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Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

mtlynch.io

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Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#341

Post by NutriSugar »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #120
dep_b wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in a remote team once helping a company in Seattle (that perhaps had a bit of a jock culture problem). I could be stuck for days because following the README in a repo just wasn't enough to get the project to compile and run. Every standup I was telling "I'm completely blocked for the last two days because I cannot run the repo, so I cannot run any tests and at the moment I'm doing absolutely nothing.". To b…

What makes my stomach turn is the interpersonal aspect. How can all your teammates see you fail through no fault of your own for days and pretend they don't notice. Unfortunately in my experience, that's not a rare occurrence.

Having been the 'goto build guy', I've had to cut people off who were seeking me out for very self explanatory issues. For example, when the build threw an error because it couldn't find a file, pointing out where in the error to get the file, but the person seeking help didn't even try reading the error. Basically I limit my intervention to prevent enabling helplessness. The amount of help given also depends on the role of the person as well, junior devs get more hand holding then senior devs.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#342

Post by praneshp »

mgkimsal wrote: post #127
shados wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In one of my previous teams, we did away with individual metrics because they "punished" team players. If an engineer spent most of a week helping another with their issue, it made them look bad in whatever tracker we used by almost every metric. I prefered sticking to trying to optimize whole team velocity and using 1 on 1s and peer reviews to track individual performance where it was needed (eg: compensation review…

relatedly, a friend of mine worked at a place where everyone was on "20% time = bug time". You were expected to spend ~ 20% of your time taking bugs from the bug tracker and fixing them. Bugs closed were part of a metric towards bonuses. People were taking one bug, breaking it in to 3 or 4, then closing all of those. "Add button for X" became * "add button on form" * "add CSS for button" * "update CSS for button" * "…

This was one time where I appreciated living in the bay area. I found out 3 months into a new job that such metrics mattered. I was out before 6, and could've been before 4. Now I know to ask questions to prospective employers and look for signs of such crap.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#343

Post by SiempreViernes »

MadBohr wrote: post #306
dgreensp wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a manager of some kind were to notice the Slack messages and ping someone specific to help, that would be a perfect example of the kind of management that is so sorely lacking at so many companies. Many employees are too burned, or proud, to even put out an SOS... so a cry for help is actually a gift to management. If only it were someone’s job to think for a few minutes each day about each employee and notice if…

Why not both? I cringed when I read OP's comment where he spammed "I'm completely blocked" in the chat without asking for specifics. What a complete lack of individual ownership. Even the best manager can't help somebody who is unwilling to help themselves. Source: am a manager.

I don’t see the reason to assume that was litterally the entire message posted to the channel, it seems more likely OP just pharaphrased what they actually said when the made that commen on a public discussion board.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#344

Post by mtlynch »

southphillyman wrote: post #23
mtlynch wrote: post #2

Author here. Happy to answer any questions about the post or about my experience at Google.

Is your experience common for rank and file Googlers or specific to your role/department? Lots of unrecognized maintenance work, constant project changes, lack of transparency between employees and management. Sounds like an undesirable situation, are these issues that are so widespread there that transferring to another project isn't a likely solution?

Yeah, I think my frustration with the promotion process is pretty widespread. People recognize that the promotion process is flawed, but they also recognize that it's hard to fix. And Google is aware and working to fix it, but making changes to something so important in a 70k+ employee organization is slow.

From other comments, it sounds like in the last month, they've gotten rid of committees for promotion decisions up to the level of Senior Software Engineer, so it does sound like they're moving in the right direction. I suspect in practice, there will be thorny incentives there as well, but I'm hopeful for them.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#345

Post by dhimes »

dgreensp wrote: post #283
Vinnl wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one hand it is indeed disappointing that nobody would help you with this. On the other hand, there's a more pro-active role you could have played yourself in this as well. "When everybody is responsible, nobody is" - what often helps is specifically asking people, by name, to sit down with you for a bit and help you get through it. In fact, there are many social group situations in which asking specific people…

If a manager of some kind were to notice the Slack messages and ping someone specific to help, that would be a perfect example of the kind of management that is so sorely lacking at so many companies. Many employees are too burned, or proud, to even put out an SOS... so a cry for help is actually a gift to management. If only it were someone’s job to think for a few minutes each day about each employee and notice if…

If only it were someone’s job to think for a few minutes each day about each employee and notice if there is some small action that would help them.

This is very good- something managers should do for all of their direct reports. If not every day, then often.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#346

Post by eastbayjake »

Sidebar: This was really great writing for a software engineer! It's a skill a lot of highly-technical people lack but can have great impact when you combine storytelling with technical expertise. I saw one of the author's plans was to write more and find ways to monetize it -- I wish him luck and gave him a Twitter follow to keep up.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#347

Post by dhimes »

jey wrote: post #325
MadBohr wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not both? I cringed when I read OP's comment where he spammed "I'm completely blocked" in the chat without asking for specifics. What a complete lack of individual ownership. Even the best manager can't help somebody who is unwilling to help themselves. Source: am a manager.

One of your jobs as a manager is to debug these people issues, right? So when you get a "bug report" like "I'm stuck", you should investigate the bug and look for a solution, which might be something like "Hey Bob, Jim is having trouble getting the Frobnicator running on his machine. Can you please give him a hand with this later today? Thanks". (This assumes that Jim's SOS was issued in the first half of the day; wa…

True- and then educate the newbie on how to ask for help.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#348

Post by SiempreViernes »

MadBohr wrote: post #310
dep_b wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in a remote team once helping a company in Seattle (that perhaps had a bit of a jock culture problem). I could be stuck for days because following the README in a repo just wasn't enough to get the project to compile and run. Every standup I was telling "I'm completely blocked for the last two days because I cannot run the repo, so I cannot run any tests and at the moment I'm doing absolutely nothing.". To b…

This to me sounds like a complete lack of self-ownership on your part. You literally sat blocked doing nothing for days, without reaching out to an individual to help with this? Instead you just spammed Slack saying you're blocked? While I agree that it would have been nice if somebody helped you, you are in control of your own destiny. If nobody is helping you, you need to personally escalate it and reach out until…

The reason is pretty clear, the worked remotely and so had no means to physically reach out but instead had to wait for people to reply on mail.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#349

Post by colordrops »

cableshaft wrote: post #282
martinraag wrote: post #105

The article really resonated with me, as it's eerily similar to my own experience at Microsoft a couple of years back. Constant reorgs, resulting in projects being cancelled, resulting in lack of motivation, as months of your hard work are thrown out due to unclear decisions by the management. I too was hoping for a senior level promotion. The last project I worked on, I was the only non-senior level developer in a t…

> What I found most off putting, was when meeting my skip-manager (your managers manager) for the first time during my exit interview, all doors for a senior level promotion were suddenly open, to incentivise me to stay. Doesn't feel great when negotiations with your employer are comparable to those had with your cable provider. Wow, that's one hell of a way to look at things. Thanks for that perspective.

Both are businesses, and most successful businesses are sociopathic. That includes game theory both with customers and internal resources. You are a "human resource", not a friend.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#350

Post by wetpaws »

martinraag wrote: post #105

The article really resonated with me, as it's eerily similar to my own experience at Microsoft a couple of years back. Constant reorgs, resulting in projects being cancelled, resulting in lack of motivation, as months of your hard work are thrown out due to unclear decisions by the management. I too was hoping for a senior level promotion. The last project I worked on, I was the only non-senior level developer in a t…

The simplest way at this point would be just to apply to other company at the senior position and then re-apply back.
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