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I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

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Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#31

Post by seieste »

ayende wrote: post #21
streetcat1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on your software. Here are my rules: 1) The hardest tech possible. I want to test my intellectual limits, which was not possible in the corp world. 2) The most hyped areas, today those are AI/Kubernetes. If you have a unique solution, then it should not be a problem to get early adopters. Moreover, after leaving my corporate job, I began: 1) Working 17 hours days, 7 days a week. 2) 100% software dev. To su…

Welcome to burnout, then. That is not sustainable, and you can't create a profitable solution in a time frame that this amount of work would pay off without horrible (personal) costs.

In my experience, burnout seems to be a result of poor sleep, poor nutrition, lack of autonomy, lack of recognition, etc. This is especially true if working harder won't lead to greater rewards, like if you have a fixed salary or if your compensation is fairly independent from your actual work.

Many of these are more likely to occur when working at a big Corp, so working by yourself can help you avoid this.

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#32

Post by vxNsr »

izacus wrote: post #19
tyingq wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the opposite experience. With some exceptions, It's not that hard to figure out how to win over one person. Even if they are a terrible manager, you get a sense of what they consider important. Figuring out the dynamics of a committee is harder.

This sounds like a feature, not a bug - it prevents extroverts who suck up to a boss always stepping over introverts who do a better job.

And yet in one short article the OP perfectly summed up who google sucks at making long term software that continues to work.

People often say that google rewards for new projects and ideas vs maintaining the old, I didn’t really understand what that meant until he explained it here. Doing good work is meaningless, the only that matters is what some faceless committee thinks.

What’s odd is that the committee doesn’t look at code quality, maintainability or longevity. They don’t care about documentation at all apparently because it’s not a quantifiable metric. And yet if you asked any engineer they would all say they’d rather work with documented code vs undocumented. It would ave them time and allow them to fix things faster.

The fact that google is trying to turn everyone into a quantified machine is making the whole org very sick.

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#33

Post by zrail »

streetcat1 wrote: post #11
rozenmd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is anyone going to find your software if you don't write about it?

It depends on your software. Here are my rules: 1) The hardest tech possible. I want to test my intellectual limits, which was not possible in the corp world. 2) The most hyped areas, today those are AI/Kubernetes. If you have a unique solution, then it should not be a problem to get early adopters. Moreover, after leaving my corporate job, I began: 1) Working 17 hours days, 7 days a week. 2) 100% software dev. To su…

Increasing focus != increasing hours, if that’s even an appropriate goal.

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#34

Post by tuesday20 »

streetcat1 wrote: post #11
rozenmd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is anyone going to find your software if you don't write about it?

It depends on your software. Here are my rules: 1) The hardest tech possible. I want to test my intellectual limits, which was not possible in the corp world. 2) The most hyped areas, today those are AI/Kubernetes. If you have a unique solution, then it should not be a problem to get early adopters. Moreover, after leaving my corporate job, I began: 1) Working 17 hours days, 7 days a week. 2) 100% software dev. To su…

Woah, 17 hour days???!!

Can I ask what you’re building? It is very hard to be productive that long, hence the question

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#35

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

My manager assured me that my promotion was close. He felt that I was already capable of senior-level work. I just needed the right project to prove it to the promotion committee.

Who hasn't been there before. I've had my manager tell me I have a "bright future" in my team, a couple of weeks before it was dissolved.

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#36

Post by tuesday20 »

rando_guy_here wrote: post #30
streetcat1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on your software. Here are my rules: 1) The hardest tech possible. I want to test my intellectual limits, which was not possible in the corp world. 2) The most hyped areas, today those are AI/Kubernetes. If you have a unique solution, then it should not be a problem to get early adopters. Moreover, after leaving my corporate job, I began: 1) Working 17 hours days, 7 days a week. 2) 100% software dev. To su…

17 sounds a bit hardcore, maybe you are very young:) I'm currently doing the exact same route, but at about maybe 14. For those who doubt, please don't until you try it. I have no idea why, but I can actually put 14 into my own project and I feel completely great. I work maybe 6 days a week like this, get up in the morning and just code until I crash. I'm about a year into it now and I honestly don't feel any burnout…

I’ve experienced the same, though not 14 hours consistently. Are there any steps you take to avoid burnout? Also, are you coding all day? Or writing content etc?

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#37

Post by [deleted] »

ainar-g wrote: post #2

> Wait a second. I was in a business relationship with Google. > It may sound strange that it took me two and a half years to realize it, but Google does a good job of building a sense of community within the organization. To make us feel that we’re not just employees, but that we are Google. > That conversation made me realize that I’m not Google. I provide a service to Google in exchange for money. People, and espe…

[deleted]

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#38

Post by streetcat1 »

tuesday20 wrote: post #34
streetcat1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on your software. Here are my rules: 1) The hardest tech possible. I want to test my intellectual limits, which was not possible in the corp world. 2) The most hyped areas, today those are AI/Kubernetes. If you have a unique solution, then it should not be a problem to get early adopters. Moreover, after leaving my corporate job, I began: 1) Working 17 hours days, 7 days a week. 2) 100% software dev. To su…

Woah, 17 hour days???!! Can I ask what you’re building? It is very hard to be productive that long, hence the question

Yes. I am creating a new auto ml platform for Kubernetes, in Kubernetes - I.e. via CRDs.

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#39

Post by bluntfang »

doublement wrote: post #24
elfexec wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's called “labour market”, not “labour community” It's also called human resources, not human community or human family. You are a resource just like a monitor or a stapler on the desk. A resource that the company uses for the benefit of the shareholders.

Being a useful resource doesn't have to be miserable though, especially if your role is more akin to a chainsaw or rocket engine than a stapler.

there are thousands of chainsaws and rocket engines ready to take your place.

Re: I Quit Google to Work for Myself (2018)

#40

Post by zrail »

joeblau wrote: post #23

The promo process story hits home with me. I was trying to get promoted a few years back at my company. Over the previous 4 years, I built out a lot of systems, fixed critical bugs in our software stack, stayed late during crunch mode ensuring on time shipping, and volunteered to debug issues upstream issues impacting our software. Our team was customer facing so back-end bugs always surfaced in our product. I was a…

Sounds like you needed a brag doc. You are the only one that can remember everything you did, so write it down and hand it to your manager so they can remember too.

https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/

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