend the ski season through August.

Its kind of impressive that getting hired is now slower than college admissions or getting married.

Google has always been notoriously slow unless you have competing offers, and even then is usually the offer you're waiting on.

I did my entire Stripe interview process in the time it took to go from HC-approved to offer letter at Google, and I was a rehire, and the SVP in question knew me by name (he was my former skip). Stripe launched the product I was applying for before I'd finished my Noogler ramp-up.

Something similar almost happened to me. Took months to interview, matched with a team that was working on a very interesting product and passed the hiring committee. Apparently the whole product was axed before they sent me an offer, so no hire this time. Probably a good thing in this climate, as this was just at the time the hiring freezes began.

I wouldn't have relocated at least, but would have of course quit my current job and probably had a bad time in the present job market.

We’re had ~15 years of a booming global economy.

Many people haven’t experienced economic slowdowns.

While my heart goes out to this person, you have to look at this also from the companies perceptive - it’s way easier to “layoff” someone who hasn’t started their job yet vs. someone who’s been with the company for sometime.

I’m not saying that makes it ok what happened. It’s just that during a slowing economy, there’s no good way to prevent innocent people from getting impacted.

Google surely pays well, and it must be that working there is a pleasure beyond understanding of a mere mortal, because I really am not seeing how waiting for 10 months to just to get an offer is otherwise making any sense. Unless you're independently rich, you'd have to work in the meantime. So, if you're not currently employed, considering Google as your next option is impossible - you need to apply for another job, and hold it for about a year while knowing you may have to quit at any moment, maybe next week, maybe in a year. Which I don't think is fair to the "substitute" employer. So, basically, to apply to Google you have to have a steady secure job first. Is that how it's supposed to work?

My current employer takes ages to bring people on. More than one of my coworkers has a story like mine, where after already starting another job, we got the call that we'd been hired for current employer. In my case, I just took a day off to sign the new contract and then just never went back. Awful, but it is what it is.

You have a steady secure job and they give you an offer months from now that makes you want to leave.

Sounds like there should be a legally mandated escrow for this kind of hiring. The employer should guarantee 2/3 months of employment if they’re asking someone to move across the world. This really shouldn’t be an issue if companies actually fulfilled their duties.

It is interesting how much Google's reputation has been damaged by how they did layoffs despite being one of the best paying and highest ranked workplaces in the world. So much multi-year effort ruined in a few months.

Sorry this happened to you. I’d obviously not your fault. I want to give general advice for people changing jobs in the future.

Don’t quit your first job until you’ve physically started your second job. Take sick leave. Take vacations. Just don’t show up if you have no other option.

This is particularly the case if your immigration status is dependent on employment but it applies generally.

Companies will not hesitate to get rid of you or rescind an offer based on market whims if nothing at all. It’s of no consequence to them. They’ll be fine if you just don’t show up. It is an asymmetrical relationship with a severe power imbalance.

I don't know how you could practically do that since there's usually a notice period to leave the previous company, and the contract may exclude working for two employers at the same time

Just don't give notice until the day you start at the new company.

In places that aren't America, it's often a legal requirement (whether by statute or by customary contractual clauses) to give a minimum notice period, and employees who resign without notice can be penalised an amount of money that may be non-trivial for many workers.

FWIW, in the UK notice periods are not worth enforcing either, you have to prove (as the employer) that you incurred extra costs because of the short notice which is tricky and usually not worth it.

Seems like a good way to incinerate your professional relationship with your outgoing manager. I guess if you would never use them for a reference anyway, that's fine, but what if you do want to use them as a reference in the future?

Is this advice incompatible with the practice of giving notice?

Not that I'm arguing for or against it, I just want to visualize how this works.

Yes. And it doesn't help you if you get laid off after two weeks which is probably just as likely if the company is pulling back extended offers.

Working for Google was a big dream of me when I was just starting out in my career. If I were offered a position today, I would most likely decline it.

Right before the dotcom bust, Alcatel had the Go USA program, where European employees could apply for US jobs. I applied and was in the process of relocating as well, but ultimately joined a different US company.

The program was abruptly cancelled when the economy went south. There were stories about families who sold their house and everything, and discovered at the airport that their tickets has been cancelled.

This happened to me too. After I got an offer letter from Google, I was ghosted and notified that the position was deprioritized a week after I was supposed to have started.

I signed a lease in the intervening period expecting a 50% raise compared to my previous job. Bad move lol. Took forever to find a different job.

> I held a “garage sale” (in Russian) and sold most of my belongings.

Does this mean the Russian term is garage sale?

I’m amused that in the US we use that term too.

I think he means the link will go to a page in Russian. Though the Russian term is indeed гаражная распродажа, which indeed just translates word-for-word to "garage sale"

No, what I meant was that "garage sale" is actually a hyperlink that leads to a Russian website. Sorry for any confusion caused by my bad wording.

