It's just a group of people who've all been already vetted by a respected software company and who are all in a tough situation simultaneously due to no fault of their own. As long as their involvement is voluntary I don't see anything to be concerned about here.

The reason I usually hear: Good engineers almost always have jobs and usually aren't looking to change. When large layoff events happen good and bad engineers lose their jobs. This gives other companies an opportunity to recruit better talent with less effort than usual and, if they're really lucky, recruit entire teams that have worked together before.

One concern with that would be that good engineers would usually see this on the horizon and leave for better / more prospective jobs in advance. So those who stayed until mass layoffs might not be the top talent that used to work at the company before when it was doing better.

I am not sure it applies in this case as this was quite sudden and we don't have enough visibility to see how many red flags were there few months / a year ago. In this case it seems to have been so sudden that lots of great people have been caught off guard.

There are actual a host of real life circumstances such as family, babies, health etc. that might prevent or make it difficult for someone to conduct a preemptive job search or job change.

Yes I think this is actually a big factor I had not thought about.

People with families, children, mortgages etc might be more prone to staying and hoping for the ship to be righted rather than preemptively moving.

Both hypotheses sound reasonable to me, I'd like to see some data on this type of thing.

Unfortunate that your perception is that this is a desperation play. I think the intent is the exact opposite of that.

The startup souffle might be deflating for sure, but I think the intent here is to say:

"We just had to layoff 40% of our staff yesterday. Through no fault of their own, our folks are now jobless. Can the community help?"

I love the fact that people are prepared to be so open about this. Wish it would happen more. I don't know anything in detail about these people and their work, and so won't name names, but there are certainly people there that I recognise as quite impressive and I don't read this as desperation, just a neat response to an unexpected situation.

(edit: well, I wouldn't name names even if I did know more about their work. That would be uncouth)

Well, since companies are always complaining about the chronic "shortage of tech talent" I'm sure everyone here will be employed within a few days, amiright?

EDIT: Honest, non-snarky question, then: If you believe there really is this shortage of tech talent, why is this effort needed? I don’t believe there is such a shortage and I wish these guys best of luck.

The shortage is not evenly distributed.

There absolutely is no shortage. The distribution issue is taken out of the picture by looking at large firms like Google and Apple that can hire broadly. Google prides themselves on their interview system that has a high false negative rate. If there were any kind of shortage, they would probably be desperate to improve their hiring efficiencies. They are most definitely not concerned with that. On the other hand it is always in the buyers best interest to bitch about a "shortage" especially when they have regulatory influence. Why wouldn't they want to lobby for anything that can bring supply prices down? The day you see blog posts about Google or Facebook streamlining their interview processes (for both type I and II errors), I'll concede.

That, and there isn’t a shortage. There is a shortage of engineers willing to work for the wage being offered. When there is a shortage of a particular type of engineer, it’s because the company wants to pay $75,000 for a position that the market demands be $95,000. Thus the “shortage” and the “need” to bring in low cost H1 workers to fill that shortage.

Seems like if an engineer can easily hold out for 95k, it's because there is indeed a shortage that is big enough to do so. If there was a surplus of engineers instead, then more would be willing to work for lower pay, no?

Tangentially related but I believe Soundcloud actually paid above the average Berlin start up salary. Maybe someone else can confirm this?

Seems like a win-win to me - companies get a list of somewhat-vetted potential employees, and if looking for a team can potentially hire a team already used to working with each other; the people get their details seen by a wider pool of employers and may find a new role quicker/with less effect on their part.

I don't think it in anyway implies they couldn't find a job using the more traditional routes; this is just an alternative avenue to try.

>"Putting up this data together is very disturbing and to be honest somewhat desperate in my eyes. Cannot these guys find jobs themselves, they must be sold in a bundle, or what is the idea behind?"

I think this a rather insensitive view. How is this fundamentally different than changing a your LinkedIn status or putting your resume up on a job board? If anything it might just be more efficient.

I understand the reasons given so far, still feel there is a little bit of "name company" privilege involved.

why find the jobs when you can let the jobs come to you?