Tech company career ladders • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech company career ladders

#21

Post by itronitron » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 4:07 AM UTC

wheresmyusern wrote: post #12

i hesitate to pursue a career of any kind, especially tech, because of all this. you have to have a pretty good personality and charisma in order to work well with your manager, or else you will make no progress which means you get fired. people are born with all kinds of quirks, peculiarities and qualities. while im a better programmer than most of the people who i went to college with, i have a special problem with…

You sound like a good fit for tech actually. Every company is different, and even within companies there is much diversity across groups. Part of why networking (and interning) is important is to find people that you can easily talk with. There is much less risk if you are accepted into the tribe before you hire on. From my perspective personal hygiene is more important than social skills, I care less about being offended than I do about getting sick.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#22

Post by BurningFrog » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 4:08 AM UTC

Afforess wrote: post #13

wheresmyusern wrote: post #12

i hesitate to pursue a career of any kind, especially tech, because of all this. you have to have a pretty good personality and charisma in order to work well with your manager, or else you will make no progress which means you get fired. people are born with all kinds of quirks, peculiarities and qualities. while im a better programmer than most of the people who i went to college with, i have a special problem with…

> conversations with me are always like chewing sandpaper, unless they focus on some very narrow interests of mine. Basically, that's the problem. In order to establish a repertoire, you need to have more than dense interests. It's cool to be passionate about one or two hobbies. Lots of people have none, and this makes conversation dull. However, it is vital you can maintain ordinary conversation on lay topics too --…

I have a slightly different advice:

> unless they focus on some very narrow interests of mine.

I think OP's problem is that "other people" are not an interest of his. If it was, he'd never run out of things to talk about with these other people.

I also think that's a main reason people find those who can't keep up a conversation disturbing. They sense that you're not interested in them, and that makes you potentially dangerous.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#23

Post by paxys » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 4:09 AM UTC

crabasa wrote: post #14

>> What's the takeaway here? Know how the company works before you take the plunge. This is good advice, but I think it's good advice for any company you join: understand how performance is going to be measured . This is a key question that you should ask during the interview process. Remember, they're not just interviewing you, you are interviewing them.

Yup, not having a well-defined comp structure is a red flag even for smaller companies.

I interviewed at a decent-sized company (100+ engineers) recently and when I asked about their salary bands/career ladder/review cycles they just said "oh, we're too small for all that. We'll just promote you when the time is right." Got out of that quick.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#24

Post by tejasmanohar » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 4:10 AM UTC

  Within a job ladder, you then have levels. They tend to map onto
  years of experience, *whether you have a degree or not*, 
  what kind of degree it is, how well you do in your interviews,
  how much money you ask for or hint about, and possibly how
  well you did as an intern.

I don't work at a big corp. Has anyone seen career growth stall directly because they lack a (bachelor's) degree (in CS)? This article doesn't directly state that, but I'm tangentially curious.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#25

Post by zwkrt » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 4:12 AM UTC

kevan wrote: post #17

If anyone's wondering SDE2/L5 at Amazon is the first 'career' role on the engineering ladder.

Is that true? I would have guessed it was 3 based on the expected level of responsibility of the respective roles. As an engineer I felt like L5 was a position that meant I could trust the coworker to be effective, but I would be wary of joining a team that had no L6s.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#26

Post by paxys » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 4:13 AM UTC

tejasmanohar wrote: post #24

Within a job ladder, you then have levels. They tend to map onto years of experience, *whether you have a degree or not*, what kind of degree it is, how well you do in your interviews, how much money you ask for or hint about, and possibly how well you did as an intern. I don't work at a big corp. Has anyone seen career growth stall directly because they lack a (bachelor's) degree (in CS)? This article doesn't direct…

In my experience a degree is worthless as soon as you are hired. From then on you will only be judged based on performance. I don't even know what degrees (if any) most of my coworkers have.

Of course there can always be problems with skills or performance due to not having a relevant degree.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#27

Post by sheepmullet » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 4:16 AM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #9

mlazos wrote: post #2

I think this article unfairly paints small companies as some nirvana which is obviously not the case. I have plenty of friends at small companies who feel like their c-suite is filled with sociopaths and because the company is under the radar nobody cares how the employees of said company are treated.

Very true. From my experience as contractor I think bigger companies are often better and more predictable places to work. There are some small companies that are great but a lot of them don't pay well and are run by people who care only about themselves.

> From my experience as contractor

As a contractor you have essentially already taken a deal where you get paid a premium but have no expectation of career growth.

If you have no expectations of career growth at work then big companies are fantastic.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#28

Post by tomerico » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 4:20 AM UTC

For those looking to compare levels between the mentioned companies, I found http://levels.fyi useful

Re: Tech company career ladders

#29

Post by sudeepj » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 4:21 AM UTC

What I also seen is people become victim of your their own success. If you over-achieve in one appraisal cycle it is very bad for you because you have increased your base-level of performance. It is like over-achieving sales target.

I have learned the hard way that one needs to spread out the achievements. For example if you have good number of ideas then don't spew out all of them in one go. Introduce them say in each quarter and people will say "Joe always seems to have an idea round the corner". Recency effect matters.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#30

Post by peterburkimsher » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 4:22 AM UTC

"inhumane quasi-slavery visa situation that we do to our friends who happen to be born somewhere else" - thank you so much for this rant.

I've spent the last 3 years in Taiwan sitting tight and waiting until I have enough work experience to qualify for the Skilled Migrant Category visa for New Zealand (Canada and Australia are also options, with similar requirements). Now I have those 3 years, I'm trying to get a job at one of the 75 tech companies on the Accredited Employers list who can actually give me a visa. Then, if all goes well, I can get be a Permanent Resident after 2 years. And only then can I think about getting married, learning to drive, settling down. It's been a long road to get to where I am now, aged 28, and I really hope some company will notice my plight and be willing to take me through the last step of finding a country to call home.