Do you have any references for this?

It definitely seems plausible and matches my (very limited) experience with a few friends that have joined Google, but I was wondering if you have any links.

I guess you would have to accept joining with a lower salary, and then try to switch to another FANG company to get a fair salary?

Well, there's me. I passed their interview gauntlet, but their initial offer was well under what I currently make, and their second barely matched it. They also badly down-leveled me (which is partially my fault for not insisting on an L5 interview loop).

From my direct experience, and talking to other people who have negotiated with Google, the only ways to get a good offer out of them is to either come from a FAANG or get a competing offer from one.

in SV, got an L5 offer couple years back, barely matching my relatively low for SV total with the base lower. They pretty much refused to negotiate. The same experience as couple acquaintances - one even took such an offer and not surprisingly ran away a year later. On the other hand - some other acquaintances make $400K-$500K as L5/L6 there.

> one even took such an offer and not surprisingly ran away a year later

I thought about that, but I'd rather not put myself through the job change gauntlet so often, and the role was such a step down in responsibility that I would be better off with a year in my current role.

Is this backed up by data?

And forget even applying if you've ever had a negative relationship with a coworker who now works for Google…you'll get greylisted and ghosted midway during the interview process.

Ouch, does this really happen?? I feel like Google's hiring process makes it very difficult for someone with a personal animus to train-wreck the whole hiring process.

A manager who fired me from a previous job before he was at Google (well, he now disputes that I was fired, just that my role was eliminated) bragged to a now–fellow Googler that he had blocked me from getting a role at Google NYC twice now, not knowing the Googler's prior friendship with me.

I don't know what the precise internal process is but have been told by multiple former coworkers, now at Google, that any time I've applied for a role and gotten they've been asked to comment on their experience with me at whatever previous roles we overlapped in.

I eventually asked Google recruiting to put me on a do not contact list after going through the process multiple times.