The Scoop #34: A Return to the Office (RTO) wave?
Dozens of tech companies have staff return to the office. Also: Uncertainty and anxiety at Amazon and Google; budget cuts at Spotify.
The Scoop is a bonus series covering insights, patterns, and trends I observe and hear about within Big Tech and at high growth startups. Have a scoop to share? Send me a message! I treat all such messages as anonymous.
The Scoop sometimes delivers firsthand, original reportage. I’m adding an ‘Exclusive’ label to news that features original reporting direct from my sources, as distinct from analysis, opinion, and reaction to events. Of course, I also analyze what’s happening in the tech industry, citing other media sources and quoting them as I dive into trends I observe. These sections do not carry the ‘Exclusive’ mark.
Last week, we covered the 2022 hiring market with insights from tech recruiters, and I promised insights from hiring managers would follow, this week. However, there’s lots of timely scoops which I’m sharing in this issue, so insights from hiring managers will come later.
Today's topics are:
A Return to the Office wave? Dozens of tech companies are starting to have their staff return to the office. I talked with software engineers and managers at these companies. Are we seeing the start of a trend? Exclusive.
Amazon’s layoffs, a hiring freeze, and rescinded offers. Uncertainty and anxiety inside the tech giant, where rolling layoffs are ongoing and offers are being rescinded. I talked with engineering managers to gather their viewpoints and opinions. Also, some good news about oncall changes inside an Amazon org. Exclusive.
Uncertainty at Google. Support Check-Ins are the talk of staff at the company, as people who received one try to work out how bad their situation is. I talked with engineering managers at Google to get a sense of what’s happening, and why no one’s talking about the elephant in the room: potential layoffs. Exclusive.
Budget cuts at Spotify. While the music streaming giant has not done layoffs, it is curbing costs. I talked with a software engineer to discover how staff are taking the changes. Exclusive.
More than 1,300 companies hiring. An updated list of who’s hiring software engineers and engineering managers.