Google, Facebook Battle For Computer Science Grads. Salaries Soar.
Google and Facebook are fighting hard to hire this years crop of computer science graduates, we've heard, and ground zero is Stanford. Most of the class of 2008 already have job offers even though graduation is months away.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second act of an escalating fight: two months ago TechCrunch reported Facebook pulling Googlers out at an alarming rate, and now the contest has moved downstream to the graduating class itself. With most of Stanford's class of 2008 computer science majors already holding offers months before graduation, the hiring battle has become a bidding war on starting pay.
First-order effects
- Stanford's class of 2008 gets leverage no graduating class had before: offers locked in by January and rising starting salaries as Google and Facebook bid against each other for the same small pool.
Second-order effects
- Facebook's raiding of Google's existing engineers, reported last November, now extends to the entry pipeline — forcing Google to spend more both to sign new grads and to keep the staff it already has.
Third-order effects
- If two deep-pocketed buyers set the clearing price for entry-level engineering talent, startups without comparable balance sheets are structurally priced out of campus recruiting, concentrating new hires at the largest companies.
The trend: Silicon Valley's competition for scarce engineering talent is moving earlier into the pipeline — from mid-career raids to graduating seniors — with compensation inflation following wherever two dominant buyers meet.