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Haha wow I'm getting wrecked for that suggestion. Why?
Probably because you didn't work there so you aren't really speaking from a place of knowledge.
Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?
61–70 of 447 posts
Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?
#62I'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 trustworthy person.
This means small. But it doesn't mean cheap. ;)
That said, I've probably left money on the table working this way, and I'll never get IPO stock or similar, but stability and ethical behavior in a workplace go a LONG way.
Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?
#63> Project managers don't know anything about technology In my 10+ years of experience, that's the rule rather than an exception. It is very rare to find a Project/Product manager who actually has decent technical knowledge. I think I've found one or two in my whole career (one is now product VP, the other moved to Switzerland).
Maybe I've been really lucky, but every product manager I've worked with or know personally is deeply technical. I can't imagine being successful in the job without that skill.
I'm sure you can imagine! Elsewhere in the thread you say you worked at Netflix, so perhaps you have spent most of your career in high-calibre companies with high hiring bars. Now, imagine PMs at 2nd and 3rd tier companies. Note that the qualifications for being a PM are...nothing really. So any kid with a university degree and a vague interest in working in tech, but with no technical skills can apply and get in as a PM. Congratulations, you have now imagined how bad these people can be!
Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?
#64Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?
#65Might depend on your country but federal government. Good pay, job security and a clear path for career progression.
Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?
#66This question is a Catch-22…
I know a Mexican, who knew that his way out, was by getting in somewhere better. He applied to a German University, with zero experience with the German language. But on the application he lied and marked 'Conversational fluency'… he was accepted, leveraged his new location, and since has been the 1st CTO of multiple companies.
The people who have a little bit of humble audacity & spontaneous enthusiasm, will find a way, and gravitate towards each other.
The problem with this question, is trying to avoid companies that "don't suck"… instead, the aim is to find an amazing company. (Some readers will shrug off this distinction, and the successful will have an 'A-ha!' moment) Because amazing companies filter out average people who are only trying to avoid non-suckiness.
Amazing companies hire amazing people.
Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?
#67> Project managers don't know anything about technology In my 10+ years of experience, that's the rule rather than an exception. It is very rare to find a Project/Product manager who actually has decent technical knowledge. I think I've found one or two in my whole career (one is now product VP, the other moved to Switzerland).
Maybe I've been really lucky, but every product manager I've worked with or know personally is deeply technical. I can't imagine being successful in the job without that skill.
Product management and project management are very different career tracks (or at least, they should be); it's much more common to find technical backgrounds in product managers than project managers. I'd almost go so far as to say that if a company has project managers working with software teams, I'm not really interested in working there. Some situations do benefit from it, but my experience is that it's usually a sign of either a company that doesn't understand software development, or such a messed up situation that it will be impossible to succeed.
Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?
#68I 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…
why did you quit?
Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?
#69The flip side of "management don't know what they want the product to be" is "management decided what the product should be 3 years ago and won't adjust to the current reality, even though the company is failing." Be careful what you ask for.
Re: Ask HN: Who's not sucky to work for?
#70Perhaps someone can write a review-website for jobs.