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Tech company career ladders

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Re: Tech company career ladders

#141

Post by ElatedOwl »

BurningFrog wrote: post #22
Afforess wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Spot on IMO. People think they need to be interesting for people to care about them, but really you just need to be interested.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#142

Post by commandlinefan »

Afforess wrote: post #20
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #4

Through all of this, if your manager isn't supporting you, you're probably doomed. Unless they do something that's obviously going to get the company in legal trouble, HR won't care. Remember, HR is there to keep the company out of hot water, and they are never there for you. This is very true in my experience and probably worth underscoring. How many of you feel like your boss isn't supporting you? Whenever that hap…

On the dark side, the real advice is to join teams where none of the engineers are supporting the manager. Ensure the manager is not a literal demon; just sidelined by engineers "who know best", and then do better. With only a trivial amount of work to meet arbitrary management deadlines, you'll be a hero or saint. "Exceeds Expectations" and promotions will rain down on you.

"I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you"

Re: Tech company career ladders

#144

Post by lclarkmichalek »

sgift wrote: post #130
lclarkmichalek wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 manage…

> My compensation is no longer based on how much my manager likes me, it's based on my work and how I present it. "and how I present it" sounds suspiciously like 'how much my manager likes me' (or whoever you present it to). Seems more like "same thing, different name" to me than a real difference here.

Not really. If you can't communicate what value your work had, you're going to have a worse time than people who can. The manager liking you thing is more countered by the crazy number of mashups and calibrations go through before being finalised. Yes a bad manager can still hurt you, but the effect is greatly reduced by the process of the performance review and the ease of internal mobility.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#145

Post by joshuamorton »

sgift wrote: post #130
lclarkmichalek wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 manage…

> My compensation is no longer based on how much my manager likes me, it's based on my work and how I present it. "and how I present it" sounds suspiciously like 'how much my manager likes me' (or whoever you present it to). Seems more like "same thing, different name" to me than a real difference here.

It's not. For example, up until recently, you didn't need manager approval to get promoted at Google. Obviously feedback from your manager was considered, but if you could demonstrate your growth and your manager didn't like you, it was possible to be promoted anyway.

The people who made this decision we're specifically selected to not be familiar with you or your work. So it couldn't have anything to do with how anyone liked you.

But even beyond that, larger companies more commonly have codified ladders and clear rubrics or criteria for advancement and performance. This means that a manager must justify their rating against a set of objective criteria. Managerial bias can still creep in, but only on borderline cases. (And elsewhere in the workplace, but that's mostly unavoidable)

Re: Tech company career ladders

#146

Post by biztos »

newfoundglory wrote: post #80
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…

You're a British citizen, you can move to any country in the EU. If you marry your girlfriend, she can move with you, and other countries in the EU will not require her to show income to move with you. You could be there in a few months, without waiting for companies to notice you. Source: am British citizen by descent, have lived in France. Edit: and then to move to Britain from an EU country she doesn't need to sho…

I might have this wrong, but last I checked IIRC the deal is your non-EU spouse has a right to live with you (assuming you're an EU national) in any EU country other than your own. She would also have a work permit, should she choose to work. In your own country the local immigration rules apply to your non-EU spouse.

So for a UK citizen with a Taiwanese wife it would be extremely simple (until Brexit of course) to move with her, the "third-country national," to France or Austria or wherever. Whether it's also easy to move to the UK with her, I have no idea... but it's definitely not automatically approved in all EU countries.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#147

Post by mercutio2 »

sokoloff wrote: post #113
sethammons wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent comment is removed, but on the thought of a personal improvement plan (pip), they are often paperwork to protect the company when they terminate you. This is not always the case, and if you can turn it around, that is fantastic. It really helps to have a manager who can help guide you. A coworker of mine was place on a PIP and, honestly, was expected to be managed out by just about everyone. However! He ro…

Similar story here. Most PIPs do end in termination or voluntary resignation, but I have seen some engineers completely turn around and blossom under the focus and structure (and frankly, scrutiny) that a PIP provides. Sometimes people just don't know how to work or how to accomplish what's expected of them and outward observation of lack of productivity can miss the underlying cause that might be correctable. (It's…

Are PIPs public knowledge at your BigCo of choice?

Sounds like your (peripheral) experience has been positive, so not criticizing, just curious. I’ve always treated PIPs as something only to be discussed between manager and struggling employee.

One of the most painful things for me in administering PIPs is not the “you are on thin ice, here’s a bunch more structure and documentation” part, but rather, the requirement to keep the main focus of my management energy a secret from the rest of the team.

I can’t exactly say, “Yeah, [strong team member], I know it would have been way better if I’d done a prep meeting with that hard-to-deal-with team yesterday rather than throwing you in the deep water, but I was too busy making [failing team member]’s life miserable by hyping up the scrutiny and guidance so they stop breaking the team’s morale with their shoddy work.”

PIPs take a lot of time and effort for managers and the unfortunate recipient of them, so it’s kind of a hard thing to conceal.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#148

Post by 80386 »

sokoloff wrote: post #107
infinite8s wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't she fix that by getting her GED?

Or simply answer that she has graduated from high school? I'm not one for dishonesty in general, but if you have a post-graduate degree from an accredited college, ticking the box on an application form that you also have graduated high-school is damn near not a lie, IMO.

I did the same thing (college straight out of 10th grade, didn't bother to get a GED) and in the very rare case that a job application asks whether I graduated from high school but doesn't ask about degrees, I just say I did. If anyone were to ask about that later in the process, I'd explain that I didn't finish high school but did finish college. But no one's ever asked me.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#149

Post by [deleted] »

jaggederest wrote: post #82
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…

No, but I have seen people's career stall because they worked on the wrong project. As my manager put it at the time "Nobody gets promoted for reducing the size of a tire fire by 50%". You have to be really strategic about what you work on, and for who. It's not about the technical contributions, it's about finding and retaining a sponsor higher in the organization. You help them torpedo competing initiatives and inc…

[deleted]

Re: Tech company career ladders

#150

Post by pm »

newfoundglory wrote: post #80
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…

You're a British citizen, you can move to any country in the EU. If you marry your girlfriend, she can move with you, and other countries in the EU will not require her to show income to move with you. You could be there in a few months, without waiting for companies to notice you. Source: am British citizen by descent, have lived in France. Edit: and then to move to Britain from an EU country she doesn't need to sho…

UK citizens should find it fairly easy to immigrate to Australia.
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