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Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

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Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#111

Post by twodave »

lsc wrote: post #97
ringaroundthetx wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix compensation packages are base salary only. So they are competitive by attempting to compute the value of Google or Facebook compensation packages which include shares and generous bonuses, and then Netflix aims to slightly beat that as well. Netflix has other perks of course. But they also have a pretty crazy layoff policy and they brag about how awesome their severance package is. Employment as Netflix is r…

>Employment as Netflix is really a mixture of the income premium and lack of stability that a contractor would have, with a compensation structure closer to a startup (base salary only, no formalized bonuses). Note, ever since IC Engineers started getting significant bonus/stock grants (Which, I think, is something that has been a thing for less than a decade, at least for grants of publicly traded stock.) From what…

Maybe this is true on the west coast, but most of us don't work over there.

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#112

Post by azuriten »

tome wrote: post #99
azuriten wrote: post #91

There was an episode NPR Planet Money where they had a former hiring manager explain Netflix's work culture. I recommend giving it a listen; it's only 20 mins. npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/13/550793717/episode-647-hard-work-is-irrelevant There was a story where a woman who worked herself sick for the company and was on sick leave. Netflix essentially said don't worry, take as much time off as you want but really it…

Did she get paid for her sick leave?

It isn't mentioned in the podcast.

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#113

Post by brutus1213 »

miranda_rights wrote: post #88
astrange wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do they do all day? Pressing play and getting video already works, and you can’t program your way out of Netflix’s existential threat of nobody renewing their streaming licenses.

Netflix does a lot of work on reliability/availability and are known for being good at it - they've actually open-sourced a lot of their tooling too.

That's right. Search for Netflix OSS. Their infra tooling for the cloud is amazing, and something to aspire too. I'm an outsider and have always admired them.

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#114

Post by WatchDog »

shmerl wrote: post #9
fusiongyro wrote: post #6

Without even looking at the article, I would guess so simply because what Netflix purports to do is what they actually do and how they make money, so there's no ethical shell game being played against starry-eyed junior developers.

> so there's no ethical shell game being played Netflix has some shady stuff like DRM going on, while pretending it's not their fault it was pushed into HTML standard.

What do you mean by they pretend it's not their fault? They seem to be very open about it, even boasting about their DRM work on their blog[1]. As unethical as DRM may be, I don't think Netflix have been dishonest about their involvement with it.

https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/html5-video-at-netflix-7...

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#115

Post by TruffleMuffin »

CaptSpify wrote: post #75
camhenlin wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you suggest that they do that?

That is a good question, and I'm not sure I have a good answer. Kickstarter and Patreon seem to be doing pretty well, but AFAIK they haven't been used to such a scale so they may not work for this. This is a big issue and our economy is largely suffering for it, but old-world thinking about treating digital goods like physical goods is a poor response.

Veronica Mars movie was made through kickstarter way back when. That was successful, and specifically covered cost of production. I can't remember the donation system, but most tiers got free digital copy of the film.

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#116

Post by nonamechicken »

jlesk wrote: post #65
fro0116 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "top tier", do you also mean people who are willing to put in longer than normal hours and deal with a super-competitive culture and the office politics and drama that come with it? Or am I reading too much into the quotations? I'm honestly just interested in hearing more about what the culture at Netflix is like.

Netflix employee here. You can find out a lot about our culture from our culture page: https://jobs.netflix.com/culture It's not just marketing fluff. It really does a good job of reflecting what it's like to work there, and is taken seriously by everyone from the top down. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it's not a competitive environment, and I've experience very little politics and drama. Those things are…

A while back, I remember reading something about how Netflix will periodically re-interview their employees and if they fail, fire them. Is it (still) a thing? Also, what about stories such as this: http://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/437291792/how-the-architect-of...

"Today, Netflix offers unlimited vacation time, high salaries. This company doesn't care how long you're in the office, but they do care about what you produce. And you have to produce. Here's another slide. We are a team, not a family. We are a pro sports team, not a kids recreational team.

Netflix fires people, even hard-working people.

HENN: How many people have you moved on?

MCCORD: Oh, hundreds.

HENN: I talked to a lot of former employees were OK with this deal. I mean, after all, Netflix pays well. But some talked about a culture of fear - always been worried about being fired. Patty says the company's culture is a big reason for its success. She says it keeps Netflix lean and nimble."

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#117

Post by hatred »

brailsafe wrote: post #15
Bahamut wrote: post #3

That Glassdoor reference on Netflix software engineer salaries is wrong/outdated from my understanding - I don’t know a single Netflixer making less than $300k. Netflix seems to have an unusually open culture in general, including topics such as salary - they put their money where their mouth is and basically egg everyone on to beat them. Gotta respect that a company is willing to do that (I don’t work for them, but…

If this is true, as someone who is unemployed and doesn't watch Netflix, I can't even wrap my head around that number. On the other hand, I'm kind of happy to see that they're making real money by charging real money (unlike others where your information is the only product) and passing that on to the people who make it good.

You also need to understand that they believe in hiring/keeping high-performers that are much more productive than average engineers. This is how you can justify the much higher salaries (top of market). IIUC, this means; You are effectively rewarding the high performing team more by maintaining a smaller team.

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#118

Post by lightbyte »

shmerl wrote: post #9
fusiongyro wrote: post #6

Without even looking at the article, I would guess so simply because what Netflix purports to do is what they actually do and how they make money, so there's no ethical shell game being played against starry-eyed junior developers.

> so there's no ethical shell game being played Netflix has some shady stuff like DRM going on, while pretending it's not their fault it was pushed into HTML standard.

As someone that works for a company with a moderately similar business model as netflix, I can almost guarantee that Netflix is not imposing this DRM by their own volition. It is highly likely that the owners of the rights to their content force the DRM as a condition of allowing their content to be used.

Re: Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees

#120

Post by storgendibal »

kamaal wrote: post #92
jlesk wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Netflix employee, I wouldn't really describe our culture as cutthroat at all. My experience in 5 years has almost entirely devoid of politics. For example, from our culture page: "We have no bell curves or rankings or quotas such as “cut the bottom 10% every year.” That would be detrimental to fostering collaboration, and is a simplistic, rules-based approach we would never support." https://jobs.netflix.com/cul…

>>We have no bell curves or rankings or quotas such as “cut the bottom 10% every year. This is possible in companies growing rapidly or bringing in lots of money. In 1990s, It was very common in Indian IT services firms to openly talk about salaries and promotions, as getting the best of both was easy for every one. Enter 2000s and all of this came to an abrupt end, stack ranking emerged out of nothing as people comp…

This is spot on! The same goes for so many other companies. When the pie is growing, everyone gets a bigger piece, there is lots of whitespace to move into, mid-level folks can stretch into more senior roles, faster and more effectively than it takes the company to hire external senior people, and so on.
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