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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?

#351

Post by mixmastamyk »

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.

Might've been useful five years ago when I was looking for work. Have a great job now working remotely for a responsive company, not eager for a daily commute.

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

#352

Post by muzani »

xyzelement wrote: post #96

One thing quick - this is incredibly subjective. I've worked in some amazing companies but there were always people on Glassdoor or Blind who found something to complain about. People are fundamentally different. Someone may really enjoy structure and being told exactly what they have to do. Others want ambiguity and open-ended challenges. Some want stability, some want opportunity. So when you hear someone complain…

I love the place I work. It's got a Glassdoor rating of 4.8 [1], probably the highest I've ever seen for a company of its size. There's this theme of working hard that crops up there. The average person who makes it past the culture filter is actually grateful to be able to work that hard; in most other places, a workaholic trait is exploited. Whereas here, we're literally asked to take more breaks, stop thinking of work at home, stop working weekends, and the vacation policies are there to respect the people putting in incredibly hard work. They're also proactive in helping people deal with mental health issues.

But when all is well, there's really nothing to be talkative about. You just find a place that resonates at your frequency. I tried to post about it in this thread, but you're right, the feeling is pretty meh. Nobody wants to hear good stuff. Whereas I've complained a lot about bad companies in the past.

[1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Xendit-Reviews-E1476305.ht...

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

#353

Post by tibyat »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #237
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'd like to work for Netflix. It's one of my favorite services, and after talking to a principal who was with them through the 2000's, the challenges they face are fascinating. I feel like I'd be doing a net positive for the world since so many people rely on it for peace of mind.

If you care about helping the world, you can do a hell of a lot better than Netflix, let's not kid ourselves.

sorry, I know you didn't mean it like that, I just feel like you need a second of a realty check if you're subliminally talking yourself into fat faang cash under that pretense.

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

#354

Post by eps »

drzoltar wrote: post #208
jedberg wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started a startup a few days after I left. Also had a baby a few months before leaving and really liked the schedule flexibility when I was on paternity leave.

Can you speak about your experience building a startup with a newborn nearby?

YMMW, but FWIW. You no longer have the luxury of hours-long uninterrupted coding streaks, but it doesn't prevent you from thinking through things that need to be done (e.g. when you are walking outside with a stroller). The net effect of it is that when you do have a chance to sit down and code, you produce something that requires no rewriting or refactoring later on. If you then compare time it takes to get X done, the think-then-code comes on top of code-then-rewrite and by a large margin.

In a sense having a baby forces you to become a more thoughtful and effecient programmer :)

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

#355

Post by aviditas »

I work for an education focused nonprofit (medium sized 1000~) and while I still get frustrated at times, it's the 'this can be even better' VS the 'this is hell on earth' that I've dealt with at big corporations. Everyone is so dang nice which coupled with a savvy ceo and flexible work life has been ridiculously soothing to my previously burnt-out self. The unpleasant people that exist at all businesses are rare and are definite noted outliers. Even if people get upset or frustrated, it's always clear that it's about the situation or problem rather than lashing out at others. It is sweet relief to work with people that care about what they do and having the mission being a genuinely good thing. There is a practical and people first culture exemplified by remote only if you choose, transparent pay ranges, great benefits, and a sense of we can be better than we were in most aspects of the biz. We are in dire need of architect roles and have a variety of other dev, tech, and biz reqs posted. Like any org, there is room for improvement but those improvements don't feel insurmountable. :)

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

#356

Post by jee1shi »

ab_testing wrote: post #310
dsr_ wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for Smartleaf -- www.smartleaf.com

Are these salary ranges correct. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Smartleaf-Software-Engineer... Looks like a software engineer would need to pick up a second job to make up for Boston's cost of living.

I've always found Glass Door salary ranges to be wrong (generally much lower than reality) for the positions I have knowledge about.

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

#357

Post by hammersmith »

I've never gone out of my way to try and get my friends to apply as I have for Ably Realtime(PaaS startup) I joined in the pandemic lockdown, and they just rolled with it. When things eased, all of the flexibility stayed. Best place I've worked as a parent.

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

#358

Post by Talanes »

xiphias2 wrote: post #298
AnonHP wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> ,, The business model is refreshingly simple: people pay to watch shows they'll enjoy'' > I believe that this is true, but I also have a feeling that the main goal for netflix is maximizing views, and not maximizing the experience per supscriber weighted by user spend. Not GP, but I believe Netflix has patterns to keep the subscriber in the app for as long as possible, including browsing through the list, adding t…

> making sure the person isn’t using another streaming service for longer. Thanks, as I just pay for all available streaming services, I forgot that most people don't view them as orthogonal services...now the whole strategy makes so much more sense. About the Netflix Original comment: it's again only about maximizing viewing time, but at least now I understand the reason. It means ,,not available on other streaming…

Yeah, the strategy doesn't quite have the same oomph when you're already content having a few different streaming services subscribed at a time.

If I spend too long browsing Netflix without picking something, I switch apps and leave a mental check against leaving Netflix in the renew rotation, but only because I have a backup already on deck.

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

#359

Post by higeorge13 »

edrxty wrote: post #92
bovermyer wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, watch out for small companies that are desperately trying to get big but have been small or oscillated between 10-40 people seemingly from the beginning of time. There's a particular type of person who runs these businesses and that person is extremely common. They cannot delegate and micromanage everything so once they get beyond their ability to manage every facet of operations themselves, their leadership ab…

This! I have been to such a company, sticked to ~10 employees for years due to managers and founding engineers firing people all the time and engineers leaving and coming within 1 year due to toxic micro management.

From that point i always ask questions about the employee count across the years, the projection and average retention.

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

#360

Post by OJFord »

smashed wrote: post #286
xiphias2 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

,, The business model is refreshingly simple: people pay to watch shows they'll enjoy'' I believe that this is true, but I also have a feeling that the main goal for netflix is maximizing views, and not maximizing the experience per supscriber weighted by user spend. In other words I would prefer less, but very well thought out and executed movies that focus on having a great story (like House of Cards until the main…

The auto play of movie trailers while browsing for titles irritates me to the core. It's like I know I can't read the description longer than 3 seconds or else all these moving pictures that I don't want to see are going to start jumping at me. I know it sounds like a 1st world problem but it made the Netflix experience unbearable for me. I was ready to cancel my subscription. Then I learned on this site while readin…

> The auto play of movie trailers while browsing for titles irritates me to the core.

Nevermind trailers, what about when it just starts playing the film while you're reading the description and talking about it?

I agree it's infuriating. Always end up doing this ridiculous quick-jumping around back and forth dance, and often end up on mute too if we don't decide quickly.

> Then I learned on this site while reading comments you can turn this off by logging in your account on the web.

I have 'do not autoplay previews' on in my settings; don't see an option for 'do not autoplay features'.

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