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Tech company career ladders

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Re: Tech company career ladders

#151

Post by wst_ »

cbcoutinho wrote: post #77
lliamander wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still trying to figure out the whole small company scene. I've mostly worked at large (>10k people), though not necessarily hot, tech companies with established tech ladders. Now I'm working at a small ( First, lack of opportunity for specialization. People who reach the top of tech ladders are often genuinely capable specialists in some sub-discipline. One has to specialize to develop mastery. When done well, a…

I am working at a small company (first job out of school) that is experiencing the growing pains you alluded to in your second point - management wanting to be involved in details across the entire stack, which hinders productivity. I have no idea how to solve this problem, but the fact that you wrote about articulated it makes me think I'm not alone in my experience.

It has a name - micromanagement.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#152

Post by biztos »

kibibyte wrote: post #63
busterarm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

I saw it for the first time a few weeks ago, but with one "A" -- I guess Apple doesn't always count, maybe due to the much lower PE ratio?

Funny, it seems to have been coined in the US but I think I have seen it more in UK news sites.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#153

Post by pm »

ryanobjc wrote: post #78
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…

Exactly this. Also you get paid real cash money. And really proper healthcare. Which is handy if you want to have kids. I often see criticisms of bigtech as overpaying... or perhaps it is everyone else who is underpaying? Quit making the argument you should be underpaid! Not to mention that at the big companies (FAANG) you get to work with some really awesome smart people. And work on hard problems that matter with p…

...extortion, sociopaths, bad senior hires, funding gone weird, and sheer embezzlement/misspending.

I've been contracting at a startup for a year, and seen all this happen during my tenure. We've managed to strip most of the deadwood now, but I'm unsure whether it was done in time. It'll be a pity if the company folds, because they have some quite cool tech.

Everytime I see something like this, I'm glad I chose the life of a contractor.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#154

Post by ckarmann »

sheepmullet wrote: post #104
maxxxxx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was not about my career as contractor. It's what I saw how employees were treated. As I said some small companies are great and offer great opportunities but there are plenty that work their people to death, miss payroll, pay low salaries in exchange for a big dream that in most cases will never come true for the regular employee.

> This was not about my career as contractor. My point is you have self selected into a group that doesn't expect career progression at work in the typical sense. Surely that influences what you consider a "better" workplace? > It's what I saw how employees were treated. A big company can be "nice" and yet incredibly soul crushing. I've had years of productive work thrown away over politics. That's far more damaging,…

I've had a year of productive work thrown away by a clueless and arrogant founder that didn't understand the product he was trying to build and the market and was blaming everyone but himself. So you can have the crazy overtime and the bad management that waste it all.

It's not really a question of big and small. Most companies are badly managed (or I am very unlucky). I found in big companies they at least know that making basic efforts to keep employees happy is profitable long-term.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#155

Post by inlined »

dolguldur wrote: post #91
kibibyte wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FAANG == Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google (First time I heard of it; had to look it up)

AGAMF - Let's keep it dynamic and take the top 5 tech companies sorted by market cap.

I'm sad nobody has done anything clever by changing G to A (for alphabet). E.g. AAA Companies

Re: Tech company career ladders

#156

Post by biztos »

> Know how the company works before you take the plunge. Ask how much influence the manager has on your progress.

Is this even knowable in most companies?

I'm quite sure that regardless of the official system, charismatic and ambitious managers who deliver results will have much more influence than the rest... and perfectly competent managers may have less influence than the system assumes just because they're not pushing.

So while there's probably a lot of variance between companies, I am very skeptical you could get actionable info on that in the interview process.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#157

Post by nunya213 »

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…

Change the way you think about it. Gamify conversation. Don't try to learn intuition about conversation flow, teach yourself through observation which I'm sure you are probably very good at.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#158

Post by dasil003 »

ubernostrum wrote: post #61
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…

This is odd because I’ve typically seen the question phrased as “What is the highest degree of education you’ve received?” if not totally resume based. What kind of places have this kind of process?

Re: Tech company career ladders

#159

Post by markbnj »

I work at small companies, not because they are perfect or things are always better and easier, but because I know the things I'm responsible for and the people I'm accountable to, and the thought of being slotted into a byzantine human management framework run by small-minded rule writers fills me with Orwellian dread and disgust.

Re: Tech company career ladders

#160

Post by dasil003 »

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.

This seems brilliantly Machiavellian, but impossible to screen for.
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