[demeyer1]

In an aggressive hiring market for engineers, this is a decision Google is making which will increase potential churn risk for some engineers. As a Xoogler myself, I know how much they invest into thinking about talent acquisition and retention and would venture to say they are aware of this. I suspect none of this is as "hot take" to them.

At the same time, Google's stock is up massively over the last two years. Google has been relatively aggressive with RSU allocations. That appreciation in RSU value will act as an offset for a subset of those who would churn. This must also factor into their current policy decisions. The team's at Google try very hard to optimize for retaining their best people, but they are dealing with very large numbers of individuals during an unusual time. Further, they have traditionally been leading the charge for geographic proximity and density for product teams. Lots of change for them to manage through right now.

That said, as a CTO at a startup (which counts Google Ventures as an investor) I have hired many engineers from Google over the past 18mo. Approximately half our engineers are ex Google, Amazon, Microsoft. Beyond our product and ENG culture, our policy is fully distributed work (within the US - compliance reasons) and that is the one benefit ex FAANG engineers seem to value the most, currently (small N, selection biases acknowledged). Over all roles, I would estimate more than half the company consists of ex FAANG employees. Many were tired of being locked into a geography which did not make them happy.

So I view this as a change in the market dynamics which is allowing startups like mine to help make these engineers happier. We have engineers that have joined, and immediately moved to Hawaii, or purchased a rural farm in the Midwest - and we are 100% supportive of them having a work/life that makes them happiest. Also, we've removed policies of paying differently based on the traditional tier 1, 2, and 3 geographies.

This is a market advantage that favors engineers, and as such - I'm very supportive :)

[chris11]

> Many were tired of being locked into a geography which did not make them happy.

Do you compete with Bay area FAANG salaries? It seems that part of the reason companies pay so much in Silicon Valley is because the cost of local labor is so high.

[demeyer1]

We do. It works for us because we are aggressive on salary (for a startup at our stage) and very aggressive with benefits and flexibility.

[madarco]

Could you elaborate on the compliance reasons for not hiring outside of US?

[demeyer1]

Indeed, as the other individual commented - there are compliance obligations which are more difficult/costly/time_consuming (not impossible) to satisfy if we have non US citizens working on the product. We are going to hire outside the US, but at our current stage there is a cost we can't easily absorb - right now.

[bravetraveler]

Not the other user, but...

I'm not sure if FISMA/FedRAMP necessarily require it, but it certainly makes things 'easier' (as much as they can be).

Generally, the point is... federal stuff is the most likely candidate in my opinion.

[Jensson]

> Could you elaborate on the compliance reasons for not hiring outside of US?

Every country has their own laws and regulations around employment that you have to comply with, so even if it would be fine from the US side it would still cause a lot of legal work from the other side. Small companies might get away with hiring them as contractors, but large companies would get targeted if they did that too much since not every country is as lenient with these things as USA is.