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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?

#311

Post by Hermitian909 »

JohnBooty wrote: post #283
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…

many places, such as Stripe, make it super easy to switch teams for a better fit. Another commenter mentioned that this is a strength of FB, and I find it amazing. I've not experienced that in my time in the industry though I've never worked for any "famous" technically-oriented orgs. Don't misunderstand: I have a rock-solid belief in the importance of team fit. Nobody can do good work unless they're a good engineer…

It happens! I've fortunately never needed to do it but I know easily 50 engineers who've made a successful team jump within 3-8 months of the initial hire.

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

#312

Post by shrimpx »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #236
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 someone working for a US company in the actual Transylvania, I find you not entitled to be offended. Come here, live the life, check again if you are offended and share the experience.

They take offense because the OP implies that all offshore teams are shitty. "Transylvania" was used as catch-all term for "some other country".

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

#313

Post by qudat »

Aptible:

  - Only ~15 employees
  - Profitable
  - Fully distributed team
  - Great work/life balance
  - CEO is one of the best software engineers I’ve worked with
  - Interesting problems (building a security-focused PaaS)
  - We are hiring

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

#314

Post by trevyn »

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…

>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.

It’s not; the RSUs are priced at grant, not at vest.

Plus there’s annual top-up grants.

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

#315

Post by Infinitesimus »

awsthro00945 wrote: post #281
dynamite-ready wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You worked for all of these places?

I doubt it, considering their point about Amazon (the RSU backloading, not the hire-to-fire thing) is a misconception that only someone who has never worked at Amazon would complain about. (probably some of the others too, but I only personally know about Amazon)

In what ways is it fault? It'll be helpful to correct the record if your experience is different.

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

#316

Post by na85 »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #21

In my experience small companies tend to be the best to work for, but this varies wildly. Large companies are more reliably mediocre across the board, but bad small companies can be outright abusive (usually you can detect these with a few questions in an interview... for example, ask how often employees work outside of regular hours).

As soon as I hear "work hard play hard" I know it's a company that expects long hours for mediocre pay, and then the boss likes to go to the strip club on the weekend.

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

#317

Post by ryan_lane »

fbanon12341 wrote: post #244
ryan_lane wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It is possible to work on efforts to prevent genocide and extremism. As a matter of fact, there are very few people who enable genocide! (Approaching 0.0000) Doesn't refusal to help only exacerbate the situation?

If you're not allowed to work on the problem, you can't help. Management isn't prioritizing fixing the issue. They know it exists, and are prioritizing things that make them money, and in many cases know that the what makes them money is what's causing the extremism.

By continuing to work there, you're enabling what they're doing.

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

#318

Post by ryapric »

I work for a consulting company called Slalom and for 3.5 years now I don't know if I've been happier working. It's a (private) big global place, but we have a "local market model" which effectually means you feel like you're working for a much smaller company (which is your home office). I still get to do plenty of development work during projects, but I also get to work in people leadership, practice leadership, give conference talks, sell if I want to (note: I don't lol), and the best part from a developer's standpoint is that when a project is over, you just... Leave. After almost 5 years of being responsible for an ever-growing list of software I had to maintain alone at a startup, it's a really liberating feeling for my ADHD self. And yes, we're hiring worldwide!

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

#319

Post by awsthro00945 »

Infinitesimus wrote: post #315
awsthro00945 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it, considering their point about Amazon (the RSU backloading, not the hire-to-fire thing) is a misconception that only someone who has never worked at Amazon would complain about. (probably some of the others too, but I only personally know about Amazon)

In what ways is it fault? It'll be helpful to correct the record if your experience is different.

The RSU vesting schedule at Amazon is nonstandard but it's not an issue. You may only vest 5% of your RSUs in your first year, but everyone is given a significant monthly cash bonus to make up for it. The compensation strategy at Amazon is that you always make the same "target compensation" each year, even your first. You aren't shortchanged just because you vest less RSUs in your first year.

An example with numbers: someone in their third year at Amazon makes $150k/yr salary + $150k/yr RSU vests, for $300k/yr total. In comparison, someone in the same position in their first year at Amazon makes $150k/yr salary, but only makes $30k/yr RSU vests, for $180k/yr total. That seems shitty, right? Except the person in their first year also gets a $120k/yr cash bonus, bringing them up to the same $300k/yr.

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

#320

Post by dlp211 »

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.

This has not been my experience at all. I've job hopped every 2 years to promote in transition and take on significantly more compensation. I'm about 18 months into my current role and I'm looking for the exit. Why? Because my future compensation at these companies is based on "impact" instead of what the market is willing to pay. So even if I have the highest levels of impact, I'm losing compensation staying at my current company.
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