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My Google job was tedious and pointless

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Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#311

Post by khedoros1 »

slackstation wrote: post #310
khedoros1 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've said shitty and complex code...how about voluminous code, or old code? The main product that I work on has about 2 million lines of C, C++, and Java code in the core of the system, then about 20 plugins ranging in size from a few thousand lines to a few hundred thousand lines. We basically hire for sections of the codebase. It's pretty common for developers to discover the existence of an area of code that the…

Why have everyone know all of 2M lines of code? Programming is about abstraction, knowing what a subsystem does, what it's responsible for should be adequate most of the time until you need to fix something inside it. We aren't doctors, we just need the skills to figure things out and fix them quickly.

The system's more broad than deep, mostly. Lots of functionality covered, but for the most part, the abstractions aren't super-deep.

My point was that someone can ramp up quickly on a portion of the system and have a vague idea of other parts of it, but "mastering" it covers too much code to do it in a reasonable time. Each plugin introduces special cases for the data flow, and the plumbing for that ends up running through the whole system.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#312

Post by bumblebritches5 »

dudul wrote: post #256
trgv wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disturbing to me how many people here seem to be okay with executives and higher-ups expressing grief over the results of an election, in the office. I don't think that stuff has any place at work. It's a red-flag to me if that kind of thing is commonplace in the office. Not only is it distracting, but it's insulting to employees who may have an opposite position politically. If you're emotionally affected by so…

That's really something that surprised me a lot after moving to the US. In my culture, politics is very much like religion, it is unthinkable to talk about it openly in a place of work.

That's how it is in the midwest.

The Democratic Republic of California is a liberal shithole.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#313

Post by dragonwriter »

trgv wrote: post #139
ogre_magi wrote: post #12

I worked at Google in a more technical role but I sympathize with this guy. The culture was awful and empty. It was sugar-coated candies and colors and happy, happy, happy like it was meant for a kindergartener. The politics were thick and covered everything. Executives got on stage at a company meeting and cried about the election. It was a cult, and not in the good way that a startup can sometimes be, but in a stal…

It's disturbing to me how many people here seem to be okay with executives and higher-ups expressing grief over the results of an election, in the office. I don't think that stuff has any place at work. It's a red-flag to me if that kind of thing is commonplace in the office. Not only is it distracting, but it's insulting to employees who may have an opposite position politically. If you're emotionally affected by so…

> I don't think that stuff has any place at work.

Companies are often intensely political; artificially pretending neutrality internally while actively working externally to influence the political landscape to me is more bizarre than being open about politics in the office.

If a corporation actually is solidly neutral and inactive politically in it's external actions, then, sure, the internal environment should reflect that.

> it's insulting to employees who may have an opposite position politically.

I don't see how that's any less true of a company's external political activism.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#314

Post by kamaal »

dragonwriter wrote: post #313
trgv wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disturbing to me how many people here seem to be okay with executives and higher-ups expressing grief over the results of an election, in the office. I don't think that stuff has any place at work. It's a red-flag to me if that kind of thing is commonplace in the office. Not only is it distracting, but it's insulting to employees who may have an opposite position politically. If you're emotionally affected by so…

> I don't think that stuff has any place at work. Companies are often intensely political; artificially pretending neutrality internally while actively working externally to influence the political landscape to me is more bizarre than being open about politics in the office. If a corporation actually is solidly neutral and inactive politically in it's external actions, then, sure, the internal environment should refl…

'Corporation' isn't exactly a living thing that it will have sentiments of its own. People essentially make up the company, and those people have emotions based on how the profit needle and their stake in it moves.

Most Silicon valley companies depend heavily on immigrant talent and resource pool to keep the perpetual billion dollar start ups coming every year.

If your political sentiments are in deep opposition to what brings in your salary, you already have a very broken view of your life in general. And a company executive expressing any sentiment isn't going matter much, if at all.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#315

Post by belorn »

dragonwriter wrote: post #313
trgv wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disturbing to me how many people here seem to be okay with executives and higher-ups expressing grief over the results of an election, in the office. I don't think that stuff has any place at work. It's a red-flag to me if that kind of thing is commonplace in the office. Not only is it distracting, but it's insulting to employees who may have an opposite position politically. If you're emotionally affected by so…

> I don't think that stuff has any place at work. Companies are often intensely political; artificially pretending neutrality internally while actively working externally to influence the political landscape to me is more bizarre than being open about politics in the office. If a corporation actually is solidly neutral and inactive politically in it's external actions, then, sure, the internal environment should refl…

If we accept that, should we not also accept religious views in the internal environment? Many religions view unbelievers in a very negative way, and active missionary behavior inside a company would feel very oppressive to those who don't share the same religion as the one being promoted.

