Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#321

Post by derefr » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #269

rhymenoceros wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that metric, like any metric, is both easy to game _and_ can provide misleading information. Measuring number of commits? Create fewer, larger commits. Measuring commit size? Pull in more third-party libraries, even where it does't make sense. Author count? Add more/less documentation and recruit or inhibit new devs depending on what your goal is. Not to mention the number of commits/authors before and…

Ok, then find another way to measure developer productivity, or reliability in production, or customer features delivered. If you can’t find a measurable benefit to a refactoring (or anything else, really) then maybe it was not worth doing in the first place.

In science, measuring things until you find a benefit is called p-hacking. Every extra test you do that splits your data along a different dimension, is another independent opportunity for "random chance" to look like positive signal.

There is no programming project in existence with enough developers working on it, that developer-productivity data derived from a change to it would not be considered "underpowered" for the sake of proving anything.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#322

Post by kangax » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #199

kangax wrote: post #127

I was E6 at Facebook for 1.5 years. Left due to a combination of not finding the right team/project and constant pressure to work on something impactful rather than fixing existing issues I cared about. This seems to be a common issue at FB with senior engineers joining and having to ramp up quickly (2 of the senior teammates left while I was there for the same reasons). Currently at WeWork where you don't have to wr…

"multi-page assessment of all the impactful things you've done" ... ? So things aren't organized along a product line?

I was on an infra so the "product" was improving both developer experience and user experience. Thing is — as a senior engineer, you're encouraged to do work that spans across multiple teams. The self-review would include all the impactful things you've done by helping person X or team Y or product Z, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#323

Post by dlor » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

bsimpson wrote: post #160

CydeWeys wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with Google has been the opposite, for what it's worth. I've been rewarded for, as an IC SWE, starting conversations with random people across the entire company to make things happen, and then executing on it. I even presented my launch at I/O this past May. I think it helps that I'm on a smaller team. So from my experience, it still very much seems like a "look for something that needs doing and do it…

It seems to depend a lot on your team and your manager. It's the first place I've worked where the vibe is: "you're clever: find something useful to do" from my very first day.

Yes, this matches my experience as well. I've been at Google 6 years now in various SWE roles. I can count the number of times I've been directly asked to do something by anyone in my management chain on one hand.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#324

Post by EpicEng » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

LargeWu wrote: post #314

EpicEng wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>bought a home for $200k in Western Massachusetts. Paid in cash so I no longer have to pay rent/mortgage Don't take this the wrong way, I'm sure you considered this, but... why put all that cash down when you almost certainly could have got a low interest mortgage and made more by putting that money in... well anything really?

Not having debt can be very, very freeing. Same goes for expenses. I'm still a software developer because it pays well, not because I really want to be slinging code anymore. If I didn't have a mortgage and child care to worry about I would have a lot more freedom to switch jobs to do something I would enjoy but pays significantly less.

Sure, that's certainly valid, but it's an emotional perspective. From a financial perspective I'd rather have my money working for me.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#325

Post by timdavila » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

freeone3000 wrote: post #318

devy wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bought a home for $200k in Western Massachusetts. Paid in cash so I no longer have to pay rent/mortgage Thanks for sharing your experience Michael in that blog post. Can I read that "$200k paid in case" as in all paid off without loans even from family/friends? If so, $200k seems like a high saving amount considering average American household are in credit card debts. In other words, Google job did pay really well…

That was my signing bonus , nevermind pay or RSUs. It's not hard to acquire that much money.

>It's not hard to acquire that much money.

As a privileged developer, this is an extremely untrue and privileged statement. Developers like myself who don't live in SF are lucky to receive any signing bonus, and would be lucky to earn half of that as a yearly salary. Outside the US it's not possible. You are part of a very small and very fortunate group.

Source: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/#salary

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#326

Post by jvz » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 9:56 PM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #269

rhymenoceros wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that metric, like any metric, is both easy to game _and_ can provide misleading information. Measuring number of commits? Create fewer, larger commits. Measuring commit size? Pull in more third-party libraries, even where it does't make sense. Author count? Add more/less documentation and recruit or inhibit new devs depending on what your goal is. Not to mention the number of commits/authors before and…

Ok, then find another way to measure developer productivity, or reliability in production, or customer features delivered. If you can’t find a measurable benefit to a refactoring (or anything else, really) then maybe it was not worth doing in the first place.

