Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#381

Post by bthrn » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 6:57 PM UTC

thrownaway954 wrote: post #273

eldavido wrote: post #91

To author: you lost the political game. I busted my ass at a startup for years and also lost the political game. So I'm speaking from experience here. You can either get all mad and worked up and pissed off about it, and waste years of your career (as I did) being pissed off, stubborn, and refusing to change. Or figure out how to play. I'd like to think there are places with better politics but I think it's pretty en…

"In the first place, nobody "works for themself". You might work for customers, or clients, or whatever, but not "yourself"." nail on the head... so many people don't get this simple fact that if you DO NOT have clients, you DO NOT have a business. You can't ever "pay yourself", some outside entity have to pay you for your product.

I know people who have quit full time jobs to write algo trading software for themselves to use -- the market pays them but I wouldn't call it a customer.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#382

Post by MadBohr » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 6:57 PM UTC

BowBun wrote: post #330

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.

A new repo, likely a new employee on a new project. I have to disagree with your statement since you don't know the context at all. If all they're given is a repo with inadequate instructions, there's not much more you can do than keep asking for general help. Comment sounds like typical 'pull yourself up by the bootstraps', meant to put down new talent, ignoring that complex, modern dev environments have many parts…

> 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.

That is not asking for help. Asking for help would be "Can somebody please help me? ... rest of message here...". Even better is asking an individual (or individuals) directly.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#383

Post by DoreenMichele » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

MadBohr wrote: post #378

SiempreViernes wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OP said slack. DM is as simple as doing "/msg @joe.blow I'm blocked, can you please help me?". If no response, go to @joe.blow's colleagues. If still no response, go to their boss. If still no response, go to their bosses's boss. Repeat until you run out of people to escalate to, at which point you find another job.

If they are willing to pay a blocked remote worker for sitting on their ass doing nothing, why should the worker rock the boat so much that they burn all bridges at the company and finally have to get a different job? Remote jobs seem somewhat hard to come by and can be a sweet deal.

The company needs to take at least partial blame here.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#384

Post by madamelic » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

eldavido wrote: post #185

whataretensors wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Second, you're a lot better off working at a good company -- MUCH better off I disagree. There is a whole category of people who want high reward for their efforts. There exists no way to get high rewards or royalties outside of starting your own venture. The downside is the risk of course. I do agree that you shouldn't be angry, but there are so many new ways to exist and survive these days.

I completely agree. My point is opportunity cost. Unless you have a very clear idea of what you want to do/build--which many people do--you're better off with a day job. I see a lot of people essentially rage-quitting (let's be serious, that's what happened here) and then wasting years of their life working bottom-of-the-barrel contracting/crappy startup jobs because they "don't like big companies". I made this mista…

>I see a lot of people essentially rage-quitting (let's be serious, that's what happened here) and then wasting years of their life working bottom-of-the-barrel contracting/crappy startup jobs because they "don't like big companies"

That's basically what I am doing for exactly those reasons. But I don't think my jobs are crappy.

I traded stupid amount of money for more freedom to choose what I work on. I don't want to be a monkey on a keyboard nor do I want to put with the bureaucracy of a big corporation.

Or am I getting it terribly wrong? My brief view of a large organization terrified me and I don't want to work in such a place. Are big places really that much better if I am basically paid the same amount of money?

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#385

Post by nickpsecurity » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 6:59 PM UTC

phamilton wrote: post #64

Writing documentation and fixing bugs is in fact not the bar for a senior software engineer. I don't disagree with the promotion committee on that front. IIRC, Senior Software Engineer is a terminal level. You aren't expected to advance any more once you reach that level. Some do, but you can stay a Senior Engineer for the rest of your career and that's fine. So certainly "can fix bugs and write docs and tests" isn't…

"Writing documentation and fixing bugs"

If you word it that way, it sounds incredibly easy. Actually, what that person did was identify problems in legacy software, reverse engineer them (a hard thing), document them (reduces maintenance/extension costs), and fix problems. A company Google's size will be making most of its revenue on legacy systems that constantly need extension, repair, and refactoring. They'll sometimes do something clean-slate but improving legacy stuff is a high-impact skill.

