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Ask HN: Tools or sites you use to scope out a workplace before taking a job?

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Re: Ask HN: Tools or sites you use to scope out a workplace before taking a job?

#111

Post by lynnetye »

OJFord wrote: post #98
lynnetye wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using OR logic until I have enough companies for AND logic to provide a good user experience. I'm looking forward for that day to come, too, trust me! If you select multiple values, the results will be ordered by number of matches and prioritize the companies who ranked those values highest.

OR is fine (hopefully the sort order is by most matches first though?) - what's confusing to me is that it starts on a non-zero number. Is that the number of companies that don't match anything? Is there any value in listing them at all, if that's the case?

Highest number of matches and the ranking of those matches. For example, if you select values A and B, a company that lists A as #1 and B as #2 will show up before a company that lists A as #7 and B as #8.

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by it starting on a non-zero number. Perhaps you have one of the tags selected?

Re: Ask HN: Tools or sites you use to scope out a workplace before taking a job?

#112

Post by zerkten »

ddebernardy wrote: post #69

> Do you email people who work there? No. They'll rarely tell you anything useful because they'd risk their job. Focus on former employees instead if you really must. (And only stick to recent ones if you do, because companies change.) But IMHO you don't actually need to do this nowadays. > Do you just jump in and hope for the best? Absolutely not. At the very least check out their website, their execs, and your futu…

> Last point: don't underestimate the value of this research. If you're going to move to some new location and/or change jobs thinking you're going to stay there for more than a few months, take an afternoon to do this research to avoid getting ugly surprises.

I didn't see this posted elsewhere. Before researching a company or role I try to note down what I want. As I research, or talk to different folks about roles, my perspective can sometimes change. It's good to be able to come back to your core reasons for investigating the role.

Once you've done the research try to map out the possible trajectories for you from that point (if the company is acquired by market leader that you hate, if they turn out to not be some happy with remote work, etc.) This doesn't take long, but feel like I've seen so many people in my almost 20 years of work life leave me thinking "that was obvious" after a sad conversation.

Re: Ask HN: Tools or sites you use to scope out a workplace before taking a job?

#113

Post by curiousfiddler »

motohagiography wrote: post #57

Crunchbase to get current and former founders/execs, last rounds etc. Company website for investor relations page if exists, SEC and regulatory filings to get financials, technology roadmaps, prospectuses, etc. Then avoid pinging anyone on linkedin other than to find who the core informal network that runs the company is. Find out: 1. Revenue and runway before next funding round or profitability. This trumps all in p…

Thanks, the points you make are very important.

Specifically, on "... executive level bullshit politics related to their short term compensation milestones ...", I would like to add, this one is the hardest to figure out and has a significant impact on your growth not just within the company, but as a person in general.

Any more suggestions, on good ways to find out if this is part of the company culture?

Re: Ask HN: Tools or sites you use to scope out a workplace before taking a job?

#114

Post by jashmatthews »

balfirevic wrote: post #100
titanomachy wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're serious: get a job at a well-known tech company. You might have to move for this unless you're already in a top-tier tech city (NYC, SF, and Seattle, definitely qualify; maybe Zurich, London, Toronto, and Sydney). Work there for two years. Move to a better tech company. You are now worth $300-400k per year. If you're not already considered top-tier talent, I think Amazon is the easiest way into this right n…

> You are now worth $300-400k per year. Are you sure this number still applies if you're outside of US (London, Toronto, Sydney)? My understanding is that numbers in Europe are nothing like those in the US.

London and Sydney have insanely high costs of living so recruiting and retaining skilled people means paying high in the first place. In London or Sydney you can make £100k or $140k as a good developer. Google simply pays double that at L5 so you don't think about leaving.

Re: Ask HN: Tools or sites you use to scope out a workplace before taking a job?

#115

Post by fierro »

titanomachy wrote: post #85
fierro wrote: post #53

Most of the other comments here cover the majority of useful tips/techniques. However for me, one thing I really like doing is reaching out to employees who quit/left. Ask them for honest information about why they quit and what the existing problems are.

This is interesting. I would assume that negative feedback from these people is less of a signal than positive feedback. The baseline approval rating from someone who left the company is going to be lower than people working at the company. If an ex-employee is disgruntled or bitter it doesn't tell me that much, unless I hear the same complaint from a lot of people. If someone left because another great opportunity c…

you're probably not wrong, but I think this is a good additional data point to have. It's easy to spot disgruntled reviews of anything. But if someone who left or quit has a composed, reasoned description of plausible problems, it should weigh into your decision at least a little

Re: Ask HN: Tools or sites you use to scope out a workplace before taking a job?

#117

Post by tlavoie »

Various OSInt (open source intelligence) tools can be handy, just as they are on a pen-test.

Besides the usual stuff linked to on the site, you can look for email addresses from their domain(s), Google-dork for file extensions on their site and so on.

Often email addresses are tied to discussion forums and such, though perhaps more of that is Github these days.

One tool (forget the name at the moment) would let you look for social media posts/pics in a radius to a given location, so see what pops up nearby the office. If not from the company, might still be informative of the neighbourhood.

Re: Ask HN: Tools or sites you use to scope out a workplace before taking a job?

#118

Post by Maultasche »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #89

Good question. But I also believe some of it requires being proactive. 1) Keep in mind that during the interview process, you are (read: should be) interviewing them, as much as they are interviewing you. If you sense they don't realize / respect you being an equal in the process then put a note under "red flags." 2) Along the same lines, listen careful during the process. Listen for that is said, and often more impo…

If he only wants to deal with one person, the other developers could report to you, and he won't need to worry about dealing with them.

Re: Ask HN: Tools or sites you use to scope out a workplace before taking a job?

#119

Post by rajacombinator »

lynnetye wrote: post #14

If you're a software engineer (or will work closely w/ engineers), I built Key Values ( https://www.keyvalues.com ) to help w/ this. Before building KV though, my research process included looking for and reading: - the company's career and about us pages - an active blog w/ recent posts (w/in the last 2 months) - LinkedIn / Twitter / GitHub of founders and existing team members (I'd also look for any old blogs writt…

This site looks nice but a question and couple suggestions for you.

Question: why not include a "high compensation"/"high equity"/"top of market comp"/etc category? Talk about culture and values is nice but as far as I'm concerned the best way for companies to show they care about engineers is to put their money where their mouth is. There's surely a subset of engineers and companies that agree with me on this. It would be useful for matching.

Suggestions: if you're not doing this already, you should limit the number of categories a company or user can select. (And if you are doing this, you should make it clear on the site.) This will help get more meaningful results. Some of the current categories are meaningless - ie. "Impressive team members" ... what company would not claim this? It's only meaningful if you restrict them to, say, 5 categories. Either do this or just eliminate these categories and keep it on pure culture traits like "eats lunch together."

Re: Ask HN: Tools or sites you use to scope out a workplace before taking a job?

#120

Post by 01100011 »

I'm curious about this, having recently joined a company where I feel completely out of place. I like the work, but I hate the work environment and I'm not really gelling with my coworkers.

I'm not sure how you can assess team dynamics before committing to the job. Unless you sign on as a contractor, you're taking a big risk signing up.

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