There is nothing surprising. Russians watch lots of American movies/TV shows. So many terms are being borrowed. This how the culture spreads. Even though very few Russians would actually hold a sale in a garage due to the difference in housing between Russia and the US

It is difficult to have confidence in companies. In recent job changes, I did something different: I started at a new company before quitting my previous job. In the old 8 hours, in the new 4 hours a day. Both companies know this. It is, for me, the only way to change jobs today.

This is the purpose of a signing + relocation bonus. And if the contract is well written it will be yours regardless if you start, and also if the company chooses to terminate you before 1yr. Unfortunately it's hard to negotiate with $BIGTECH .

How to slowly destroy a company's reputation one silly decision at a time.

Bad risk management. Should have relocated to a hotel first, made it through the first three months, then think about relocating permanently. Why sell stuff, there are storage facilities everywhere.

Rescinding offers due to layoffs is the biggest dick-move in corporate hiring. Laying off before first year vest without acceleration is the second biggest dick-move.

Seems to have received the HN kiss of death...

Archive: https://archive.ph/xdoVH

I don’t remember hearing about offers that were recalled during the dot com bust. Is this something new that is now the new normal?

Generally in the dot.com bust you woke up to discover that your contract wasn’t worth the paper it was notionally written on because your future employer had just gone bankrupt.

This wave of redundancies is a choice made by the managements of the FAANG (excepting Apple?) & related companies: Google in particular has spent more in share buybacks this year than it would take to employ the people management laid off for decades to come if I understand the numbers correctly.

You are now a tech-journalist revered "ex-googler", enjoy your newfound credibility!

Sue them for promissory estoppel.

Is there any legal basis for suing Google? This seems beyond egregious.

In what jurisdiction? The author doesn't live in Britain and Google doesn't appear to have offices in Russia according to their office page.

Google closed its office here in Moscow last year, but they have very recently (in the last weeks) started business in Russia again (at least YouTube in Russia has ads again, and for Russian companies). Who knows :)

Either way, unlikely to work in any case.

Good Wind Forward — as we say in Denmark.

I’m sure your skills are required elsewhere.

Don't quit until you've signed the new contract.

I hope you didn't get paid for -10 days of work too!

good to know google isn't evil but totally ok being the anti-schindler when google-hirable guys are getting drafted to ukraine

Don't be evil!

Weird title. Their offer was rescinded 10 days before the start date. They didn't work at Google at all.

The "business reasons" by Google are probably completely fake, but we have some pointers from OP who give us the real reason :

- OP is russian

- OP was working at Yandex (who had an history of "strange" relationships with the russian government)

- in December 2022 Vladimir Poutine take over the russian subsidiaries of Yandex (through Alexeï Koudrine) -> more "strange" relationships

- OP received an official offer in December 2022

- Russia invade Ukraine in february 2023

- OP was terminated by Google in the following days in march

I am not Google, but i also would have avoided to hire a russian, just after the start of the war. I bet than all russian potential hire had been terminated the same way during the same period.

Too much red flags to take the risk to hire a potential FSB agent.

This is way too conspiratorial thinking and it’s more than likely Google did exactly what they said instead. Are Americans who work at large corporations with government contracts also all likely CIA agents to you?

I have no way of knowing why Google rescinded this guys job offer. But they did, in fact, halt at least briefly some Russian hiring in April 2022 because of the war.

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-reinstates-job-offers...

That doesn't check out, your timeline is not quite correct. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, not 2023. That's before OP even started the application.

Yes your right... Seem like i was wrong. Sorry, I have made a brain fart here.

lets just say you got a few things a little wrong there

I worked at Google for 0 days.

There. Fixed that for you.

Not sure why you've been downvoted so much as it's the brutal truth. The author cannot put "worked at Google" on their CV.

I assume the downvotes are because the reply attempts to "correct" what the author wrote as satire (or another similar term if you don't feel "satire" is accurate here).

You got that wrong, I am trying to point out that this article really actually contains no content other than sporting a click-baity headline.

Nowhere did the author imply they would put that. The author is talking about the strange situation of being fired before they had started.

The person you're replying to is being downvoted because it adds zero value to the conversation here. Or perhaps, aptly... negative value.

Value lies in the eye of the beholder. If you think there is value in a factually incorrect, nonsensical, and obviously click-baity titles then sure, go on enjoying articles like that.

-10 < 0, ie. they couldn't put Google on their CV even if their tongue-in-cheek wording was reality.

Thanks, and sorry you got downvoted as well (for no good reason, obviously - that's just the way HN works sometimes).

Yes, it we're speaking so strictly, you're absolutely right. I was attempting to make light of the situation. Sorry if my attempt at humor was not well-received..

no worries, humor is fine. human here. the poster above is actually a robot replying to you to make sure you understand the absolute explicitness of the zero days of which you had worked there. most humans here understood this, but the robot misinterpreted. their training data did not include comedic literature

Surely by law you've not "worked" anywhere until one complete business day under contract?

This "minus 10 days" is another way of saying "My employer & I had a contract which they legally revoked before my first day of employment"

The blog entry reads like SEO spam to tell potential employers "Hey, I was smart enough to get offered a job at FAANG!" without _actually_ working there.

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