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Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

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Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#41

Post by shadowtree »

Tell me you never ran a large code base in production, without telling me.

Past a certain point there are no "simple code changes" anymore. Automation and functional QA needs to ensure zero regressions, internal and external docs need to be considered, it all needs to be bundled in with many other code changes (feature and fixes), etc. There is no shortcut. Even FB had to dial back their "break shit in prod" mantra.

Of course startup devs hate this, real men fuck around in production, which is great. Running and maintaining a large code base is very grown up sport, more like running a country than building a house. For those on the other side, who inherit startup code and have to fold it in ... the hatred is mutual.

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#42

Post by JamesBarney »

dogleash wrote: post #21

>Is this how it's like at all large companies? Not all, but a lot. >What should I do? Short term: Mentally check out. Embrace the Zen of just doing what's asked of you. It's not your job to be a go-getter anymore. Half because of institutional complexity/inertia, and half because in a tall organization hierarchy the middle managers don't want anyone below them swimming outside their lane (even if it would be to their…

This.

I call this achieving Enterprise Zen.

You have to let go of your attachment to productivity and ponder on kohns such as "If a task is accomplished but no one sees it on a report, was that task accomplished?"

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#43

Post by yawnxyz »

korijn wrote: post #33
dogleash wrote: post #21

>Is this how it's like at all large companies? Not all, but a lot. >What should I do? Short term: Mentally check out. Embrace the Zen of just doing what's asked of you. It's not your job to be a go-getter anymore. Half because of institutional complexity/inertia, and half because in a tall organization hierarchy the middle managers don't want anyone below them swimming outside their lane (even if it would be to their…

To add to this, something that helped me accept this change: your acquisition marked the achievement of your startup goal. You're done now, you can now stop living for your work, and start working to live.

or pick up a new hobby that occupies the mind! Or start the next thing!

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#44

Post by flemhans »

Raed667 wrote: post #31

Reminds me of a multinational where I had to "purchase" infrastructure from the team in the next workspace to deploy our new application. Literally all the paperwork and requirement gathering you'd expect from getting external providers/contracts, run through an internal system with all sorts of forms and people being brought "in the loop", yet the infra team was literally a few desks over... '

Sounds like you could be getting the blues from working there…

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#45

Post by pfooti »

One thing you should consider (not an infra eng myself, but I know a lot at the FAANG where I work) is that the infra team gets a lot of requests for stuff like that.

There's a general dislike of special-casing all build deploy run pipelines for some team's snowflake needs, since once you put a feature in, you have to support it forever. So one suggestion is that you look really closely at your own service and ask: can you change that to fit the framework? The majority of times an infra eng gets a request that amounts to "we can't use the framework until it does X", the answer is actually, "you should not want to do X, for reasons Y".

This might not be your specific issue, but if you want the thing soon, work on the parts of the codebase you do have control over.

And in general, yes. This is how big companies tend to work. Teams plan out effort far in advance. I have an ask to a sister team right now for 2022 planning, and I would be delighted if they came back and said "Q1". There's a million things all going on at once.

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#46

Post by rpeden »

_skel wrote: post #37

> So I reach out to the manager and ask what is going on. This is a simple task, I said. Why does it take an entire quarter for your team to deliver? He doesn't have an answer. Your simple task, which you think would only take a few days to implement, is probably one request in a long queue of requests that team is dealing with. That means they won't be able to start on it for a long time. That team probably set up t…

That sounds about right.

I'd also note to the OP that in might help to treat the acquiring company like the Borg: they acquired you, and now it's on you to serve their needs, not necessarily the other way around. If your app isn't quite compatible with their infrastructure, the right move is probably to modify your app, not ask them to modify their infrastructure. That might be annoying, but it's probably also the reality of your situation for the the time being.

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#47

Post by zerkten »

Based on only what you have posted you should leave in a controlled manner. No matter how you feel, you should avoid doing things that burn bridges. If something catastrophic happens, I've seen large companies be incredibly generous, either by opening up roles to take folks back, or offering long-term contract jobs where the person gets back eventually. Smaller organizations rarely have the flexibility to make that happen.

However, there are good reasons not to leave immediately, including vesting, the opportunity that being acquired by $LARGE_CORPORATION may present (you aren't solely responsible, but you've helped build something that was acquired, which is experience worth something to some people), and expending perks that $LARGE_CORPORATION may offer (often these aren't all made visible to you.) If you have trusted peers that have left, or are potentially leaving, you may want to check-in with them.

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#48

Post by laluser »

_skel wrote: post #37

> So I reach out to the manager and ask what is going on. This is a simple task, I said. Why does it take an entire quarter for your team to deliver? He doesn't have an answer. Your simple task, which you think would only take a few days to implement, is probably one request in a long queue of requests that team is dealing with. That means they won't be able to start on it for a long time. That team probably set up t…

Exactly this. It's not too hard to think about the intake of random requests a popular team may receive. Even code reviewing a patch from a separate team carries its own set of eyes, which is still work for the team. There's a ton of context OP is probably not familiar with and walking them through all of that baggage is not worth the effort. While this may seem annoying from an outside team's perspective, it's the only way to really focus on their roadmap and be able to commit to scheduled work.

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#49

Post by gringoDan »

When the Dilbert comics become all too real. While you may find it difficult to get things done, the bureaucracy will leave you with a lot of time on your hands. With that time, either:

1. Pour the energy you would have put into work into side projects, starting your own company, etc. Good route to take if you are vesting.

2. Interview at other companies where you can actually make an impact. Luckily the job market is insanely hot right now, so your comp package should be bumped accordingly.

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#50

Post by harmegido »

_skel wrote: post #37

> So I reach out to the manager and ask what is going on. This is a simple task, I said. Why does it take an entire quarter for your team to deliver? He doesn't have an answer. Your simple task, which you think would only take a few days to implement, is probably one request in a long queue of requests that team is dealing with. That means they won't be able to start on it for a long time. That team probably set up t…

It's pretty interesting to contrast OP's experience with this recent /r/bestof that describes in detail why things might be the way you're describing:

https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/rkru22/uloosesignif...

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