How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics • Hacker News Board

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#141

Post by serge2k » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 11:56 AM UTC

codeonfire wrote: post #131

readams wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that most companies have a small handful of such people, and lots of vice presidents. They want you to think it's equivalent, but the reality is that, Facebook and anywhere, there's only so far you can go on the technical track.

Exactly. Managers decide who is high level on the engineering side and also want to save money and have high management salaries. It's completely stupid to think that there won't be 500 VP's and 3 distinguished engineers in this situation, which is how it exactly is at the large tech companies.

Seems to me the solution to that problem would be to make the salary bands for engineers wider, so you can keep growing salary wise even if you pretty much cap out in terms of technical ability.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#142

Post by jonlucc » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 12:07 PM UTC

tmptmp wrote: post #139

biztos wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Follow the money, right? If, say, a Software Architect and a Senior Director have the same pay and the same perks and the same bonus structure, and it really does take a talented person the same amount of time to climb that high from (say) Software Engineer and Manager, then they're parallel. If any of that favors one side over the other then they're not. I doubt any company is going to give access to enough data to…

>>If, say, a Software Architect and a Senior Director have the same pay and the same perks and the same bonus structure, and it really does take a talented person the same amount of time to climb that high from (say) Software Engineer and Manager, then they're parallel. I have a doubt: "the same pay and the same perks" things seem okay but "the same bonus structure" seems difficult to understand. A manager has more v…

In my company (pharma, not tech), the bonus structure is based on salary and some multiplier. The multiplier is the same across the entire company and is based on key performance factors from several departments. For 2 employees with the same base salary, their bonuses will be the same regardless of job title.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#143

Post by dunkelheit » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 12:09 PM UTC

Some time ago at my workplace new top management proclaimed that "there was too much politics". In retrospect, what they really meant is they were uncomfortable with middle management holding too much decision-making power. So they took steps to ensure a more top-down structure and middle management was basically left with a task of overseeing their reports so they don't slack off.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#144

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 12:27 PM UTC

kmonsen wrote: post #120

alexgartrell wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're absolutely right, in general, but I've been at Facebook for 5 years now, and the one thing I'll say about it is that once you establish a track record of 1) doing good work and 2) making good long-term decisions, that trumps any considerations around level. The culture is definitely such that the very senior folks (Director++) will value trust over level, so it's very much "influence over authority." P…

"value trust over level" Isn't this the definition of politics? Trust is a personal feeling based on other opinion and your own experience while level should be based on documented achievements in the company. Same with influence over authority. Influence is just another word for politics.

Office politics becomes toxic because it's about using political structures for personal gain.

Political status becomes the primary product at work. Actual work performance of individuals and teams becomes secondary.

Decisions become increasingly irrational because the interests of low-status individuals - including customers, suppliers, and other employees - start being seen as an annoying distractions from personal profit/status.

If that's reversed and performance becomes more important than status, you're already in a healthier place.

Empires can be very profitable. But they're also miserable places to work, and they rarely have much customer good will.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#145

Post by jaeh » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 12:46 PM UTC

devonkim wrote: post #61

chrisseaton wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really work for a genuine co-operative where all decisions are made by consensus of the workers? I'd be surprised and interested to learn more if that's the case.

There's a Brazillian company (Semco) that's like this supposedly, but I have to wonder how they're doing today with so much of the company involved with energy.

there also is the mondragon cooperative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

there also is a ted talk by semco ceo ricardo semler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4vzhweOefs

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#146

Post by hashkb » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 2:48 PM UTC

kmonsen wrote: post #120

alexgartrell wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're absolutely right, in general, but I've been at Facebook for 5 years now, and the one thing I'll say about it is that once you establish a track record of 1) doing good work and 2) making good long-term decisions, that trumps any considerations around level. The culture is definitely such that the very senior folks (Director++) will value trust over level, so it's very much "influence over authority." P…

"value trust over level" Isn't this the definition of politics? Trust is a personal feeling based on other opinion and your own experience while level should be based on documented achievements in the company. Same with influence over authority. Influence is just another word for politics.

Thank you. So obvious.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#147

Post by codeonfire » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 3:06 PM UTC

serge2k wrote: post #141

codeonfire wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Managers decide who is high level on the engineering side and also want to save money and have high management salaries. It's completely stupid to think that there won't be 500 VP's and 3 distinguished engineers in this situation, which is how it exactly is at the large tech companies.

Seems to me the solution to that problem would be to make the salary bands for engineers wider, so you can keep growing salary wise even if you pretty much cap out in terms of technical ability.

How would that be a solution? The problem is that managers don't want to pay engineers and would rather pay themselves, so everything else follows from that.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#148

Post by nilkn » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 3:12 PM UTC

I can't speak about FB personally, but I learned the hard way my first few years out of college that at most companies managers are simply given more respect, power, and money than engineers in general. It takes an extraordinarily talented high-impact developer who revolutionizes the company's technology in order to match a run-of-the-mill Director or VP who just shows up to work and "manages" teams of developers -- and even then the match will only be in salary, not in overall power in the organization and probably not in bonus structure either. You'll still be left out of countless meetings and kept in the dark on many decisions you could contribute to effectively.

I say that I learned the hard way because I focused on being that high-impact developer. At my first job, I rewrote the company's core software to make it (really) an order of magnitude faster, providing the basis for the company's sustainability for the next decade. My salary skyrocketed. My title did not. I was forever stuck in a limbo of being just a "developer" while being paid as much as an executive but being excluded from every executive meeting and not even being involved in hiring for the team that would maintain the software I wrote on which the entire company depended. I was still stuck in a cubicle while the managers were sure to get very nice, spacious offices with ludicrous window views.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#149

Post by icebraining » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

jomamaxx wrote: post #114

specialist wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"decisions for the product are made by consensus of the team" I favor democratic decision making processes. Use voting systems appropriate for the task. Roman eval for new hires, go/no go. Approval voting for triage, new features. JADs for "visions". Creative writing exercise for post-mortems. Etc. "Democratic" does not mean winner-takes-all, which is suboptimal. "Democratic" does not mean consensus.

"Use voting systems appropriate for the task. " I rather don't agree with this one. 'Voting' should almost never, ever be used. For so many reasons. Rarely should everyone have an 'equal say'. You are not 'equal citizens' in this. Second - is that it leads to politics - 'I helped you last time, you help me this time' etc. Unless you get into crazy things like 'hidden ballots'. There is no substitute for leadership. O…

Who decides who are the experts, and who checks their work?

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#150

Post by k-mcgrady » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 3:27 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #148

I can't speak about FB personally, but I learned the hard way my first few years out of college that at most companies managers are simply given more respect, power, and money than engineers in general. It takes an extraordinarily talented high-impact developer who revolutionizes the company's technology in order to match a run-of-the-mill Director or VP who just shows up to work and "manages" teams of developers --…

I really don't understand this view. They're different jobs. If you want to have the power an exec has become an exec. More than likely you cannot do both effectively at the same time. Yes, there are shitty managers but there are also a lot of them doing stuff an engineer doesn't have the skills to do. In all industries people think they could do a better job than their boss - usually it's not true and if it is learn new skills to take their job from them or start your own company.