If the company's one way of making it to the next payroll/ funding round is to fire you, they will. Don't be more loyal to the company than they are to you. Learn to be a mercenary when it comes to salary talks in reviews.
What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?
101–110 of 218 posts
Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?
#102The following is (very?) controversial advice. Depending on your situation, it may be bad advice. There are too many downsides to list, so please use your best judgement. Before voting or commenting please remember this HN guideline: >Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith ...and for what it's worth, I absolutely wo…
I agree with 1 - 4, at least in part, but 5...
>Back up whatever you can without being noticed. Who knows what can come in handy in the future.
Definitely not worth the risk. What value does the data even have to me?
Code? I can get the smaller bits on stack overflow. Similar enough large projects can be found on GitHub or similar.
User data? Worthless. The bits that could be used for money are illegal enough that they would never pay off using in such a manner.
What little value you can extract from the data does not outweigh the career ending risks.
Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has to be Amazon or Apple. Probably Amazon due to the skimping on RSUs and bonuses, have heard that they’re upping the PIPs lately
You know, it baffles me that Amazon is the only tech giant[1] that consistently sounds absolutely terrible to work at. (In my experience - YMMV) How do they keep finding engineers? [1] Well, except Intel. You don't hear about them much online, but around here the local office (not sure about others) bait-and-switches employee openings for contractor openings. They don't even pay that well, and no extra compensation e…
Intel may not pay like the FAANGs but I don't think they're terrible to work at like you said. My first job out of college (15 years ago) was at Intel (Folsom) and it was actually relatively peaceful and nice. I left after 2 years because I wanted to chase the silicon valley startup dreams at the time (which was a right move for me at the time I think, and looking at the outcome/my past 13 years, I'd say it was a good decision), but I also could've stayed -- some of my coworkers from back then are currently still at Intel and happy. Maybe your local office has specific issues?
Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mobility but no means, versus means but no mobility. Most people find later in life that they actually had more means then they realized.
So what things should someone in university atm look to do to ensure they're maximizing their means
Be seen. Volunteer for on-campus events that are organized by the university (find the person running something, and ask them directly if there's anything you can do to help them).
Always ask "Is there anything else I can do to help" after completing a task. Always be the first to start volunteering (show up early) and the last person to stop volunteering (stay late).
If you're a person of good character and genuine spirit, people will notice and talk about you. People will ask your help with bigger things. Repeat.
Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?
#105Not controversial IMO, but useful.
Most companies are stuck in the dark ages, despite what you think after browsing HN. A lot of money to be made in consulting if you can market yourself well.
Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?
#106Feel free to run over people, there's no shortage of them.
Women are dead weight, don't hire them.
Think what's useful, not what's good or bad, true or false.
Always ask yourself what's in it for me.
Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?
#107Article comments and comments in this thread seem to miss the point of the title entirely. Here's some actual advice I don't want my name on, but seems pretty effective based on working at a lot of different Big Cos: - Always go for prestige over purpose. Have a choice between a shiny project with very little actual impact to the company and a behind the scenes project that will actually make lives better for employe…
> Get the scoop on what's actually going on at executive levels by making friends with the office managers/personal assistants.
I'd expand this to always make friends with gatekeepers. Office managers, PAs, front desk, kitchen staff, building security, etc. They're hardworking people who tend to be ignored and mistreated. Respect them, be friendly, and it will open many gates along with making their lives better.
Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Upping the PIPs"? Is that a thing? For a company to formally raise the bar across the board as a means to not give bonuses or raises! I wonder if having Amazon on your resume is a bad signal now. Risk of the candidate being a participant in a toxic environment. Also a signal that the candidate was at Amazon because they couldn't get into other FAANGs (is it common for people to select Amazon over others when holding…
As someone who is involved in some of the recruiting process at a large tech company, I can say that the Amazonians who come our way tend to be decent people stuck in a toxic environment. Whenever I do a culture fit interview with them, I have several tactics I use to draw out the horror stories they inevitably have, and I'm usually pleasantly surprised by how they seemed to have maintained their own integrity throug…
My experience matches yours, my friends and acquaintances at Amazon have been fine people, it’s just that some of their organizational decisions / probably how middle management comp gets calculated can make things toxic.
Also Amazon is easier to get hired at than other big tech companies, so I guess it is some strategic decision to hire/fire easily rather than have a stricter hiring process that would also introduced a lot of false negatives (like FLAG do).
Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know, it baffles me that Amazon is the only tech giant[1] that consistently sounds absolutely terrible to work at. (In my experience - YMMV) How do they keep finding engineers? [1] Well, except Intel. You don't hear about them much online, but around here the local office (not sure about others) bait-and-switches employee openings for contractor openings. They don't even pay that well, and no extra compensation e…
Intel may not pay like the FAANGs but I don't think they're terrible to work at like you said. My first job out of college (15 years ago) was at Intel (Folsom) and it was actually relatively peaceful and nice. I left after 2 years because I wanted to chase the silicon valley startup dreams at the time (which was a right move for me at the time I think, and looking at the outcome/my past 13 years, I'd say it was a goo…
I had a few Google coworkers that were Intel alums. It's not that they're a bad place to work - I heard that working conditions were fairly good actually, in terms of pay, work/life balance, management, etc.
But they could be a stifling place to work. Intel is effectively a monopoly, with a clear development roadmap and a clear Process-Architecture-Optimization model with deliverables every 12-18 months. Pretty much everything about the company is setup to prevent anyone from rocking the boat. So their software activities are all about making sure the Intel architecture stays on top, their hardware activities are all about making sure that a new architecture comes out every 4 years and the die shrink happens on schedule, and they're basically averse to anything that might add variability or risk into their market position.
Certain people do really well in that environment, but for a lot of folks in software (itself a creative profession), that kind of work environment is basically hell.
Re: What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?
#110Don’t take a job unless you know what job you plan to take afterwards.