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Tech company career ladders

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Re: Tech company career ladders

#61

Post by ubernostrum »

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…

I have a friend who has dealt with this multiple times.

She left high school early to go straight into college, so officially she never graduated from high school. That's an automatic rejection from many companies, even for "white collar" positions. It doesn't matter that she's studied at some prestigious places, has a post-graduate degree, etc., because there's an unchangeable, un-bypass-able filter at the start of the process which rejects anyone who doesn't have a high-school diploma.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#62

Post by keont »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #52
fjsolwmv wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have a country to call home?

"Home" is a place I can settle, start a family, go back to and live in. I grew up near Geneva. My parents bought a house in France because it was cheaper. My dad crossed the border every day to work at CERN and take me to international school. I can't be Swiss, because my parents weren't resident. I can't be French, because I wasn't born there. The nearest French hospital is 2 hours away through the mountains and CER…

God fucking damnit. With that amount of knowledge and detail, I hope you end when you are comfortable to be, and accepted as well.

This situations seem so fucking ridicolous to me. Any country would be fortunate to have someone like you.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#63

Post by kibibyte »

busterarm wrote: post #60
taneq wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the people are great, small (5-20 employee) companies often simply don't have scope for much career progression. You might have one layer of management between yourself and the company owner, so unless they start hiring or you plan on taking over the company, you can only be promoted once.

Yeah except your promotion isn't usually a level, it's lead, manager, director, or chief. You leverage that and walk to a slightly larger company in that new role after a couple of years. Then rinse & repeat once or twice and you just shaved off years of slogging through the FAANGs. After all of the above though, I would put 2-3 years in at a FAANG and then do whatever the heck I want.

FAANG == Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google

(First time I heard of it; had to look it up)

Re: Tech company career ladders

#64

Post by siruncledrew »

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.

There's tons of articles and personal stories that shit on both small and large companies for various reasons, which leads me to believe it's not the size that matters, but the individual (or "view of the beholder").

Re: Tech company career ladders

#65

Post by lclarkmichalek »

fyfy18 wrote: post #40

Does anyone else feel really put off on the idea of working at a big tech corporation by articles like this? If I wanted to play the career game, I would have studyied something more business related and got a graduate job at somewhere like KPMG.

Honestly, having worked for startups for three years, joining FB was a breath of fresh air. I know my level, I know what is expected of me. When I say to my manager 'I want to get promoted' he says 'ok looks like you're on course' (or not). My compensation is no longer based on how much my manager likes me, it's based on my work and how I present it.

Startups were a mess of failed products, misguided work, and managers who showed no interest in managing, let alone investing in the growth of their reports. Good management is awesome.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#66

Post by taneq »

busterarm wrote: post #60
taneq wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the people are great, small (5-20 employee) companies often simply don't have scope for much career progression. You might have one layer of management between yourself and the company owner, so unless they start hiring or you plan on taking over the company, you can only be promoted once.

Yeah except your promotion isn't usually a level, it's lead, manager, director, or chief. You leverage that and walk to a slightly larger company in that new role after a couple of years. Then rinse & repeat once or twice and you just shaved off years of slogging through the FAANGs. After all of the above though, I would put 2-3 years in at a FAANG and then do whatever the heck I want.

True, but that relies on the company itself raising the level of work that it's doing to justify the title change. Coming from a small company with an inflated title just makes you look pretentious and silly.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#67

Post by Aeolun »

manish_gill wrote: post #59

I joined a startup directly from college and only worked at small (3-4 people) companies for the first 3 years of my career. Going from that to a ~250 people organization, when I joined, I figured "Software Engineer" was a good role, but it turned out everyone was surprised that I wasn't a "Senior Software Engineer". Even though I basically designed and coded the entire data layer of the platform, maintain and admini…

To be honest, the fact that the title doesn't reflect all the work you do matters to me not at all. I'm happy to change that later.

If the pay doesn't reflect all the responsibility you have though, that's a serious issue.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#68

Post by Aeolun »

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 think the problem is that most casual conversation just isn't relevant. If we're having a conversation to have a conversation, what's the point?

I happen across a lot of conversations where people are just blabbing at each other, but don't actually listen to what the other is saying (or are clearly not interested in what each is saying), but still continue to have a conversation. I don't get that...

Re: Tech company career ladders

#69

Post by ensiferum »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #52
fjsolwmv wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have a country to call home?

"Home" is a place I can settle, start a family, go back to and live in. I grew up near Geneva. My parents bought a house in France because it was cheaper. My dad crossed the border every day to work at CERN and take me to international school. I can't be Swiss, because my parents weren't resident. I can't be French, because I wasn't born there. The nearest French hospital is 2 hours away through the mountains and CER…

Sorry I don't buy this. You make this sound as if you were stateless which of course is not the case or you wouldn't be able to be in Taiwan either unless you sneaked into there and are in fact working illegally.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#70

Post by peterburkimsher »

ensiferum wrote: post #69
peterburkimsher wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Home" is a place I can settle, start a family, go back to and live in. I grew up near Geneva. My parents bought a house in France because it was cheaper. My dad crossed the border every day to work at CERN and take me to international school. I can't be Swiss, because my parents weren't resident. I can't be French, because I wasn't born there. The nearest French hospital is 2 hours away through the mountains and CER…

Sorry I don't buy this. You make this sound as if you were stateless which of course is not the case or you wouldn't be able to be in Taiwan either unless you sneaked into there and are in fact working illegally.

I'm not stateless. I have a work visa. The article explains the pressure of living on a work visa (shut up, get in line, or lose your job, visa, and country). Taiwan is not "home" because I can't start a family here. Even if I didn't care about children's military service, I can't get a Taiwanese passport without renouncing my previous citizenship and going to military service myself. Taiwanese PR doesn't give children nationality, and I would lose the PR if I leave for more than 2 years.
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