[nostrademons]

Worked for Google for 5 years. Red badges were largely confined to QA testers, physical security, and the kitchen, along with a few UI designers or engineers that didn't want to be employees because they liked the freedom that being a contractor allowed (eg. being able to work for someone else on the side). Basically everyone I interacted with on a daily basis was a FTE. Product area could have something to do with it: I was on a core product (Search), it's possible red badges are more common in peripheral products.

[txcwpalpha]

Your comment downplays the number of contractors at Google as if they are rare, but in reality, Google employs ~100k FTEs and ~120k contractors. It's definitely more than just QA testers and kitchen staff.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/technology/google-temp-wo...

You may really have just been on a team that doesn't interact often with contractors, but the reality for the broader company is that contracting is a way of life for much more than just Uber.

[nostrademons]

My understanding is that a lot of those are jobs like street view driver, autonomous vehicle tester, search quality rater, contract recruiter, content moderator, con-ops (help forums & customer support), etc. That's a big portion of the company but not a big portion of core engineering teams. I'd acknowledged the existence of them in my original comment, but this article is specifically about layoffs of software engineers within Uber's core products. I maintain that someone in that position is far more likely to come in contact with other FTEs than with contractors.

[saagarjha]

I'm not sure about Google, but I know that many companies segregate contractors into other buildings. At one of my previous employers pretty much everyone I interacted with was a full time employee as well, but that was only because contractors largely did not have badge access to the office and worked somewhere else.