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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?

#271

Post by halfmatthalfcat »

awsthro00945 wrote: post #265
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it doesn't mean you get all the RSUs at the 4 year mark but if you leave after 2 years, you only get 50% of your RSUs. Why leave potentially hundreds of thousands on the table to jump after two years? I've never heard of this two-year stinting.

You shouldn't view the RSUs as different from any other compensation package, even just an all-cash package. If Google says they'll give you $200k per year in cash + $400k split over 4 years as RSUs, that's the same as just getting $300k per year in cash. Why would you leave $300k per year in cash on the table? Because another company is offering you $350k per year (or more likely in the case of FAANG, another compan…

Yeah I guess I'm just surprised that, once you're at the FAANG level, the packages are going to vary that much that one would jump every two years. Also, having just interviewed at the FAANG level, they are very weary about job hoppers to the point where if you haven't worked at a place for longer than 3+ years, they want a detailed explanation why.

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

#272

Post by freewilly1040 »

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…

What is the employee sentiment towards Meta / metaverse products?

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

#273

Post by distrill »

yodsanklai wrote: post #147
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…

> Avoid public firms. A corporation cannot show loyalty, but a HUMAN can. Counterpoint: I work in a FAANG and the first thing I noticed what that I was just a small piece in a big machine. Everyone is replaceable. People change teams all the time, some leave the company after 6 months, only to re-join 1 year later... But it's actually a good thing! I don't have the same amount of stress I had when working in a small…

yeah, big companies have a very favorable what-happens-if-i-get-hit-by-a-bus score

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

#274

Post by awsthro00945 »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #13
version_five wrote: post #6

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 o…

> that even in sucky workplaces, I would say... if there is a company with 6,000 employees... it's going to depend way less on the company and more on the team. Your direct manager, your teammates, the other teams you work with, the other managers involved... that can all wildly vary even within the same company. They are fluid too. People come and go. Circumstances change. I don't know how much top-down leadership e…

I used to agree but after working at Amazon... yes, it really is passed down.

There is still large variation per org/team, but there are definitely a lot of things that can permeate all the way down. The way hiring is done, the way performance is evaluated and promotions/raises are done, the way weekly org-wide metrics meetings are done, the way escalations are handled, even the way we hold meetings or write documents... At Amazon, all of these things are influenced (or directly guided) by processes that are put in place by the highest levels, and they really do have enormous impact on the overall culture of the company.

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

#275

Post by awsthro00945 »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #271
awsthro00945 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't view the RSUs as different from any other compensation package, even just an all-cash package. If Google says they'll give you $200k per year in cash + $400k split over 4 years as RSUs, that's the same as just getting $300k per year in cash. Why would you leave $300k per year in cash on the table? Because another company is offering you $350k per year (or more likely in the case of FAANG, another compan…

Yeah I guess I'm just surprised that, once you're at the FAANG level, the packages are going to vary that much that one would jump every two years. Also, having just interviewed at the FAANG level, they are very weary about job hoppers to the point where if you haven't worked at a place for longer than 3+ years, they want a detailed explanation why.

> if you haven't worked at a place for longer than 3+ years, they want a detailed explanation why.

Interesting. At my FAANG (Amazon) we explicitly are told to not ask this. It would be kind of weird for us to ask that, really, considering the tenure of most people here is <2 years.

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

#276

Post by cebert »

edrxty wrote: post #85
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…

I've had good luck with this too. More diverse work, more free rein to experiment with stuff, less oppressive IT department...you can generally get away with telling 'Joe' to eat your ass if he wants to try to pull you into windows/AD only with no admin or WSL...

Being a developer without local admin is rough. My IT department recently rolled out such a policy and it has really made development a challenge for several teams. Fortunately, they allow us to use WSL2 and don’t interfere with what’s running in there. My team uses VS Code dev containers running in WSL2, and for the most part haven’t had major issues.

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

#277

Post by lkrych »

Cisco.

Great teamwork and culture, tons of smart and friendly people, interesting technical problems (I think computer networking is interesting ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), opportunities for growth, and good work-life balance.

One thing to note is that much of this might be because I got lucky and joined the team that was part of the OpenDNS acquisition.

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

#278

Post by andychase »

I have have enjoyed working at the EPA (US Government) as an IT Specialist.

The good parts are working with people passionate about their jobs, on things that truly matter. Work life balance and management trust is very high.

The bad parts are there as well: outdated technology, lots of committees, long processes to do certain things. Pay is less then I could get in industry.

Mixed bag: Not a "fast to fire" environment. Ethics/values are very high but that doesn't automatically mean good management. You need to meet and work with a lot of people.. but people are very open to collaborating.

I have heard that the government in a way is supposed to be the "model employer"; kind of being an example to others in terms of diversity/inclusion, time off policies, benefits, etc. And I think is that sort of true at least at this agency.

https://usajobs.gov

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

#279

Post by twalla »

lkrych wrote: post #277

Cisco. Great teamwork and culture, tons of smart and friendly people, interesting technical problems (I think computer networking is interesting ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), opportunities for growth, and good work-life balance. One thing to note is that much of this might be because I got lucky and joined the team that was part of the OpenDNS acquisition.

Just be prepared for your RSUs to basically remain stagnant for your entire tenure because the hardware business is a boat anchor for the stock price.

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

#280

Post by nomendos »

dynamite-ready wrote: post #168
nomendos wrote: post #149

From my experience: - NVIDIA seems to have best balance of culture of competency, work satisfaction vs how well is run, although it is getting more bureaucratic as it grows - Google used to be good in many aspects but now things are deteriorating - Facebook is mixed bag, where Oculus part is more of a wild west and main FB is still ok better than Google - Amazon other than "hire to fire" (loading your RSUs towards th…

You worked for all of these places?

Yes in most while others have reliable information from multiple close colleagues. Also don't get me wrong, it is great experience to be part of any of these leading high-tech companies in relative to the most other ones, so my comparison is relative btw top ones.
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