At Netflix, Radical Transparency and Blunt Firings Unsettle the Ranks • Hacker News Board

Re: At Netflix, Radical Transparency and Blunt Firings Unsettle the Ranks

#111

Post by ChuckMcM » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 11:14 PM UTC

Netflix has tried to recruit me a couple of times, I interviewed on site both times (after having the recruiter send me the slide deck that they use to explain their culture so it wouldn't be a surprise). For one of the sessions I had the extraordinary opportunity to talk to the manager for the role, their manager, and two people who had previously been in the role (Netflix wasn't aware that I knew those people).

What I discovered, for this one group only, the manager and their supervisor had essentially created a system for hiring people that could be fired when the manager's effectiveness was under scrutiny. It was very Machiavellian but it was also pretty effective for them. I carefully backed out of the discussions to avoid any hurt feelings, and watched as two more people were hired into the role and then left later on. The manager and their supervisor will still there the last time I checked (about a year ago).

I suggested to their recruiter that it would be useful them to understand all of the behaviors that would allow someone to be successful in their culture rather than just the one they were shooting for. This observation was not unlike Jeff Goldbloom's observation in Jurassic park to have the system count 'all' the dinosaurs, not just stop at the expected number. You can build a system to encourage excellence and that is good, but also check to see if it can be exploited by folks who can fool the sensors into thinking they are excellent. And then put in safeguards to detect those too. I'm sure if they did some data science on roles that turned over a lot it would identify bad managers that were avoiding scrutiny.

Re: At Netflix, Radical Transparency and Blunt Firings Unsettle the Ranks

#112

Post by dsnuh » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 11:15 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #105

dsnuh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it works like that... The company doesn't ask you if you'd like to switch to the cloud, and then you give a yes/no answer. In my experience, what happens is there is a technology shift -- the company leadership decides they want to use the cloud (or use containers, or start moving their codebase to ${LANG}, etc.) and there is a group of employees that will lead this effort by learning and working with t…

" and there is a group of employees that will lead this effort by learning and working with the new technologies, and there is another group that will actively oppose taking responsibility to learn about the new technology, and may actively work to sabotage or slow down the process. " And I have seen groups that would like learn the new tech but never get involved by management.

What is stopping a group from learning a new tech, regardless of whether change is organic or imposed by management? Or are you saying you have seen people get replaced with zero warning that new technology was being introduced? That's definitely not been my experience.

Re: At Netflix, Radical Transparency and Blunt Firings Unsettle the Ranks

#113

Post by maxxxxx » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 11:17 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #111

Netflix has tried to recruit me a couple of times, I interviewed on site both times (after having the recruiter send me the slide deck that they use to explain their culture so it wouldn't be a surprise). For one of the sessions I had the extraordinary opportunity to talk to the manager for the role, their manager, and two people who had previously been in the role (Netflix wasn't aware that I knew those people). Wha…

That's what you get when you have fixed quotas for firing people, e.g. bottom 10%. After a few rounds you have some very good people left and either you fire good people that are hard to replace or you hire people to fire them. I don't understand how the top guys don't see that dynamic.

Re: At Netflix, Radical Transparency and Blunt Firings Unsettle the Ranks

#114

Post by blacksmith_tb » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 11:18 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #73

Sharlin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never understand US-style at will employment. It just seems so barbaric and arbitrary. Where I'm from the current conservative government just proposed legislation that would make it slightly easier to fire people in small companies (at most dozen employees or so). This caused the left-leaning part of the country to throw a collective hissy-fit, including several political strikes organized by major unions.

That is american working culture - it is built upon the myth that if you can't cut it you don't work hard enough or smart enough. If you aren't a millionaire or on your way to become one, its because there's something wrong with you.

The idea that your success proves your goodness (and not just random chance, or a rigged system, etc.) goes farther back than the USA[1].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_S...

Re: At Netflix, Radical Transparency and Blunt Firings Unsettle the Ranks

#115

Post by halbritt » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 11:18 PM UTC

dunpeal wrote: post #91

halbritt wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Further, to that point, any manager that dislikes a report is likely going to have a very difficult time getting quality work out of that report regardless of how talented they may be. Ergo, the report's performance may be suffering, but entirely because they're being poorly managed.

