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

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

#111

Post by edrxty »

davidw wrote: post #104
edrxty wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startups obviously. Less obviously look for "SBIR" shops if you're ok with a little bit of weird gov contracting overhead.

Startups don't stay small though. They're aiming to get really big or have some kind of big exit in a hurry. Some of them are a lot of fun, some stay good even as they grow, others turn into depressing places to work.

Honestly the biggest issue with this strategy is US capitalism isn't kind to companies that just stay small. You're not going to find a lot of places that want to remain tiny, just a lot that, as mentioned above, remain so through micromanagement.

Maybe you get lucky and find a labor-of-love kinda place where someone is just trying to be really good at making one type of thing (highly niche products) but a better bet is to just find a comfy place, stay there a few years and help them get bigger, then leave and repeat.

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

#112

Post by dang »

ranger_danger wrote: post #52
openthc wrote: post #29

I've heard OpenTHC is pretty cool ;)

obvious shill is obvious

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? We're trying for something a bit different here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#113

Post by Hermitian909 »

This is highly dependent on who you are as a person, but I'd honestly say most of the big tech firms excepting a few which you can suss out based on reputation.

IMO people overestimate how much you can know about whether a team will be good over the span of 2+ years. I've had several friends land at a small company with what seemed like a great team and then the great manager was replaced by a bad one, the job started sucking, and everyone had to jump ship and go on a new job search. If it happens soon enough after you join you may not be able to leave for over a year for appearance's sake.

At big companies, you can still get bad teams but many places, such as Stripe, make it super easy to switch teams for a better fit.

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

#114

Post by davidw »

edrxty wrote: post #111
davidw wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startups don't stay small though. They're aiming to get really big or have some kind of big exit in a hurry. Some of them are a lot of fun, some stay good even as they grow, others turn into depressing places to work.

Honestly the biggest issue with this strategy is US capitalism isn't kind to companies that just stay small. You're not going to find a lot of places that want to remain tiny, just a lot that, as mentioned above, remain so through micromanagement. Maybe you get lucky and find a labor-of-love kinda place where someone is just trying to be really good at making one type of thing (highly niche products) but a better bet…

I suspect that a lot of these companies just don't make a lot of noise, but quietly do their thing without being pasted all over the HN front page.

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

#115

Post by yuppiepuppie »

Primer.io has been quite nice so far. I’m writing this from one of our twice yearly workcations in Tenerife. Our fully remote has gotten together in an Airbnb, basically all expenses paid for to chill work and have fun together.

The product is very interesting and innovative. The teams are well organized and quite self sufficient. And there are huge challenges to overcome in every aspect of the company. Anywhere you look there is something you can do to make it better.

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

#116

Post by iWillOffshoreU »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #103
xtracto wrote: post #45

> There's an offshore team in Traansylvania busy making it a legacy codebase As someone working for a US company in Mexico, I take offense at that :(.

As a non native English speaker, why is that offensive?

So the OP said that there was "a team in Traansylvania making it a legacy codebase". The literal meaning is that there is a team of developers in a foreign country being paid less to do the same job. The other guy said it was offensive because he's implying something similar. He's also working in a foreign country for a US business. More of a joke about being offended. At least that's how I'm reading it.

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

#117

Post by cprayingmantis »

Come work with me at nCino! We’re a Banking SaaS company based on Salesforce and AWS . Wait don’t stop reading yet! We’re working on a ton of neat products for banks and everyone I’ve ever worked with here is top notch! I can’t think of one person I have worked with that I wouldn’t want to work with again. nCino treats it’s employees very well from your first day here you’re part of the team, generous pay, benefits, and they’re always flexible. In short if you want to work with great people at the top of their game who will help you get to the top of your game, in a great environment email me!

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

#119

Post by jurassic »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #27

VMware has a lot of different teams working on very different and interesting problems. It's not listed with the FAANG companies, but it pays well and you won't feel like you're making the world worse off than it is. You'll probably see some complaints about some teams in VMware, but it's been mostly a great place to work.

VMware seems like a place where people work either less than 2 years or 10+ years. If you can identify a niche for yourself it can be quite comfortable.

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

#120

Post by sokoloff »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #113

This is highly dependent on who you are as a person, but I'd honestly say most of the big tech firms excepting a few which you can suss out based on reputation. IMO people overestimate how much you can know about whether a team will be good over the span of 2+ years. I've had several friends land at a small company with what seemed like a great team and then the great manager was replaced by a bad one, the job starte…

I think employees wildly overestimate the negative resume impact of leaving any individual role "too soon". Your life is short and your career is shorter. Don't stay at a place that sucks.

If you show up with one short stint, I might ask about it, but I'll totally understand a "it wasn't what I was expecting answer". If you have two of those with at least one 2-3 year stint (ideally including a promotion), that's also fine.

The danger only comes when you have 5+ stints of 6-15 months in a row. That reads like you might have a performance/potential problem.

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