So, a mix of hard and useful work on numerous legacy systems that can be used to improve revenue-producing systems does sound like it merits some senior, software engineers. Heck, at a lot of companies, there's always senior software engineers guiding people through legacy projects just out of fear of breaking mission-critical systems. Usually a mix of a knowledgeable veteran and some junior coders for grunt work. Whereas, making new features on well-documented, well-tested systems is so easy in comparison that it surprises me that this alone can get people into senior positions if evaluations are done right.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#386

Post by antonkm » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 7:00 PM UTC

debt wrote: post #135

eldavido wrote: post #91

To author: you lost the political game. I busted my ass at a startup for years and also lost the political game. So I'm speaking from experience here. You can either get all mad and worked up and pissed off about it, and waste years of your career (as I did) being pissed off, stubborn, and refusing to change. Or figure out how to play. I'd like to think there are places with better politics but I think it's pretty en…

“unless you have a pretty damn concrete idea of what you're doing.” This. But to take it further, you better be ready to hustle your ass off. Because you need to bring money in which means meeting new clients 24/7/365. Good luck. It’s an impossible amount of work to do alone so hopefully you have a good network.

I don't know if I agree. I work directly with clients together with another dev and I do most sales. It's not 24/7/365. I sell, network and meet new contacts maybe about 35-50% of my week during intense sale periods. I work 35 hour weeks. All year through I have about 4h per week in sales activities.

The "trick" is being socially skilled and interested in others, to get them to trust you with jobs that are large enough so you don't have to be constant lookout for new assignments. (I do not mean to imply that you lack social skills). I have a small client pond (50-75 contacts on first name basis) where I'm becoming the big dev fish and people have started sending referrals my way nowadays.

Your point about going it alone is valid - I chose to partner up because of the crazy amounts of context switching solo operations require.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#387

Post by johngalt » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

derekp7 wrote: post #171

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can give some insight from my own experience. In my current position, there are a large number of "things" that I've had to figure out, either by reverse engineering, reading code, or intuition. So I get constantly bombarded with helping others get unstuck. Well, when it comes time for a project meeting, those on the meeting are far removed from the other groups that I constantly have to help out. And it sounds lik…

Capability and responsibility become conflated very easily. You start off as the superhero who can fix problems, but that gradually creates dependency.

1st year

'Thanks for your help finding that error that was holding us up.'

2nd year

'We are all finished now. Just sent it over to you for debugging.'

3rd year

'Hey we are all waiting on you to fix. Big deadline for big customer.' CC: management

4th year

Management: 'we need to talk a about the regular delays here. We have several teams waiting on you. Also your own code checkin's are much lower than theirs. Seems like you are only making changes to what others write.'

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#388

Post by T_D_K » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

marssaxman wrote: post #367

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…

I have generally chosen to deal with this problem by refusing to acknowledge the existence of bonuses or promotions. It is harder for a warped incentive structure to warp your behavior if you refuse to be motivated by its prizes.

That's noble, but many aren't inclined trade personal profit for the company's profit. I don't think they should be, either. It's the company's job to ensure that their success is aligned with their employees'. Raise the issue to management, and if no action is taken, then you've done your due diligence.

I can imagine situations where you should care about the company's performance, like a non-profit or certain startup situations, but I think the majority of enterprise developers fall under the above.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#389

Post by dezgeg » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

mtlynch wrote: post #189

rdtsc wrote: post #103

> Google does a good job of building a sense of community within the organization. That is the true test. You are supposed to pretend only to buy into it but never really believe it. Understanding that things function on two levels is critical. One level is the superficial "we are a family, community, we are not evil, making the world better". But that's the trap to catch all the naive people and extract extra work h…

Thanks for sharing that. That describes feelings I had working there. I think the idea of rules and meta-rules is a good way of explaining it.

Do you think this sort of feeling is unique to Google and just not any large-ish company?

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#390

Post by Torwald » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 7:06 PM UTC

mostlyskeptical wrote: post #286

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It worked for me, mainly because I'm intolerant of the corporate bullshit, if I don't like a client then they will be fired. The thing that had the biggest impact on my quality of life since I left the corporate world is the ability to say no.

Thanks for this A thread full of people talking about how bad working for yourself is had me questioning my upcoming decision to quit and try to do something for myself, and what you said is the biggest reason why I want to. I love hard work, but I don't love pointless work. I already do some low pay contracting on the side, but it's with a couple of small companies that trust me 100% so they never tell me "no". Don'…

What about making your current employer one of your clients? This could even be seen as "taking one for the team" in the course of some restructuring process in that company? Just a thought.