Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 447 posts

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

#341

Post by somerando7 »

dack wrote: post #206
somerando7 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, liking it here so far. But you do have to make sure you get on an interesting team. I wouldn't want to be on a lot of different teams here.

Which ones wouldn't you want to be on? Or at least is there a pattern to them?

This is purely my preference, but anything customer facing would be a snoozefest for me.

Most L6+ that I've met in infra are incredibly sharp, and there's tons of interesting problems being solved in infra/core systems right now.

On top of this... the "move fast" motto really does ring true, compared to google, facebook speed is like riding a bike vs walking.

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

#342

Post by magixx »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #337
mixmastamyk wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just be prepared to apply and never hear back from them, even with twenty years of internet company and vfx experience. Absolutely nothing, not even a “no thanks,” for all the time wasted on their job site.

Applying through company websites is usually a black hole. For whatever team you’re applying for, try to find the team lead/manager/etc and hit them up on social media. Obviously be prepared to sell yourself but getting hold of a human usually fares much better than applying through whatever portal.

Unfortunately I've had the same experience as the OP with regards to Netflix. How effective do you actually find reaching out to random people related to job postings? In my experience for the companies I've worked at, even if I'm referring a close friend/former colleague the only difference (visible to me at least) is that it they get put in a similar queue.

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

#343

Post by yibg »

RNCTX wrote: post #305
yibg wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll second this. Netflix was one of my favorite places to work as well for mostly the same reasons. Having said that I do hear they are getting bigger and things have changed somewhat recently. So YMMV. Edit: it’s also nice to not have ethical concerns with your choice of employer.

> Edit: it’s also nice to not have ethical concerns with your choice of employer. Did you not happen across the predatory soliciting of new content? In that by attending a Netflix "screening event" you give Netflix a right to use your film in perpetuity, royalty free?

I did not. Do you have a link?

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

#344

Post by ToxicMegacolon »

awsthro00945 wrote: post #319
Infinitesimus wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:…

Since we are talking numbers, I am gonna do some hypothetical calculation.

Lets assume two employees A and B, their numbers are as follows: A - $150k Salary + $150k RSU -> TOTAL = $300k B - $150k Salary + $30k RSU + $120k cash bonus -> TOTAL = $300k

Also lets assume the year is 2017, specifically around Oct 2017 when AMZN price was ~$1000 ($1002 on Oct 13 2017)

With a price of $1000, A gets 150 RSU Units and B gets 30 RSU Units

Price of A's RSU on Nov 3 2021 - $3384 * 150 = $507,600 Price of B's RSU on Nov 3 2021 - $3384 * 30 = $101,520

Difference (A - B) = $406,080

You can say that share prices can go down, and then B's 120k cash bonus looks good. But that hasn't really been the case with Amazon. In fact, Amazon is so sure of their stock price going up that they by default include a 15% yoy increase when doing year end compensation reviews.

Furthering this hypothetical calculation, if B had also had an offer from Google with the following numbers:

$150k Salary + $100k RSU + $0 Bonus = Total $250k [Obviously B took Amazon's offer over Google's because of 50k difference]

As per GOOG price on Oct 13 2017, B would have received $100,000 / $989 = ~101 RSU

On Nov 3 2021, B's RSUs are worth = $2,935.80 * 101 = ~$296,515

Even after taking an offer that is $50,000 less, the cash bonus would still have been insufficient.

There are also other policies at Amazon which would have affected B's total compensation. For example,

- Amazon's 401k match policy is 50% match on the first 4% of base salary and Match vests only after 3 years. Amazon's base salary in Seattle is also capped at $160k. So max 401k match is $3200. Given the vesting schedule, Total 401k match received after 3 years = $9600

- Google on the other hand matches 50% of your contributions up to the IRS limit per calendar year. That is $9750. There is no 401k vesting at Google, so Total 401k match received after 3 years = $29250

All this is of course very simplistic calculations and a job has 100 other factors that are important (scope, team etc) but I would not call this "not an issue" like you said in your comments.

Please correct me if the calculations are wrong, but it looks like (4 years ago) taking a lower offer at Google seems like a better idea than Amazon.

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

#345

Post by JohnBooty »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #311
JohnBooty wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's fascinating and excellent to hear. How does management (and everybody else involved) determine that they're a bad team fit vs. a bad hire?

In some cases it might be easy: if the developer has done highly visible, rockstar-level work elsewhere, or if folks on the team have worked with them in the past.

What about other cases, where you have a good engineer with a solid career that hasn't had high-visibility wins? If I was working "in the trenches" alongside such an engineer, I might have a sense of this, or I might not.

Maybe I just haven't worked at a company where this sort of patience is viable. FB and others have effectively infinite amounts of cash. But at the companies where I've worked, there's never been the patience (or cash) required to let 100-250K engineers sort of slowly find their way.

I feel I should reiterate that I'm 100% in favor of this; just kind of amazed it's possible. =)

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

#346

Post by eitland »

solarmist wrote: post #225
eitland wrote: post #37

In Norway you could do worse than working for Entur (I'm work as a consultant there and they are amazing, they are hiring, but I prefer being a consultant.) Edit after rereading: since you ask were we work, self promotion seems to be OK with you. I work in Computas. We are employee owned and in 4.5 years I have not had to deal with a single jerk. That feels quite amazing given what I'm used to.

Do they sponsor visas?

Sorry, I don't think so. If one is living inside the European Economic region one might just travel to Norway but from outside of Europe it becomes harder I guess.

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

#347

Post by twtrgrunt »

I don't think you can make a judgement about a company. I think its really about the team and manager.

My first team at twitter was horrible, from the team members to managers, toxic and stressful. I was stuck doing after hours work, and oncall was miserable with constant off hours pages and no one had desire to do something about it.It was terrible for my mental health. I couldn't wait to leave. I switched teams and it was like joining a new company, unbelievable. People respected my opinion, no one was an asshole, everyone was polite and friendly. There's constant stupid shit going on with the directors and vps, doing reorgs or w/e trying to justify their existence i guess but none of that effects me. Plenty of of coworkers and friends at work have had similar experience. Some teams are truly hellish nightmares and some are great.

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

#348

Post by ryantgtg »

nwallin wrote: post #122

I work for Esri and it's great. (we do GIS -- geospatial information systems. Our customers include all 50 (US) state governments, like half the Fortune 500s, most national governments...) Virtually everyone has an office, no open office nonsense. There's no pressure to be a 10x developer or whatever, you just do your job. Nobody gets let go for being a mediocre developer. Everyone's hourly, so if you want to work 40…

I wish Redlands was a little closer to LA! Seems like a cool place to work.

I couldn’t believe when the owner bought/preserved Bixby Ranch (on behalf of the nature conservancy). I was a daily ESRI user for years, but my heart leans toward QGIS — yet ESRI will always be in my good graces after that Bixby move.

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

#349

Post by muzani »

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…

Don't go too small though. At least where I live, FIRE/ESBI has caught on hard. A lot of bosses are not interested in running a company, they're interested in owning one and keeping the income as passive as possible.

They're the face of the company. They use the company to get talks and government sponsored trips to Silicon Valley, but the company means nothing to them. It's like a car, a liability. It loses money every year, which the CEO doesn't care about, until they have to shut it down.

There are also huge companies that are still owner run. The place I work has hundreds of people, but the CEO tried to talk to everyone he can. We have town halls every month, and the CEO tries to take some time to talk with us face to face, and just to make sure he gets everyone, he also does a mailing list on updates, where the responses go direct to his inbox. It's not a 1:1 relationship, but it tries to be a human to human relationship.

Post reply on HN