Ask HN: First month at a FANG job–feeling useless?

#1

Post by rericks » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 1:33 AM UTC

A month ago, I started a job at a large, FANG-type company, I guess on the low end of Google T5 or high end of T4? (Salary is around $175k, not including stock options.) Things seem to be going well, but I've been feeling rather useless. I just don't have a lot to do at the moment, and I'm not sure if I should be actively seeking out tasks, proposing new features, or what. (Naturally, I've been spending a lot of time delving into our codebase, but this isn't something with visible results that I could point to, for myself or the rest of the team.) I haven't worked at a big company like this in a long time, so I have no context for how things are supposed to work. Is it expected that tasks take longer than in the solo/startup world? Are engineers on my level supposed to be more proactive with this kind of stuff? I know what's in the pipeline for the next few months—the sorts of tasks that are more my specialty—but we're still scheduling meetings to work out the details. (Mostly it's my manager doing this.) In the meantime, I feel like I'm just idling.

Basically, I have this intense fear that I'm not living up to the expectations of my high salary and that nobody's going to say anything until things get really awkward. I take this home with me every day. My manager hasn't mentioned anything negative in our 1 on 1's, but I don't know if he's expected to.

How are first months supposed to generally go for someone at a big company in my salary range? And if I happened to do things wrong, will I still be able to fix my mistakes?

I'm not lazy; I just have no idea how things work in the corporate world!

Re: Ask HN: First month at a FANG job–feeling useless?

#2

Post by arebop » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 1:56 AM UTC

My understanding is that F&G are culturally different from N&A, but I think you're probably being a little too hard on yourself. The company probably spent a lot to recruit you, they have some interest in helping you succeed and I don't think they'd hide performance problems from you.

You probably shouldn't be idling though. If you can't think of any ways to be more productive, you should ask your manager and your colleagues for their ideas about what problems exist and what needs to be done. HTH.

Re: Ask HN: First month at a FANG job–feeling useless?

#3

Post by rericks » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 1:59 AM UTC

arebop wrote: post #2

My understanding is that F&G are culturally different from N&A, but I think you're probably being a little too hard on yourself. The company probably spent a lot to recruit you, they have some interest in helping you succeed and I don't think they'd hide performance problems from you. You probably shouldn't be idling though. If you can't think of any ways to be more productive, you should ask your manager and your co…

Thanks for the reply. It's more F&G than N&A, culturally I think. Idling is probably a misnomer—I have some minor bug fixes, code reviews, and design docs to work on. But I feel like I've been basically writing no code for the last few weeks.

Re: Ask HN: First month at a FANG job–feeling useless?

#4

Post by orangecat » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 2:09 AM UTC

Is it expected that tasks take longer than in the solo/startup world

Definitely. I've gotten a lot more done at startups than at a FANG. Partially due to the reduced bureaucracy, and partially due to the ability to use tools that are optimized for developer productivity rather than scaling to millions of requests per second.

My manager hasn't mentioned anything negative in our 1 on 1's, but I don't know if he's expected to.

Yes, he would be expected to mention if he wasn't happy. And it would be fine for you to directly ask him for guidance.

Re: Ask HN: First month at a FANG job–feeling useless?

#5

Post by rericks » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 2:20 AM UTC

orangecat wrote: post #4

Is it expected that tasks take longer than in the solo/startup world Definitely. I've gotten a lot more done at startups than at a FANG. Partially due to the reduced bureaucracy, and partially due to the ability to use tools that are optimized for developer productivity rather than scaling to millions of requests per second. My manager hasn't mentioned anything negative in our 1 on 1's, but I don't know if he's expec…

Thank you for the advice! Selfish aside, but is there any chance I could ask you to upvote the question? It's not going to appear in the Ask section until it has more votes, and I'm afraid it's going to sink off newest soon.

Re: Ask HN: First month at a FANG job–feeling useless?

#6

Post by abenedic » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 2:46 AM UTC

You should maybe feel bad. Maybe not. In your first month, you should have had what? 20-ish days to get around the monorepo. Look to the bug tracker. Ask your manager for projects or idea about things to work on. Sorry to say it, but you should do SOMETHING soon.

Re: Ask HN: First month at a FANG job–feeling useless?

#7

Post by rajacombinator » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 7:29 PM UTC

Can’t speak to FANG specifically, but the number of well paid people that hang out and do nothing tends to increase exponentially with the size of a company. So yes you should expect to feel underutilized.

Re: Ask HN: First month at a FANG job–feeling useless?

#8

Post by ltmi600 » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 8:27 PM UTC

Just go with the flow. It's like this at most jobs. You have it better than most people on the planet.

Re: Ask HN: First month at a FANG job–feeling useless?

#9

Post by ltmi600 » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 8:31 PM UTC

Please don't F this up.

Re: Ask HN: First month at a FANG job–feeling useless?

#10

Post by cimmanom » Fri, Sep 28, 2018, 9:40 AM UTC

I would let your manager know your concerns and ask for permission to either pick bugs out of the issue tracker or request some from whoever your project manager is. Fixing a few bugs will help you get settled into both the codebase and the team’s workflows, and hopefully keep you busy and feeling productive.