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Show HN: Key Values – Find engineering teams that share your values

keyvalues.io

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Re: Show HN: Key Values – Find engineering teams that share your values

#91

Post by azernik »

saghm wrote: post #89
Jemaclus wrote: post #67

I would second the option to negate some of these "values." There are about eight that I don't consider to be "values", but just to pick one of them at random, I don't consider "has good beer" to be a value I look for in a company. In fact, I consider a focus on alcohol in the workplace to be a red flag and would like the ability to filter out a place like that. In my experience, workplaces with alcohol in them tend…

> In my experience, workplaces with alcohol in them tend to focus their work-related happy hours around drinking. As someone who does not drink, I often feel left out of those social activities, and am often actively shamed for not participating. I also don't drink, and in my (relatively short) experience in the tech industry, the term "social event" almost exclusively refers to events where the primary focus is alco…

Definitely an issue in other industries (see e.g. law), but not in all industries.

Re: Show HN: Key Values – Find engineering teams that share your values

#92

Post by alexryan »

aqme28 wrote: post #88
slavapestov wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really have one without the other. It's not really meritocracy if you're excluding a large portion of your candidate pool due to bias.

I really don't understand this meme. I've never seen a company where I felt like straight white males (myself being one of them) were excluded due to diversity initiatives. We're still pretty well-represented at even the most staunchly pro-diversity companies.

Personally, I would prefer to work exclusively with those who value meritocracy more because diversity proponents are very often believers in the ideology of perpetual victimhood. As such they are always in conflict with everyone and generally suck the joy out of life. I find them intolerable and want to keep them as far away from me as possible.

Re: Show HN: Key Values – Find engineering teams that share your values

#93

Post by meritt »

Volt wrote: post #85
meritt wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time work/life balance comes up I get so damn annoyed with this uniquely tech-centric viewpoint. You've got people bringing home $150-350k/yr plus every imaginable perk fretting over the idea of putting in more than 40 hours a week. Even high-skilled high-pay workers (medicine, legal, and finance come to mind) put in lots of hours without whimpering about finding a balance, much less the vast percentage of the…

>You've got people bringing home $150-350k/yr plus every imaginable perk So now you've made this assumption. I get what you're saying, but you also have to understand that there are people willing to give up salary for more free time, and these people are therefore allowed to ask for fewer hours. There's no entitlement here.

My assumption is based on the demographics and salaries of the average HN user from the numerous polls that always pop up. It tends to be 20-35 year old white males residing on the west coast of the US where salaries begin at $100k+ for bootcamp grads with zero experience [1], and staff engineers at Facebook/Apple/Amazon/Netflix/Google can easily bring home $500k+ in total compensation.

Developers overwhelmingly choose [2] "Vacation Time" and "Expected Work hours" as their primary attraction when choosing employers. HN users constantly [3] talk about achieving a "work/life balance" and sharply criticize any job which they requires work beyond ~40 hours/week.

So you have one of the most well-compensated career paths combined with the lowest barrier to entry and the primary things people are concerned with is minimizing their time spent working. You're damn right I'm going to call that entitled.

[1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JR4KrVH1dygniLiLFAMT...

[2] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2017#work-what-dev...

[3] https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+...

Re: Show HN: Key Values – Find engineering teams that share your values

#94

Post by slavapestov »

alexryan wrote: post #92
aqme28 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand this meme. I've never seen a company where I felt like straight white males (myself being one of them) were excluded due to diversity initiatives. We're still pretty well-represented at even the most staunchly pro-diversity companies.

Personally, I would prefer to work exclusively with those who value meritocracy more because diversity proponents are very often believers in the ideology of perpetual victimhood. As such they are always in conflict with everyone and generally suck the joy out of life. I find them intolerable and want to keep them as far away from me as possible.

> Personally, I would prefer to work exclusively with those who value meritocracy more because diversity proponents are very often believers in the ideology of perpetual victimhood.

I think you're projecting. The only displays of victimhood I've seen in this context is from white males who (incorrectly) believe that an increased focus on diversity means they are somehow being discriminated against.

If you create value for your employer and can demonstrate a minimum level of competence when it comes to technical and people skills you really have nothing to fear from diversity. It is ridiculous that this even needs to be pointed out.

