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Ask HN: What's it like to work at Mozilla these days?

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Re: Ask HN: What's it like to work at Mozilla these days?

#11

Post by nonsince »

mandie wrote: post #7
mtmail wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you back up your opinion with links?

Main project is a sinking ship (cf. % of usage), most of their big projects have failed and closed in the last years (mobile, email client, persona, etc), they are caught in a major rewrite of their main project that may never end. It's a matter of time they stop getting funded. This is my opinion; it is what I believe will happen, based on past and current events. Of course I might be wrong, or not.

With all due respect, I don't think it would be fair to call the quantum project a rewrite. They're incrementally replacing components, and it's not like the original code is abandoned in favour of Servo. It's borne fruit already and looks to allow some massive improvements going forward. Chrome is big, but so was IE back in the day and I still use FF. Not because of a moral attachment, but because it's the browser I like using the most.

Re: Ask HN: What's it like to work at Mozilla these days?

#12

Post by inanutshellus »

Jdam wrote: post #9
jvehent wrote: post #5

I've been at Mozilla four years, working on operations security, and I still consider it the best job I've ever had. I worked in banking and a few startups before joining Mozilla, and neither the culture or technology were ever great. Mozilla has both of these things, and a mission statement that still makes me want to get out of bed in the morning (work for mankind, not for the man). Is it a sinking ship? Only if we…

All this "we make the world a better place" is actually the most annoying thing for me as a user. Every time I open Firefox (not so often anymore), I get some "save the world"-spam on the frontpage.

Have you tried changing your default start page? ;-)

Re: Ask HN: What's it like to work at Mozilla these days?

#13

Post by Jdam »

inanutshellus wrote: post #12
Jdam wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this "we make the world a better place" is actually the most annoying thing for me as a user. Every time I open Firefox (not so often anymore), I get some "save the world"-spam on the frontpage.

Have you tried changing your default start page? ;-)

I tried changing my default web browser. Worked.

Re: Ask HN: What's it like to work at Mozilla these days?

#16

Post by leo2urlevan »

(only my opinion here, nothing provided from my employer yadda yadda disclaimer and whatnot)

I've been working at Mozilla for a few years now, although this is my first job I'd say this is really great already. One Venn diagram I saw in the past was about choosing your job and the title read: pick two among "interesting", "well-paid" and "ethical". Well, I think you can easily get all three when working at Mozilla, or at least that's my experience of it.

Also, I'd suggest that some people have very high expectations when they start at Mozilla, hoping it works like a perfect anarchist (in the actual political sense) and democratic organization. It's not the case: Mozilla Corporation is a company (duh!). So it's slightly less corporate than the regular public company (e.g. there are no shareholders), but it is still working like a regular company: vertical hierarchy, meritocratic do-ocracy, OKR, you name it. Some people don't like that and tend to be more virulent towards Mozilla than they would be towards any other corporation, hence the bad opinions on Glassdoor, in my opinion.

Re: Ask HN: What's it like to work at Mozilla these days?

#17

Post by gcp »

zerr wrote: post #14

They advertise remote jobs but it is actually limited to several counties. Also, they differentiate salaries based on your location.

Getting hired directly by Mozilla requires them to have a (minimal) legal presence in your country. If that isn't there, you'll be hired through an intermediary, but that is - as far as I know - possible essentially worldwide.

Re: Ask HN: What's it like to work at Mozilla these days?

#18

Post by jvehent »

zerr wrote: post #14

They advertise remote jobs but it is actually limited to several counties. Also, they differentiate salaries based on your location.

Legal requirements in a handful of countries make it really hard to hire, but the vast majority of the world is usually fair game.

I'm not sure what the industry standard is wrt adjusting salary based on location, but considering the cost of housing in the Bay area or NYC, it seems fair to pay the folks who live there more than, for example, me who lives in the boonies of Florida.

Re: Ask HN: What's it like to work at Mozilla these days?

#20

Post by mnsc »

Jdam wrote: post #9
jvehent wrote: post #5

I've been at Mozilla four years, working on operations security, and I still consider it the best job I've ever had. I worked in banking and a few startups before joining Mozilla, and neither the culture or technology were ever great. Mozilla has both of these things, and a mission statement that still makes me want to get out of bed in the morning (work for mankind, not for the man). Is it a sinking ship? Only if we…

All this "we make the world a better place" is actually the most annoying thing for me as a user. Every time I open Firefox (not so often anymore), I get some "save the world"-spam on the frontpage.

Have you tried stop making the world a worse place? ;-)
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