diff --git a/third_party/abseil_cpp/default.nix b/third_party/abseil_cpp/default.nix
index ec2e996d6..849bbbc9d 100644
--- a/third_party/abseil_cpp/default.nix
+++ b/third_party/abseil_cpp/default.nix
@@ -7,6 +7,10 @@ in llvmPackages.libcxxStdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   src = ./.;
   nativeBuildInputs = [ cmake ];
 
+  cmakeFlags = [
+    "-DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=17"
+  ];
+
   meta = with lib; {
     description = "An open-source collection of C++ code designed to augment the C++ standard library";
     homepage = https://abseil.io/;
diff --git a/third_party/nix/CMakeLists.txt b/third_party/nix/CMakeLists.txt
index fad650a7c..35fc003dd 100644
--- a/third_party/nix/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/third_party/nix/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -20,24 +20,7 @@ find_package(CURL)
 find_package(SQLite3)
 find_package(Threads)
 find_package(LibLZMA)
-
-# Abseil really doesn't like being precompiled. It is included here as
-# an imported CMake project (i.e. it will be built /with/ this
-# project).
-#
-# In development mode, the 'abseil_cpp' folder is symlinked to
-# ../abseil_cpp (the relative location in the depot). In derivation
-# builds this symlink is automatically replaced with an appropriate
-# link to the Abseil sources in the Nix store.
-add_subdirectory(abseil_cpp)
-install(DIRECTORY abseil_cpp/absl
-  DESTINATION ${CMAKE_INSTALL_INCLUDEDIR}
-  FILES_MATCHING
-    PATTERN "*.inc"
-    PATTERN "*.h"
-    PATTERN "copts" EXCLUDE
-    PATTERN "testdata" EXCLUDE
-  )
+find_package(absl REQUIRED)
 
 # Linking precompiled glog binaries (linked against libstdc++) leads
 # to working binaries that do not output log messages. It seems that
diff --git a/third_party/nix/abseil_cpp b/third_party/nix/abseil_cpp
deleted file mode 120000
index cd6434fc0..000000000
--- a/third_party/nix/abseil_cpp
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-../abseil_cpp/
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/third_party/nix/default.nix b/third_party/nix/default.nix
index e6fa3f1f7..6ec477c63 100644
--- a/third_party/nix/default.nix
+++ b/third_party/nix/default.nix
@@ -19,7 +19,6 @@ in pkgs.llvmPackages.libcxxStdenv.mkDerivation {
 
   # Abseil's sources need to be symlinked into Nix' sources.
   postUnpack = ''
-    ln -fs ${pkgs.abseil_cpp.drvAttrs.src} nix/abseil_cpp
     ln -fs ${pkgs.glog.drvAttrs.src} nix/glog
   '';
 
@@ -35,6 +34,7 @@ in pkgs.llvmPackages.libcxxStdenv.mkDerivation {
 
  # TODO(tazjin): Some of these might only be required for native inputs
   buildInputs = with pkgs; [
+    abseil_cpp
     aws-s3-cpp
     brotli
     bzip2