Re: Show HN: Key Values – Find engineering teams that share your values

#96

Post by xenity7 »

Jemaclus wrote: post #67

I would second the option to negate some of these "values." There are about eight that I don't consider to be "values", but just to pick one of them at random, I don't consider "has good beer" to be a value I look for in a company. In fact, I consider a focus on alcohol in the workplace to be a red flag and would like the ability to filter out a place like that. In my experience, workplaces with alcohol in them tend…

It's a little bit hard to capture in a survey, but the reality is you can't value everything. Values aren't a list of all the things you think are good, it's a list of the things you value "above replacement".

Even just talking about what values your company has is very instructive and revealing. Sure, few people say "we don't value maintainable code", but if you're putting together a list of your four or five core values and you're coming up with things like "speed of execution", "rapid iteration" and you don't put anything about mainainability, the reality is you don't value that.

You might not object to it, but it just isn't important to you - you don't value it.

Re: Show HN: Key Values – Find engineering teams that share your values

#97

Post by Jemaclus »

lynnetye wrote: post #79
Jemaclus wrote: post #67

I would second the option to negate some of these "values." There are about eight that I don't consider to be "values", but just to pick one of them at random, I don't consider "has good beer" to be a value I look for in a company. In fact, I consider a focus on alcohol in the workplace to be a red flag and would like the ability to filter out a place like that. In my experience, workplaces with alcohol in them tend…

I am a firm believer that saying what you are not can be more informative than saying what you are. So yes, the option to "negate" values is on the roadmap :) Re: ambiguous "value tags", they're up for interpretation. I encourage you (and others) to read how different teams describe the same value and what it means to them. Also, there are several teams who didn't choose Creative + Innovative, Customer Comes First, a…

Good points!

Re: Show HN: Key Values – Find engineering teams that share your values

#98

Post by Jemaclus »

aqme28 wrote: post #86
Jemaclus wrote: post #67

I would second the option to negate some of these "values." There are about eight that I don't consider to be "values", but just to pick one of them at random, I don't consider "has good beer" to be a value I look for in a company. In fact, I consider a focus on alcohol in the workplace to be a red flag and would like the ability to filter out a place like that. In my experience, workplaces with alcohol in them tend…

Love of product makes total sense to me. Do the employees use the product? For some companies it's incredibly important, and for others it's a non-starter (usually B2C).

The value is called "bonded by love of product" not "Employees use product". I'm not really convinced that's what it means.

Re: Show HN: Key Values – Find engineering teams that share your values

#99

Post by Jemaclus »

xenity7 wrote: post #96
Jemaclus wrote: post #67

I would second the option to negate some of these "values." There are about eight that I don't consider to be "values", but just to pick one of them at random, I don't consider "has good beer" to be a value I look for in a company. In fact, I consider a focus on alcohol in the workplace to be a red flag and would like the ability to filter out a place like that. In my experience, workplaces with alcohol in them tend…

It's a little bit hard to capture in a survey, but the reality is you can't value everything. Values aren't a list of all the things you think are good, it's a list of the things you value "above replacement". Even just talking about what values your company has is very instructive and revealing. Sure, few people say "we don't value maintainable code", but if you're putting together a list of your four or five core v…

Good point. I don't value flat organizations, but that doesn't mean my company has a hierarchy. You're definitely right.

Re: Show HN: Key Values – Find engineering teams that share your values

#100

Post by erikpukinskis »

Domenic_S wrote: post #53
javajosh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea, but there are some important values missing from the list: 1. Principle over loyalty. 2. Empower individuals over institutions. 3. Self-restraint over greed. 4. Decisions based on reason, not ego. 5. Give back to Open Source. Thanks.

These don't fit well into what OP's doing. What company in their right mind would say "We base our decisions on ego over reason"? Even though that might be true....

Many companies run decisions based on seniority. If you're on top, you choose. You have no responsibility to explain your choices, or have detailed reasoning. You earned the privilege of deciding through your success, and your continued status lives or dies by your continued success.

That's very different from a company where the value is to be transparent, solicit input from everyone, and let decisions be questioned by underlings with rational concerns.

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