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Makes sense if they can't onboard the talent, and can't manage a 100% distributed workforce.

Nevertheless, seems like a great time to acquire talent on the cheap, so long as you can effectively use it.

Actually it doesn't. Everyone is working from home. We have little idea when this may end and if there would be next waves. Fully functioning without need to be in-person is absolutely essential for every tech company. If your stack is so undocumented that someone must sit down with you and give every single new hire 1:1 hand holding in repetitive manner, something is very broken.

Anecdotally, I've been told they require you to come onsite to get onboarded and receive Google hardware and their offices are locked up. Some recent hires are not able to work and now being paid to do nothing.

They are mailing out the required hardware and doing remote onboarding for the time being. But hardware shipments are getting delayed leading to some new hires being paid to do nothing for a week or two.

I've heard on-boarding is totally remote now - they mail you a badge and a laptop and the laptop has the requisite forms and software pre-loaded.

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