Facebook To Open Engineering Office In NYC | Hacker News Reader

Facebook To Open Engineering Office In NYC

techcrunch.com

64 pointsllambda26 comments

I think this is a long-term vote of confidence in the NYC tech ecosystem, but I also think they’re counting in the short term on the at least partial unraveling of the startup craze freeing up lots and lots of talent that is currently tied up in lackluster startups here.

Wha? That's ridiculous.

Mostly, Facebook just copies Google's playbook, usually because so many of their managers came from Google. And a part of Google's playbook is that not every good developer wants to live and work in Silicon Valley, so you simply can't hire enough good developers if you only have one location. By the time a company has hired as many people as Facebook, they've failed to hire hundred of others who, for one reason or another, don't want to leave New York. Maybe their wife is in medical school or their husband is a quant on Wall Street. Maybe they like the arts, or nightlife, or walkability. Whatever it is, Silicon Valley is not for everyone and at the rate that Facebook (and ebay, and Google, and Twitter, and Microsoft) need to hire programmers, they have to consider a few out-of-town campuses.

I welcome the hiring competition. With a new applied science school(s) right around the corner, it is a win for the overall area regardless of whether there will be short-term pressure on hiring good talent in the city.

right around the corner? It's going to be 15 years before that thing is generating graduates. But yes it will be a good thing!

doesn't really make sense, the NYC area is starving for talent + I dunno where they got it, but most techies in this area aren't that entrepreneurial.

chances are this will end up driving salaries up by 10-15%, and will end up hurting most of the startups here by making it infinitely harder to hire/retain talent

A smarter move for them would be to open an office in Boston, since then you'd be able to tap into all those grads from MIT

> most techies in this area aren't that entrepreneurial.

I'm not sure where you get that idea? I've had the exact opposite experience in NYC. I think the tech scene is very entrepreneurial... IMO, it's why you see lots of people gravitating towards places like GA.

General Assembly, or Georgia?

Ha, General Assembly :)

There might be a tipping point when the big tech companies decide jack up the offers high enough to be competitive with finance. Once that threshold is crossed, I'd imagine you will see a flood of smart people fleeing the financial sector to do something more rewarding with their lives.

The tech companies already do have offers high enough to be competitive with finance. On another note, I do not know why working at Facebook would be intrinsically more rewarding than working at Jane Street. Finally, the finance skill set is not quite the same as what is needed at Facebook. They would be more likely competing with startup companies and Google NYC.

Isn't Jane Street a little... unique? Most banks don't write blogs about OCaml, right?

I'm speaking from the anecdotal evidence that most engineers I know in finance are pretty miserable sans the fact they make barrels of money.

Probably you never talked to real finance technology guys.

Or true Scotsmen.

> On another note, I do not know why working at Facebook would be intrinsically more rewarding than working at Jane Street.

Because the former actually makes a useful product?

> Finally, the finance skill set is not quite the same as what is needed at Facebook.

At least at the entry level, the hiring is for credentials not so much skill set. There is a decent number of math/cs majors who end up in finance (not even necessarily something like computational finance, just state up IB or trading) instead of engineering.

>>the NYC area is starving for talent

What area isn't?

>>most techies in this area aren't that entrepreneurial

There are enough - several of Facebook's most prominent product launches in the last year (new Groups, Timeline) have been led by PMs acq-hired from the NY-based startups they founded (drop.io, Hot Potato, Daytum).

More importantly, Facebook's not a startup anymore: joining hardly requires an "entrepreneurial" appetite for risk on the hire's part.

>>chances are this will end up driving salaries up by 10-15%

Facebook can afford to pay a premium for talent, and they've demonstrated a willingness to do so (see above). This is a problem for other companies, not Facebook - which makes it a good, strategic move on Facebook's part.

>a smarter move would be to open an office in Boston

Despite starting at Harvard, Facebook has much stronger ties to NYC - including an existing 100-person marketing office.

>most techies in this area aren't that entrepreneurial.

Is an entrepreneur really going to want to work at facebook? They're a huge established player. Is facebook even looking for that sort of employee?

my thoughts exactly. most entrepreneurs are less likely to be comfortable in a larger organization like facebook.

i do agree that an office in Boston would make more sense for them.

Facebook is an advertising company. Many of their customers will be in NYC. It makes sense for them to open an office there.

Facebook actually already has an advertising office in NYC right near Grand Central. The news is that they're expanding to include an engineering office in NYC.

Having engineers in the same timezone as customers makes sense.

I would like to apply... but I can't.

You need to be a Facebook user to apply. I find it discriminatory: you discriminate against privacy concious people. I'll never get a Facebook account the way Facebook is right now. And I would like to fix this, but I can't; you won't let me.

You can apply using a fake account. They don't actually care whether you break TOS. Alternately, just find an employee and send him or her your resume.

You're able to apply via email if you don't wish to be logged in to the site. Each job has a unique email address such as careers+a2KA0000000LhWnMAK@facebook.com which is for tools engineering in New York.

If you aren't willing to use the product, you shouldn't be applying there in the first place. Seriously, throwing terms like "discrimination" around for this is just... sad.

Why? A company can expand its user base by reaching out to non-users who can help fix mistakes.

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