Personally I would not work at a place which did so, and would consider reporting it to the anti-discrimination department in my country.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#316

Post by kamaal »

notyourwork wrote: post #229
jondubois wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked for big tech corporations a few times before, no matter how much they pay, I can never stay there longer than 6 months. There is so much inefficiency. It's good for 6 months but after that I feel myself getting dumber by the day. Not all corporations are like this but most of them are. Handing my resignation felt great every time. It's addictive in fact. Just seeing the disappointment in my boss' face and…

I feel that 6 months isn't enough time to conclude much. Also, I don't see how you are able to mature your technical skillset in 6 months because a large portion of maturation in software design is reflecting back on how your deliverable performs in future. If I ship a product this year, next year I can reflect back on how the requirements change, how I didn't anticipate a customer use case and learn from this for fu…

Its a huge red flag.

Job Hopping every six months translates to 'cant be trusted with any serious work'.

In India its more or less a given, that your resume won't even make it past the screening stage.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#317

Post by dang »

bogomipz wrote: post #230
dang wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your [...] you That's unduly personal, and therefore uncivil, regardless of how wrong someone else is. Unfortunately this kind of thing appears frequently in your comment history. Would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when commenting here?

I'm confused, my use of possessive pronouns is uncivil? I've read the guidelines, specifically the "In Comments" section. I'm failing to see where my comment runs afoul of the guidelines. It's not snark, its not something you wouldn't say face to face etc. Can you you elaborate?

Not the pronoun itself, of course, but when you use it to make negative insinuations about the person you're talking to, that's unduly personal and crosses into incivility. You did it twice above. Other examples in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15472109. Please don't do this.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#318

Post by kamaal »

cromwellian wrote: post #42
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that a bunch of current and former Googlers have claimed that employees all the way up to the executive level keep and share lists of people they won't work with, there are alleged witch hunts, and people have made the statement they will quit the company if someone else isn't fired, it's hard to see how Google's culture has grown out of kindergarten. (Sources: Various internal G+ leaks during the Damore thing,…

Mostly bullshit in my opinion. I've been at Google since 2009. Never heard of so-called blacklists, but in a company with tens of thousands of employees, you can probably find a few people who hold grudges against other people. What's your point? You don't think at other companies, corporate politics doesn't create animosity of people who don't want to work with others? I previously worked at IBM and Oracle for years…

>>IBM and Oracle for years and I can tell you, that kind of behavior is exponentially worse

These dynamics are common in any system where you have a pyramid structure and resources are limited.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#319

Post by kamaal »

s73ver_ wrote: post #75
cromwellian wrote: post #31

Recruiting is outsourced at many companies. I'm not sure why this person thought it would be a hugely interesting job. Perhaps if they were an engineering major and were working on ways to automate recruiting searches, or improve the false positive/false negative rates, it would have been interesting, but it doesn't sound like this person was hired for anything but to man the phones. From that standpoint, it seems li…

This narrative that only engineers deserve to have interesting and fulfilling jobs needs to end. It's nothing but elitism, and adding the "#firstworldproblems" doesn't do anything to help your cause.

>>This narrative that only engineers deserve to have interesting and fulfilling jobs needs to end.

You are largely limited by what scope your professions ecosystem has to offer. If you are an accountant, the last time you have learned anything exciting or read something serious about your area of academic training is way back in college. Beyond this your job essentially is a ritual, much of which is automated incrementally every few months.

Programmers are in many ways lucky, that we are in an ecosystem that offers chances for continuous learning, making incremental steps in success and failures, and by the sheer volume of it offering a degree of success. All rapidly growing fields are that way. At one point it was Electronics, and before that and for a few centuries it was mechanical engineering. Tomorrow it might be something else, the trick is to know in time and move on.

You will be surprised that even professions like Medicine get very boring, monotonous and don't pay well over time. I know a doctor among my extended family, who was a very brilliant dynamic man, also very creative. But over years has seems to seen enormous erosion in overall perception in life. It gets very hard to keep your spark alive if for several hours per day in your life you have to be in an ecosystem that tries to purge it.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#320

Post by pandaman »

komali2 wrote: post #141
DarronWyke wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Any time I see a recruiter try to automate initial contact using a tool like Jobdiva or some such, it's an instant disqualification. Most of the time it's just plain shotgunned out and I never hear anything beyond the initial email. I had one recruiter, after doing that, call me and inquire -- I told him no, and explained to him that I don't do business with those who willingly use spamming tools.

I get why it's frustrating, but one way or the other the job has to get filled. When I was a recruiter I'd blast out emails as well, but only to candidates I actually thought were qualified. Knowing that of 20 people the recruiter knows that are a good fit, only 2 might be available, what would your preferred method be of them going about their job?

Telling people why you think they are qualified might help, at least they will know it's not some random e-mail blast sent to the whole address book. Telling why you think your job is going to be better than their current job is the best though. Also, while trying to answer that question, you may find out that there is no point in e-mailing them in the first place.
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