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Ask HN: How to find high quality workplaces for developers?

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Ask HN: How to find high quality workplaces for developers?

#1

Post by turboat »

While I have had a few great individual colleagues over the years, I've never worked with a great overall team or engineering department.

If you have successfully found a great workplace for you as an engineer, how did you do it?

For me, "great" means a team that consistently values quality, puts reasonable effort into application design and maintenance, and makes thoughtful decisions related to project goals and end-users.

I'm open-minded about specific technology choices. I do not expect people to work overtime, or to have exceptional passion for their jobs. I'm not demanding elite talent. Just that everyone is competent and makes an honest effort.

Have you used any concrete techniques to identify teams like that?

Re: Ask HN: How to find high quality workplaces for developers?

#2

Post by gregjor »

Teams like that are built and grown, not found according to some criteria. You’re asking about personalities and team dynamics, and company culture, which vary according to circumstances and over time.

Companies tend to optimize for profit, not for the comfort of programmers.

Re: Ask HN: How to find high quality workplaces for developers?

#3

Post by turboat »

gregjor wrote: post #2

Teams like that are built and grown, not found according to some criteria. You’re asking about personalities and team dynamics, and company culture, which vary according to circumstances and over time. Companies tend to optimize for profit, not for the comfort of programmers.

Do you believe then that it's impossible to identify a good situation until you take the job? There are no reliable job search tactics to select for better settings?

I would say, for example, that a job interview helps provide a vibe for the current situation at a company. But it's not a perfect signal, and as an individual I can't go on that many interviews. Hence looking for other approaches people have tried.

> Companies tend to optimize for profit, not for the comfort of programmers.

I believe that's a separate issue from my question. Seeking profit doesn't force a company to hire incompetent or apathetic programmers. If anything it wastes money on salaries that don't deliver as many new product features to sell, or as many improvements that will increase customer retention.

Re: Ask HN: How to find high quality workplaces for developers?

#4

Post by gregjor »

turboat wrote: post #3
gregjor wrote: post #2

Teams like that are built and grown, not found according to some criteria. You’re asking about personalities and team dynamics, and company culture, which vary according to circumstances and over time. Companies tend to optimize for profit, not for the comfort of programmers.

Do you believe then that it's impossible to identify a good situation until you take the job? There are no reliable job search tactics to select for better settings? I would say, for example, that a job interview helps provide a vibe for the current situation at a company. But it's not a perfect signal, and as an individual I can't go on that many interviews. Hence looking for other approaches people have tried. > Co…

Great teams should be visible because they produce great products or services, and because they have their pick of top people because word gets around.

Big companies will have multiple teams, maybe hundreds at companies like Google and Apple. Some of those may be great to work with, others dysfunctional. Adding more people can push the “greatness” in any direction because interpersonal factors are first-order drivers of team productivity and job satisfaction.

So it’s not impossible to identify candidate teams but I think it is impossible to predict how you might fit and what you can get out of it.

I think word of mouth through referrals and contacts works best. Some companies have reputations for building good teams, others are known for dysfunction, but those generalization don’t necessarily predict what an individual will experience. Even Google has unhappy employees.

Re: Ask HN: How to find high quality workplaces for developers?

#6

Post by O_H_E »

If you don't know about this (https://501manifesto.dev) you will like it.

Looking up "9 to 5 developer" or 501 developer" on Google/hn to find blog posts and tweets, then moving ahead to connect with these people or look for places they recommend working at seems like a good idea.

On another note: word of mouth and networking. I know it kinda sucks, information in people's minds is not indexable, but it is still a source of high quality information.

Re: Ask HN: How to find high quality workplaces for developers?

#7

Post by s1t5 »

O_H_E wrote: post #5

Yesterday I found this list: https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards Although not exactly what you are asking, this interview behavior could be a reflection of internal values.

Interview behavior is certainly a reflection; presence of a whiteboard, on the other hand, tells you absolutely nothing about the quality of the workplace.

Re: Ask HN: How to find high quality workplaces for developers?

#8

Post by quickthrower2 »

I think you can do some things. Honesty at an interview might help - and by honesty I mean actually letting them know your weaknesses and dislikes - to get rejected for the wrong jobs increasing he chance of ending up at a good one. If you can kick ass at the technical tests the “I got fired because I refused to do 60h weeks” might be perfectly fine.

Also it is mostly luck and teams can change in the 12 months it takes to even begin to understand the dynamics or get productive with code. It’s a hard human problem!

Re: Ask HN: How to find high quality workplaces for developers?

#9

Post by scott31 »

O_H_E wrote: post #5

Yesterday I found this list: https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards Although not exactly what you are asking, this interview behavior could be a reflection of internal values.

It is the opposite of what the OP is looking for. You can't have a high quality workplace with people who fail at basic algorithm questions

Re: Ask HN: How to find high quality workplaces for developers?

#10

Post by non-entity »

scott31 wrote: post #9
O_H_E wrote: post #5

Yesterday I found this list: https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards Although not exactly what you are asking, this interview behavior could be a reflection of internal values.

It is the opposite of what the OP is looking for. You can't have a high quality workplace with people who fail at basic algorithm questions

That's a pretty big jump to say anyone who works at a company that doesn't whiteboard "fails at basic algorithm questions"
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