I'm going to start taking some time off in the beginning of the year but am curious what tech companies have a good work life balance in the peninsula? I understand there will be a hit on total comp but I have a young kid now and that has totally changed my perspective on how I spend my time.
Ask HN: What companies have a good work life balance?
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Re: Ask HN: What companies have a good work life balance?
#2I escaped a FAANG to a small company of about 22 people and that was awesome. I’ve been working for a state org that’s considerably larger for over a year with great results. Forget about working someplace that brings you glory or prestige. It makes life a lot better when your life matters more than your career.
Re: Ask HN: What companies have a good work life balance?
#3Work-life balance describes personal and situational priorities, a property of your needs and circumstances. It does not describe a property of a company.
Figure out what you need, specifically, to get to the work-life balance you want. With a child that may mean work from home, flexible schedule, good insurance, day care subsidies.
From my own experience as a parent working in the software field, I found that companies that employed many other parents in my age range helped. If no one else on your team has a family they may not sympathize with the demands on your time you face.
Re: Ask HN: What companies have a good work life balance?
#4South Bay, but Adobe from what I've heard.
Re: Ask HN: What companies have a good work life balance?
#5Definitely non-faang companies, that lean more towards being rational and steady. Faangs are a nightmare to work at in this decade.
Re: Ask HN: What companies have a good work life balance?
#6I think it depends. Because I used to think larger companies would have better work life balance but I have experienced and seen awesome and shitty at larger companies and so at startups.
Also, unless it's a decidedly shitty work life balance company like Amazon's (or few others which might be in general good), there usually no such things as "company's work life balance" but as I said above - team's.
I wish it was not this non-straightforward but it really depends on your team and especially on your lead/manager who actually set that tone and ensure that people work in or around that tone. A shitty manager fucks up the work life balance of the entire team which in some cases might have been awesome for years and often leads to exodus of people who preferred and more often those voids get filled by people who manager prefers and of course sings the same tune manager sings.
Also, some people say "work life balance" is personal. Fuck no. Just like there are generic health and medicine guidelines for populace in general (even though there are some exceptions) there are generic work life balance (which DIRECTLY leads and relates to mental and physical health and well being) - hours, timing, leaves, breaks, clear demarcation of "after office hours", availability expectations esp. after office hours and its frequency, stress, pressure, atmosphere etc etc - and how much agency an employee has in these or deciding on these!
So in short - my experience says manager is the decider of work-life balance in a team.
Re: Ask HN: What companies have a good work life balance?
#7It depends more on the team than the company
Working at Amazon on boring internal HR tech is very different than working on S3
Re: Ask HN: What companies have a good work life balance?
#8I escaped a FAANG to a small company of about 22 people and that was awesome. I’ve been working for a state org that’s considerably larger for over a year with great results. Forget about working someplace that brings you glory or prestige. It makes life a lot better when your life matters more than your career.
Love this. Can you clarify what a state org is? Do you mean like a tech department within your state government?
Re: Ask HN: What companies have a good work life balance?
#9Work-life balance describes personal and situational priorities, a property of your needs and circumstances. It does not describe a property of a company. Figure out what you need, specifically, to get to the work-life balance you want. With a child that may mean work from home, flexible schedule, good insurance, day care subsidies. From my own experience as a parent working in the software field, I found that compan…
That's a fair point. I have coworkers with kids but I've noticed the lead is a workaholic (with a child) and that reflects on the rest of the team.
Re: Ask HN: What companies have a good work life balance?
#10I think it depends. Because I used to think larger companies would have better work life balance but I have experienced and seen awesome and shitty at larger companies and so at startups. Also, unless it's a decidedly shitty work life balance company like Amazon's (or few others which might be in general good), there usually no such things as "company's work life balance" but as I said above - team's. I wish it was n…
I'm curious, if you're interviewing at a company, what's the best way to figure out of the lead/team has this balance? What kind of questions could you ask without sounding like you're trying to be lazy?