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Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

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Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#81

Post by jabagonuts »

taway_1212 wrote: post #63
United857 wrote: post #22

I'm biased, but I'd say out of all the "big" tech companies, FB has the best engineering culture. * With few exceptions, engineers aren't hired for a specific team; they go through bootcamp where they get exposure to all parts of the stack and tasks from different teams. * Ideas usually come from engineers. Managers are there to be a sounding board/connect you with people resources as needed. * Moving fast is valued…

> With few exceptions, engineers aren't hired for a specific team; they go through bootcamp where they get exposure to all parts of the stack and tasks from different teams. How is that good? You essentially don't know what you sign up for.

I'm assuming that after the bootcamp they would put you on a team based on your interests and aptitudes. For me, having a choice - or at least feeling like I have a choice - over teams and projects is empowering and exciting.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#82

Post by tyingq »

fdsfsaa wrote: post #57
Vinnl wrote: post #36

Reading the Netflix engineering blog now and then, I do appreciate how many of their engineering decisions also take into account the effect it will have on their colleagues, i.e. "does this change affect how quickly/independently our engineers can do stuff"?

Netflix's stack ranking is a huge turnoff though. Netflix's philosophy is that it has no loyalty to employees and expects none in return. Regardless of Netflix's other attributes, this policy is a huge turn-off. https://www.fastcompany.com/3056662/the-future-of-work/she-c... If I wanted great pay and cutthroat competition, why wouldn't I just work in finance? The finance industry isn't stupid. They have developer eff…

I understand that the actual culture might be different, but their culture deck[1] seems refreshingly honest to me.

[1] http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664/40-The_Ra...

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#83

Post by coldcode »

exfacebook wrote: post #32

Facebook --- far and away the best engineering culture I've ever seen, and I've been programming for 20 years. Other companies aren't even in the same league. Facebook has an incredibly high hiring bar. I never once met someone who I didn't feel was qualified to be there. I was seldom the smartest person in the room. The high average engineer quality allows the company to give developers almost complete autonomy. At…

Fewer developers? There have 15,000 employees, what do they all do?

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#85

Post by cyloneyes »

awareBrah wrote: post #78
BerislavLopac wrote: post #48

ThoughtWorks?

I heard they pay way below market, otherwise I heard mostly good things

I had an initial phone call with them a few years back for a London based position. I had been working in London in the finance industry so had an expectation of what my salary should be. They were after the same caliber of developer that works in finance but not offering them anywhere near the same level of pay. Perhaps the culture would be interesting but a good salary is also important.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#86

Post by mooreds »

culturestate wrote: post #14
jakozaur wrote: post #5

There is no universal scale. Some people prefer to work at big companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook... some at smaller fast moving startups and everything in between. There are for sure better and worse companies in each category, but even within big companies there is huge variance and it depends what you are looking for. Though some generic observation: 1. Product companies tends to have better culture tha…

> Good litmus test is to ask employees, do they have hackathons I'm a designer rather than an engineer, but I've always been a bit puzzled by the popularity of intra-company hackathons. It seems like a great way for management to keep employees working longer hours for less pay – an overnight hackathon that results in, say, 80 hours of additional work from a small team only costs the company some pizzas.

I helped run a hackathon at a real estate brokerage, and we did it during normal business hours. (More here if you want details: http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/768 )

Hackathons don't have to be free labor for pizza.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#87

Post by sporkenfang »

EngineerBetter wrote: post #4

Pivotal. I've had the pleasure of working with many Pivots, and Rob Mee has built a great XP culture.

Pair programming all day, every day I thought I could handle. Turns out, I'm in no state to interface with any other human being, including my SO, at the end of a day of that. I think it's a good fit for a select group of folks who are both extroverted and technical. I also prefer having a tiny corner of my own space at work. It's comforting. At the office where I worked, everyone shared desks (you sit wherever your partner for that project is sitting at the moment) and nobody had their own space. It may be different at other Pivotal offices, but I didn't enjoy the short time I was there.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#88

Post by tyingq »

jakozaur wrote: post #5

There is no universal scale. Some people prefer to work at big companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook... some at smaller fast moving startups and everything in between. There are for sure better and worse companies in each category, but even within big companies there is huge variance and it depends what you are looking for. Though some generic observation: 1. Product companies tends to have better culture tha…

>Some people prefer to work at big companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook... some at smaller fast moving startups and everything in between

On of the "in between" things I really like is working in the IT department of a non-tech company. In that space, there's opportunity to do really well, even if you aren't in the top echelon of tech talent.

Typically, that's not because these companies don't care about technical expertise, but because they want developers with a good balance of tech expertise and business expertise. Someone that's willing to spend enough time with the the business side of the house and listen to their views is highly valued.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#89

Post by mattmanser »

danpalmer wrote: post #47
akerro wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Facebook has very poor engineering culture. They built their iOS app with 18k classes, then claim that iOS and Git can't handle their 'scale'. Let's avoid putting here obvious companies and companies who over-engineer, maybe? http://quellish.tumblr.com/post/126712999812/how-on-earth-th... https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3m5n2n/faceboo...

I've spoken to Facebook engineers who work on their internal source control systems, and it was pretty obvious from talking to them that Git wouldn't work for their purposes. There is plenty of writing about this topic that explains in some detail why Git is unsuitable, and why Mercurial was a better option for them. As for the 18k classes in their iOS app, I don't see why this is a sign of bad engineering? I'd expec…

It's nothing more complex than 100,000s of other apps out there. Yet somehow they managed to create 18k classes?

Scale is handled at the back-end.

Re: Ask HN: What current companies have the best software engineering culture?

#90

Post by billjings »

akerro wrote: post #44
United857 wrote: post #22

I'm biased, but I'd say out of all the "big" tech companies, FB has the best engineering culture. * With few exceptions, engineers aren't hired for a specific team; they go through bootcamp where they get exposure to all parts of the stack and tasks from different teams. * Ideas usually come from engineers. Managers are there to be a sounding board/connect you with people resources as needed. * Moving fast is valued…

I think Facebook has very poor engineering culture. They built their iOS app with 18k classes, then claim that iOS and Git can't handle their 'scale'. Let's avoid putting here obvious companies and companies who over-engineer, maybe? http://quellish.tumblr.com/post/126712999812/how-on-earth-th... https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3m5n2n/faceboo...

But does the app make money? Do people use it?

The light FB app probably does very well by class count metrics, but it's intended for a totally different market. Stateside, much as we may bitch about it, it apparently doesn't matter for an app in FB's position.

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