No metric can escape gaming when you apply it to rational actors (Campbell's Law / Goodhart's Law). Blind devotion to metrics is just as bad as no metrics at all.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#327

Post by kevstev » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

Itaxpica wrote: post #234

kevstev wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at 10ks filed with the SEC for both from the end of 2017, FB reports 25k employees vs Google's 80k. There is no breakdown on how many of those are engineers, but I would assume that the ratios are similar. I was interested in looking, because that would be somewhat in line with the ratios I see in terms of resumes, though I don't have real numbers, it feels more like 15:1. I see resumes from google every week…

Facebook's NY office is also significantly, disproportionally smaller than Google's. Google's NY office is the largest outside of California and is in many ways a second heart of the company, it really doesn't feel like a remote office. Facebook's NY office is extremely small even considering that Facebook is a smaller company than Google (their largest office outside of California is, IIRC, Seattle).

In theory we have just as good a recruiting presence on the west coast, and we have an office out there to be based out of as well (I am all for completely remote, but have yet to get upper mgmt comfortable). In practice, I doubt this is true, and also working for a hedge fund probably has a lot less draw and prestige associated with it out west.

This may account for it but I still find the discrepancy to be unusual.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#328

Post by simonebrunozzi » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 10:05 PM UTC

devilmoon wrote: post #86

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #51

Ex-Amazon (and ex-Vmware) here. Worked at AWS from 2008 to 2014 (Europe, then Asia, then USA), then Vmware (also USA) from 2014 to 2016. I then spent ~1 year at a startup, as CTO - the experience sucked, and I consider it to simply be a big mistake. 1.5 years ago, I left that job, worked on a new idea, and in August 2017 I founded a startup, Fabrica, with two other friends. I am still there. No salary. Bootstrapped u…

>I firmly believe that money is to buy things that matter to you. To me, not working at a corporation matters. Damn dude that is a very good way of putting it

Not sure I interpret your comment properly, but did you mean that you particularly liked the sentence? Or was there irony instead?

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#329

Post by simonebrunozzi » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 10:07 PM UTC

MatthewMcDonald wrote: post #83

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #51

Ex-Amazon (and ex-Vmware) here. Worked at AWS from 2008 to 2014 (Europe, then Asia, then USA), then Vmware (also USA) from 2014 to 2016. I then spent ~1 year at a startup, as CTO - the experience sucked, and I consider it to simply be a big mistake. 1.5 years ago, I left that job, worked on a new idea, and in August 2017 I founded a startup, Fabrica, with two other friends. I am still there. No salary. Bootstrapped u…

> I then spent ~1 year at a startup, as CTO - the experience sucked, and I consider it to simply be a big mistake. What about the experience sucked? What was the mistake?

It's a long story, and part of it I am not happy to share publicly.

Let's say that there were signals that I should have left earlier, and I didn't listen at first; such as: two co-founders fighting often and disagreeing; not a clear product-market fit, and my product proposals were never taken seriously; lots of arrogance; etc.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

#330

Post by simonebrunozzi » Thu, Oct 11, 2018, 10:09 PM UTC

callmeed wrote: post #187

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #51

Ex-Amazon (and ex-Vmware) here. Worked at AWS from 2008 to 2014 (Europe, then Asia, then USA), then Vmware (also USA) from 2014 to 2016. I then spent ~1 year at a startup, as CTO - the experience sucked, and I consider it to simply be a big mistake. 1.5 years ago, I left that job, worked on a new idea, and in August 2017 I founded a startup, Fabrica, with two other friends. I am still there. No salary. Bootstrapped u…

Does that mean you would turn down a lucrative acquisition offer from a big corporation? That seems to be the paradox of founding a startup for the reason you stated.

That's a good point. I am not against being acquired, and I hope I will be a good leader and accept what's best for the company, not just for me.

I guess if the acquisition happens, I can happily accept it as a necessary evil to get more "freedom" in the form of money, and to make my co-founders and workers happy.