You can apply directly to the fuschia team, in my understanding. They put an email at the end of talks usually with where to apply.

I know people who have gone through the their hiring process, and they were sufficiently unsure if they would ever get on the team they applied for.

There's also the story of the Google+ UI lead who though he'd be working on another Google product, then got reassigned before he was even hired into G+ and hated his entire 9mo having never even met with Vic the VP driving G+.

Does that still happen?

I have no idea, I’ve never worked for or even applied at google.

Can you give an example? My Google Fu is failing me at the moment.

Fuschia/Rust is about the only thing I'd do at Google.

The one I’ve seen is [email protected]