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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?

#171

Post by dsr_ »

AYBABTME wrote: post #165
dsr_ wrote: post #24

I work for a small financial SaaS in Boston. 30-50 people. Nobody offshore. I've worked here for 18 years and 11 months and a couple of days. Yes, we're hiring. The best thing about the company are the people who are already here. The basic hiring criteria are "clever, competent and kind". That doesn't mean we never have disagreements, but they tend to be technical disagreements about the best approach to reach the s…

What does "Nobody offshore" means here?

We don't outsource our employees. All development, IT, etc is in-house.

That's in contrast to "offshore development", where the US team is augmented by contracted development companies in some other part of the world.

We have sponsored H1B visas, on occasion. Employees are required to have the legal right to work in the US, and are expected to make their legal residence in the US.

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

#172

Post by pinewurst »

edrxty wrote: post #98
davidw wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you find those? I've worked in places like this and loved it. Probably didn't earn as much as elsewhere, but it feels pretty good to show up to work motivated to work on something interesting.

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

SBIR shops often pay abysmally (with bad benefits) even if the work is interesting.

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

#173

Post by mydeskistoosm »

distrill wrote: post #58

I've been at Facebook for about a year and a half. Before this I was at startups in the marketing and financial industries. We've been under scrutiny for the whole time that I've been there, and the company is pretty unpopular from a vocal population on here, but it's been really nice to work for. We obviously have job security, and I've been very impressed with the management chain above me. At least on my team, the…

> management... all come from eng for a few levels until you start hitting VP roles.

And then where do they come from? Ivy league MBAs or IB?

No shade at those guys, just curious. I'm early-career and I've got interests in finance and programming. It seems like I see fewer engineers running the show, as if committing to programming as a career tops-out at a certain point because you're missing certain experience. Though, I don't know enough to know what that special sauce is.

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

#174

Post by deathanatos »

jedberg wrote: post #56
xtracto wrote: post #44

> Project managers don't know anything about technology In my 10+ years of experience, that's the rule rather than an exception. It is very rare to find a Project/Product manager who actually has decent technical knowledge. I think I've found one or two in my whole career (one is now product VP, the other moved to Switzerland).

Maybe I've been really lucky, but every product manager I've worked with or know personally is deeply technical. I can't imagine being successful in the job without that skill.

> I can't imagine [a PM] being successful in the job without that skill.

Neither can I! But I have to agree with the parent: the overwhelming majority of PMs (for any P) that I've had to work with are technically illiterate, at the level of software engineering. I spend so much time explaining the most basic things, often over and over and over. How the system functions, and models the world around it (and thus, what is possible and what is not, at least, not without major changes) just does not ever seem to stick.

My uncharitable take (and sorry, since it sounds like I'm about to criticize your profession; hopefully, this comment doesn't apply to you) is glorified JIRA ticket pushers and deadline trackers. That said, I did work with one once who seemed to actually pay attention (and thus, learn) and was a good person too, so thus far she's been my favorite PM. But when I ask myself what would be useful to me, as a dev? … oh boy does it not look anything like the real world.

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

#176

Post by ashtonkem »

bovermyer wrote: post #76
ubermonkey wrote: post #62

I've never worked for a big famous tech firm, but I will absolutely tell you how I've managed to avoid hating work for 30 years: Find a relatively small firm, still owner-run and controlled. Avoid public firms. A corporation cannot show loyalty, but a HUMAN can. A manager has no real control -- their manager can reverse them. When you work for the owner, you can trust things a bit more IF you're working for a trustwo…

This is good advice, with the caveat that the owner needs to not be a dick. I've worked in environments like this both with amazing owners and with truly horrifying owners.

“Small business tyrant” is a term of art for a reason.

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

#177

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#179

Post by openfuture »

jhatemyjob wrote: post #159
advice_thrwawy9 wrote: post #97

I want to preface this by saying I would strongly heed the advice of version_five. All of the most toxic work places I've been at had cheerleaders that would tell you it was amazing. I have struggled with this issue for years and my approach was to build some heuristics based on where I've been happiest. I fundamentally believe the job landscape now for developers is just systemically worse than it was a decade ago,…

> All of the most toxic work places I've been at had cheerleaders that would tell you it was amazing. I'm currently at a place (that I won't name) where I finally enjoy going to work again These two statements made me realize the premise of this thread is flawed. Thanks for saving me some time. > I fundamentally believe the job landscape now for developers is just systemically worse than it was a decade ago I have th…

Yeah I was passively scrolling the thread until I found the dude pointing this out.

I second your hunch about the platform lockdown and I'd add to it that the linux monoculture is stopping OS design from moving forward.

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

#180

Post by tedsanders »

jedberg wrote: post #53

I loved every minute of my time working at Netflix. Great, talented coworkers who I could constantly learn from, management chain from bottom to top of former engineers, so they understood when you would say, "I worked on this for a week but have no results because it didn't work". Plenty of resources to do what you needed to do, and lots of autonomy to do what you thought was right. Very little process and upper man…

I've had a pretty excellent time at Netflix myself.

The business model is refreshingly simple: people pay to watch shows they'll enjoy. As a result, our work is pretty aligned with our customers. No annoying ads, no selling data, no focusing on whales, no anti-consumer dark patterns (or at least not many).

And Reed is an excellent CEO, imo. He's tried his best to build a culture that treats everyone as human and intelligent - minimal red tape, lots of flexibility, wide transparency with data & strategy, very focused business, and he even encourages middle management to cut down on big meetings.

Lastly, it's nice to work at a place where you can count on everyone to be competent. It's expensive to pay well and not hire juniors, and it can also mean that 'senior' employees end up doing 'junior' work, but it also means that your colleagues are usually solid, which is nice.

Not to say everything is perfect, but overall I've been satisfied with Netflix. I still might leave for another company someday, but if I do, it will because that other company is also great, not because Netflix is sucky to work for.

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