>I've only been there 13 months but I've found the quality of previous and new hires are ridiculously high.
Seek out the people that were there 6+ years ago and compare their quality with the average Googler. You'll likely notice a difference.
Google now has over 50,000 employees. It's not possible to get that big that quickly without a reduction in hiring rigor. There wasn't a sudden influx of geniuses to fill that demand.
They're pretty much the same raw talent, just with 6+ extra years of navigating the Goog and collecting all the arcana that makes you an effective engineer there. Of all of the complaints I have heard from older and newer Googlers, not a single one (in person or on Memegen) has ever complained about a drop in engineer quality. If anything it is a continuing frustration over how high the hiring bar continues to be and how we can't get referral bonuses for any of our friends.
Seek out the people that were there 6+ years ago and compare their quality with the average Googler. You'll likely notice a difference.
Google now has over 50,000 employees. It's not possible to get that big that quickly without a reduction in hiring rigor. There wasn't a sudden influx of geniuses to fill that demand.