Very true. A pattern I've seen when relationship between employee and superior goes south is similar to disfavored step-child: They get less praise for doing well, and more blame for any mistake. This tends to escalate over time, and very often the employee's performance will degrade (since they won't get any credit anyway) which escalates the situation. Often they "patch things up" a few times, but if they really ar…

It sucks that it’s not commonplace for managers to be accountable to their reports.

Google has kinda structured things in this way, at least as far as I can tell from the outside. Managers can’t decide who is hired or fired and performance reviews are done by committee.

Seems pretty egalitarian but I’m told that even still, politics becomes an issue.

Re: At Netflix, Radical Transparency and Blunt Firings Unsettle the Ranks

#116

Post by Jagat » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 11:22 PM UTC

omegaham wrote: post #65

Arubis wrote: post #11

Wow. I can literally feel my neck and shoulders bunching up just _reading_ this. If I wanted to live in a fear-based culture every day, I'd join the armed forces--at least that way I could shoot back.

Also, the military has pretty great job security, with the only genuine cutoff happening between E5 and E6. I worried about a lot of things during my time in, but getting fired was not one of them.

He's not talking about being fired. He's talking about getting killed/injured in action.

Re: At Netflix, Radical Transparency and Blunt Firings Unsettle the Ranks

#117

Post by keir-rex » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 11:23 PM UTC

dunpeal wrote: post #29

crazygringo wrote: post #14

> Richard Siklos, a Netflix spokesman, said the company only fires employees for performance reasons, not because managers don’t like them From what I've seen, managers give poor performance reviews or "metrics" when they don't like people. This feels like a distinction without a difference.

I've never seen an employee getting fired "because their manager didn't like them". I've seen plenty of employees getting fired because their manager, who didn't like them, gave them a bad review. In fact, across companies and even industries, being disliked by your manager is the single most reliable way to get fired. Anyone claiming you can be disliked by your superior yet reliably keep your job - is BSing you. Sin…

Not have I seen it, I've been involved in hiring the person for their next role. There's a lot to be suspicious of but I think most people have been in a position where the personal relationship is beyond reconciliation for no other reason except it's difficult to change well formed opinions.

Re: At Netflix, Radical Transparency and Blunt Firings Unsettle the Ranks

#118

Post by refurb » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 11:26 PM UTC

notJim wrote: post #93

refurb wrote: post #4

“When life gives you lemons,” he said, taking a swig on stage, “you make lemonade.” Are you serious? What is it with the trite theatrics?

This story is honestly one of the most unhinged things I've ever heard.

If he had just recited the saying in an offhand way my response would likely be limited to rolling my eyes, but the fact someone at the company said “it’ll really hit home if you bring an actual lemon on stage...” makes me think the leadership is bonkers.

Re: At Netflix, Radical Transparency and Blunt Firings Unsettle the Ranks

#119

Post by CobrastanJorji » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 11:27 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #7

> Richard Siklos, a Netflix spokesman, said the company only fires employees for performance reasons, not because managers don’t like them That's not true at all. The company fires people all the time because their skills just aren't necessary. I mean I guess technically it's a layoff, but a layoff and getting fired are functionally the same at Netflix as they both come with the same severance. When we moved to AWS,…

> I very much enjoyed working in a culture where both hiring and firing were easy to do, to make sure that the team was always the right people at the right time.

I think you'll agree that your perspective may be something of an outlier, given that you 1.) are not the person who's going to be fired, 2.) are the person who is most empowered by a policy of ease of hiring and firing those under you, and 3.) don't need to work.

I don't like working in a culture where being fired is a thing anyone in my management chain might decide to do to me easily and suddenly for any reason at any time, and I don't think I'm unique in that.

Re: At Netflix, Radical Transparency and Blunt Firings Unsettle the Ranks

#120

Post by maxxxxx » Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 11:29 PM UTC

dsnuh wrote: post #112

maxxxxx wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" and there is a group of employees that will lead this effort by learning and working with the new technologies, and there is another group that will actively oppose taking responsibility to learn about the new technology, and may actively work to sabotage or slow down the process. " And I have seen groups that would like learn the new tech but never get involved by management.

What is stopping a group from learning a new tech, regardless of whether change is organic or imposed by management? Or are you saying you have seen people get replaced with zero warning that new technology was being introduced? That's definitely not been my experience.

This was mainly in large companies where departments are quite large and the regular workers don't really see what's going on. I have seen people in one department being told to keep working on their current stuff while new people were hired for the new tech. Once the new people were up to speed the old department was laid off. There was no effort to get current employees involved.