Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 83 posts

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

#21

Post by jgh »

matt4077 wrote: post #10

They've made some bad decisions, but it seems that they've managed to right the ship again, with the latest releases of firefox getting rave reviews and some really exciting technologies slowly taking shape. Firefox has been widely panned the last few years, but that may have been somewhat harsh, and ungrateful to Mozilla as an organisation. Yes, Chrome has been running laps around them. But that's mostly the result…

I feel like Chrome has been getting consistently worse recently. For example there are some pretty rough video-related bugs - at least on macOS - that have been around for at least a year. I guess that's what happens when you're on top, you get complacent. Maybe Firefox has an opening.

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

#22

Post by nsebban »

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…

> Is it a sinking ship? Only if we're not up for the challenge of fighting back corporations that want to lock the web being walled gardens. Time will tell, but someone should fight the good fight, even if it's a lost cause.

It definitely is a fight worth fighting. And most people will agree that having several good web-browser options is important.

What bothers me is the strategy that Mozilla used, to try and compete with Chrome by giving Firefox users a browser that looks like, and feeling like Chrome.

I wouldn't want to work for an organisation who makes such ill-advised choices.

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

#23

Post by dao- »

Come help us prevent the ship from sinking. :)

I've been at Mozilla for ~11 years, worked from home for many years, now splitting my time between the Berlin office and home. I feel good about the work I do and don't intend to change jobs anytime soon.

There have been some leadership / management issues but it's not all bad. Admittedly some people (e.g. those working on Firefox OS) were effected more than others.

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

#24

Post by ben-schaaf »

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.

When I open Chrome it sends me to google.com. How is that any different?

Either way I'm going to settings and making it reopen the tabs I last had open.

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

#26

Post by smaddox »

nonsince wrote: post #11
mandie wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not to mention Rust is already successful, with several large companies using it in production. I expect it will continue to garner interest, especially if the fearless concurrency model keeps improving. Zero cost futures are pretty amazing.

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

#28

Post by vanderZwan »

dao- wrote: post #23

Come help us prevent the ship from sinking. :) I've been at Mozilla for ~11 years, worked from home for many years, now splitting my time between the Berlin office and home. I feel good about the work I do and don't intend to change jobs anytime soon. There have been some leadership / management issues but it's not all bad. Admittedly some people (e.g. those working on Firefox OS) were effected more than others.

> the Berlin office

There's a Berlin office? Wait, what am I saying, of course there's an office for an organisation like Mozilla in privacy-obsessed Germany.

... are they hiring? EDIT: Yes!

https://careers.mozilla.org/listings/

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

#29

Post by jpfed »

dao- wrote: post #23

Come help us prevent the ship from sinking. :) I've been at Mozilla for ~11 years, worked from home for many years, now splitting my time between the Berlin office and home. I feel good about the work I do and don't intend to change jobs anytime soon. There have been some leadership / management issues but it's not all bad. Admittedly some people (e.g. those working on Firefox OS) were effected more than others.

It's really too bad about Firefox OS. My wife is really big on privacy and doesn't care about native apps- it would have been the perfect solution for her.

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

#30

Post by gcp »

vanderZwan wrote: post #28
dao- wrote: post #23

Come help us prevent the ship from sinking. :) I've been at Mozilla for ~11 years, worked from home for many years, now splitting my time between the Berlin office and home. I feel good about the work I do and don't intend to change jobs anytime soon. There have been some leadership / management issues but it's not all bad. Admittedly some people (e.g. those working on Firefox OS) were effected more than others.

> the Berlin office There's a Berlin office? Wait, what am I saying, of course there's an office for an organisation like Mozilla in privacy-obsessed Germany. ... are they hiring? EDIT: Yes! https://careers.mozilla.org/listings/

https://careers.mozilla.org/listings/?location=Berlin

Quite a bit.

Post reply on HN