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Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

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Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#141

Post by Bartweiss »

mljoe wrote: post #97
awkward wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any rollback of free food perks is a bad sign. It's not always a sign of bad health, but if it's not it means the company is softly lowering the status of it's rank and file in order to put in another layer of management.

Does this often happen? Saving money on lunch might delay a company's failure for a week at best. My perspective is most startups will maintain all benefits until the bitter end explicitly to avoid giving their employees this kind of impression. Hints like this might cause critical employees to jump ship during a financial crunch time.

Interestingly, I've mostly seen this happen in the other direction - with successfully growing companies.

Weekly lunch for a whole company isn't a huge deal at a startup, and it's not going to shorten the runway much. But when you've suddenly got 10x or 100x the original employee count it starts to look less pleasant. By the time a company is spending several salaries worth of money on free lunches, it probably looks tempting to cut them. (And it's probably less destructive when everyone knows the finances are going strong.)

Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#143

Post by Paul-ish »

arien wrote: post #89
fnbr wrote: post #67

There's a great article on this topic from Steve Blank: https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear... He argues that a leading indicator is when free food/drinks are removed, as it's a sign that the company is moving from a growth, "we're all in it together" mentality to a cost-cutting one. I, personally, focus on who's getting promoted and who's leaving. If a company is promoting internally and ret…

When I read things like this, I like to take a moment to realise how fortunate we are to work in a sector where something like freebies is almost considered to be a sacred right. Is there any other profession or sector where they get the same treatment? I don't think removing or reducing these benefits is a sign of poor health. I think it's more a sign of turning into a proper business (which needs to answer to the p…

Don't consider it a freebie. Think of it as an untaxed benefit. When you look at it that way, how would you feel if your employer cut other benefits.

Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#144

Post by nikanj »

shimon wrote: post #54

One simple thing missing in most of these replies: ask questions. Ask your boss, ask your peers, ask the CEO now and then. - How is the company doing against its goals for the year? - What does our runway look like? - What signs of product success are we expecting? What are we seeing? Note that in any company, and especially in a startup, all of these questions are rife with uncertainty and stress. You should expect…

Building an image as a person who's interested in the company , not just banging on their bit of code, is a really good idea career-wise. When management is thinking who to promote, the person who always seems to care about the business is a natural choice.

Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#145

Post by nikanj »

Bartweiss wrote: post #141
mljoe wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this often happen? Saving money on lunch might delay a company's failure for a week at best. My perspective is most startups will maintain all benefits until the bitter end explicitly to avoid giving their employees this kind of impression. Hints like this might cause critical employees to jump ship during a financial crunch time.

Interestingly, I've mostly seen this happen in the other direction - with successfully growing companies. Weekly lunch for a whole company isn't a huge deal at a startup, and it's not going to shorten the runway much. But when you've suddenly got 10x or 100x the original employee count it starts to look less pleasant. By the time a company is spending several salaries worth of money on free lunches, it probably looks…

Early-stage startups have real trouble attracting talent. The more the business grows, the less desperate recruitment becomes. Cutting on perks is a decent signal of this: people have actually heard of the company, the stock options seem to really have value, etc, so there's no need to bribe workers with unlimited everything.

Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#147

Post by nikanj »

kzisme wrote: post #58
just4themoney wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually once or twice a year for a seasoned developer, more frequent for jrs. That's been my experience.

I've been at my current position for about ~1.5 years almost without one (I think they are starting to do them soon?). Last time I asked they had said they are implementing a formal process for them. I've just been looking forward to it.

People seem to forget corporate policies are not law. "I would love to review your salary, but we are in a freeze right now" means nothing. You don't have to accept that formal process excuse.

Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#148

Post by Maro »

A simple one is growth. If you're at a startup, it needs to grow. If growth isn't what it should be, it's decelerating, or it's zero, that's trouble. Wait for 6-12 months (depending on size and stability of company), if it's not improving, start looking for other options.

Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#149

Post by rubidium »

kzisme wrote: post #107
just4themoney wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people get raises and/or bonuses it's usually not announced publicly. If your a jr software engineer you should be having regularly scheduled performance reviews. Everyone should be having at least yearly performance review and salary increase (unless you don't deserve a raise, I guess). You shouldn't be going a year and a half without a raise. Push for a review, insist you need formal feedback on your performan…

I see - a few times in the past bonuses have been announced if "x occurs". Yeah I'll bring it up - I'm not sure how "important" it is compared to other day-to-day meetings and such with managers, but hopefully they can find time for it. Thanks for all the input thus far I appreciate it.

It's important. If your managers hair is too on fire to structure and schedule performance reviews then it's a bad company environment. You should not accept it as ok.

Re: Ask HN: As an employee of a company, how do you assess its health?

#150

Post by [deleted] »

fao_ wrote: post #101
arien wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I read things like this, I like to take a moment to realise how fortunate we are to work in a sector where something like freebies is almost considered to be a sacred right. Is there any other profession or sector where they get the same treatment? I don't think removing or reducing these benefits is a sign of poor health. I think it's more a sign of turning into a proper business (which needs to answer to the p…

> I like to take a moment to realise how fortunate we are to work in a sector where something like freebies is almost considered to be a sacred right. Bear in mind that, most programmers do not get paid overtime, and are expected to work like horses. The reason freebies are sacred rights are because those are, in part, the unofficial payment for working in such conditions.

[deleted]
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