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Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?

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Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?

#1

Post by edhowzerblack »

I've moved around quite a bit these past several years and I feel like every company has been the same. Management don't know what they want the product to be. Project managers don't know anything about technology. There's an offshore team in Traansylvania busy making it a legacy codebase. They don't want to give developers raises...

I see "Who's Hiring?" threads and "Who Wants To Be Hired?" threads. How about a "Who Doesn't Suck To Work For?" thread?

Not sure if this will take off or get deleted ...but if it does take off, it would be great if developers --not recruiters-- replied to this. Tell us why your company is a good place to work so we can apply there :-)

Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?

#2

Post by zekenie »

Honestly, I don't think it's possible to create a list like that. Certainly some companies are holistically better than others, but so so so much of it depends on an individual's manager, team, likes, dislikes and other externalities. Companies have better and worse moments, better and worse leadership, but if a company is a great fit for you today, it could be a bad fit in a couple of years.

I think a better place to focus than looking for non-shitty companies would be focusing on finding coworkers who are good at navigating the shit in a way you respect. When the going gets rough, who are the people you want to be around? What are the behaviors you want them to show you? How can you determine that in an interview?

Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?

#3

Post by chrisa »

The tricky thing about this question is that a great company for one person could be a terrible company for another, and vice versa.

Based on your description, it sounds like you're looking for a smaller company where the CEO is technical, and understands what the developers are doing.

This is probably an under talked-about part of the interview process: that you should be interviewing the company as much as the company is interviewing you.

No easy answers here I think...

Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?

#4

Post by penjelly »

This requires information about you that others dont have. What is "sucky" to you apart from your very short list? Some people thrive on hard work, others love the lax lifestyle of a cushy job. Best advice? Ask your former coworkers, you shared mutual experiences and likely have opinions to bounce off eachother. If you find they shared similar values, find out where they are now and how that experience is going. This also allows for conversations at length as opposed to a comment which may or may not be nuanced enough to be helpful.

Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?

#5

Post by klyrs »

If I knew, I'd work there already...

Slightly more serious, it's often more about your team than the company overall. If your manager is terrible, life is hell. If your manager's manager is terrible, it's going to be pretty uncomfortable. If the executives are terrible, you might do okay, but keep your resume up to date and shop around just in case they wreck it.

Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?

#6

Post by version_five »

One challenge is that even in sucky workplaces, there always seem to be champions that will tell you how great it is. In part because it's a hard life focusing on how your job sucks and many people get good at being outwardly optimistic.

That said, it would be nice to see more authenticity than what mostly gets posted in the hiring thread, and on company websites. I'm sure we each have our own criteria of what kind of info we'd like to see, but I rarely see anything more than the usual bromides.

Honestly, I've found glassdoor to be pretty good if you've had a few jobs before. It's pretty easy to find which reviews to discard, and read between the lines for red flags even in places that are relatively highly rated.

Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?

#7

Post by kradeelav »

chrisa wrote: post #3

The tricky thing about this question is that a great company for one person could be a terrible company for another, and vice versa. Based on your description, it sounds like you're looking for a smaller company where the CEO is technical, and understands what the developers are doing. This is probably an under talked-about part of the interview process: that you should be interviewing the company as much as the comp…

This is the right answer. The size of the company also often has a lot to do with different mindsets and what fits for some people. Some people like the relative stability of a large corporation (you're more of a "number" but you are more likely to be able take a paycheck and clock out mindlessly), the pace and learning curve of an agency/startup (higher risk/reward threshold, wildly wonky work-life balance), or even consulting as a different career path for more independent types.

Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?

#8

Post by davidw »

What I'd love to know is how to find the smaller more "hacker" oriented shops. I've worked at a few over the years... the kinds of places where everyone in engineering uses Linux desktops because that's the best choice for the work at hand and everyone's comfortable with it. Where the product is good, makes money, but is maybe kind of niche so the company isn't adding 10 people a week.

Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?

#10

Post by hospadar »

I work for ITHAKA (parent of jstor.org) and I think they are decidedly non-suckey: https://www.ithaka.org/

- Great benefits

- Very transparent leadership

- Nonprofit (501c3) - long-term sustainability of the org & product are major goals which (IMO) makes for much better project/team/personal incentives

- Remote work for any position, but also offices in Ann Arbor, NYC, and Princeton

- Education-oriented mission

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