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Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

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Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#431

Post by kkotak »

smattiso wrote: post #375
dbalatero wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent is not asking them to do that: > So either start putting in your best work, or switch teams or company and see if it suits you better... or else accept that you're being a freeloader and pretending to do more work than you really are. It's definitely a choice here, but the point is the OP needs to actually make some active choices and decide what they're ok with.

I agree with what you are saying. The "tough-love" message is usually to "suck it up" and stay where you are. "Life sucks, get over it." My point is if you are smart enough to be in a FAANG you are smart enough to do great work and make an impact on this world. You don't have to settle for fixing tiny bugs in some admin page for an ad company. I know there are people that are 100% cool with doing that for $$$. If you…

I think it's a fallacy to think that you are smarter if you land a job at a Big N company. I know a few, you I wouldn't qualify as smarter than average on any scale are working at those companies because they happen to get good referrals and got lucky on interview days.

Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#432

Post by ipnon »

throwaway3354 wrote: post #64

Googler here. I used to feel very guilty during my first year here, because my productivity was so ridiculously low. Yet I was being praised for being fast and productive (both by my team, and by my manager). Then over time this feeling started fading away (since I could clearly see that everyone was unproductive, not just me), and I started seeing this as the new normal. Everyone works way below their potential, and…

Sounds like a pretty sweet gig if making money is the primary goal of employment.

Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#433

Post by ghaff »

newen wrote: post #396
khazhoux wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, he should work harder -- he admits to working only one day a week, and then actively pretends (by "trickling out" work) that it took longer. Let's please not pretend that it's normal or OK to have 6-day weekends every single week. He is being compensated (I infer) very well for a safe and comfortable job, except he doesn't like the tooling and he's realized that people trust him and he doesn't need to be honest…

What's with this moralizing? If you can get away with working only one day a week, there's nothing wrong with doing exactly that. Is this like some Protestant work ethic thing?

In general, I certainly wouldn't advocate trying to do the least work possible to get by in some job long-term. It doesn't sound fulfilling and likely isn't good for one's career long-term.

But I don't get this moralizing about cheating the company.

Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#434

Post by benatkin »

ryandrake wrote: post #394
Jommi wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ive heard FANMAG mulitple times nowadays.

If you drop a few you can have MAGA - Microsoft Amazon Google Apple :-)

If you add a fictional one and switch out a social network you can cave MATH - Microsoft Amazon Twitter Hooli

Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#435

Post by sokoloff »

icedchai wrote: post #426
Godel_unicode wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a subtly different take on this; op is cheating themselves. They work in a field famous for people deriving immense satisfaction from their job, but they aren't because they are living down to the expectations of others.

Seriously? I don't know anyone in this field who derives immense satisfaction from their job. Maybe if they're less than 5 years out of school and reality still hasn't hit yet...

I loved every week (though not every hour) of my computer programming jobs. I literally do it for free in my spare time and here some fools are willing to pay me handsomely to do it at their little glass and concrete spreadsheet/Powerpoint mine. The only "catch" is I have to work on problems they pick instead of ones I pick. Sounds fair enough to me; where do I sign?!

Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#436

Post by tmyrden »

didibus wrote: post #407
khazhoux wrote: post #346

This thread is seriously in need of some tough love. @faang0722, you're being a slacker, and not doing right by either your company or yourself. You're at one of the top companies in the world, and are safe from the jobs disaster that's gripping the entire country. Millions of people are desperate to receive $600-1600 from the government this month because they are unable to work. Millions are putting on shitty facem…

To be fair, they didn't say they're working one day a week, they said it takes them only one day to provide equal value to what their teammates achieve in one week, a value that seems to meet their company's expectations. FAANGS employees are salaried, and not paid by hour, because you are compensated for ROI. If it takes you one hour and you bring in lots of value, that's still a good deal. On the flip side, you cou…

> I normally work about one day trickle out my changes during the the week. The other days I only open my computer for standup and if I get an IM.

They said exactly that though. They work one day a week and otherwise just log on for standup and when messaged.

Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#437

Post by csunbird »

defnotashton2 wrote: post #320
bob33212 wrote: post #88

Yes and No. I worked at a big company where on my own initiative I automated 40% of the QA processes. It was great because I was productive and received recognition. It was also frustrating because I delivered 5x value more than my coworkers but was paid similarly. The company limited raises to 10%. I did get rewarded with non monetary things. I took 8 weeks of vacation, tagged along on any international trip the dir…

Yea I walk anytime I sit across from a manager and they say our corporate raise limit is x. Its terribly discouraging and makes me want to burn the building down. I should be paid for a portion of the value I'm adding to the company. If I wrote software in 3 months that billed out over 500k every 12 months, I expect a substantial raise or bonus not 3,5, 10%..

I actually disagree with this.

In big companies, everybody completes a piece of the puzzle and if you are the one who collects all the pieces, you might think that you are doing the most of the work. But actually, everybody is a part of that.

Let me give you an example: My $JOB at $COMPANY is related to preventing fraud. My department and team saves around 4 to 10 percent of the ALL revenue, potentially more if we did not do our jobs well (fraud rate grows exponentially when a known pattern is known to fraudsters). Our department is not even 1% of all of our engineers but our value is triple of other teams. Should we ask triple of their salaries? No, because all the data points that we gather are generated by other teams, which do their jobs, just like us.

It is called a co-operation (corporation) for a reason.

Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#439

Post by giantg2 »

awinder wrote: post #270
_spoonman wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been struggling with just purpose in general for years. I’m a husband and father - those are supposed to be my purpose. But sometimes I don’t feel very good at them. Hang in there. We’ll figure this all out.

Feeling like you're not doing well at something is a key motivator towards growth & getting better. And yet through growth you have to grapple with the truth -- you're not doing as well at something as you could be. Some days I really struggle because the more you're growing the more you'll deal with intrusive thoughts that originate in that growth. Like you said -- keep going :).

Yeah, I'm familiar with the pyramid/staircase of mastery and the inertia period as it pertains to intrusive thoughts.

I like to learn new things, struggle (within reason), and iterate on my previous attempts or prototypes to build a better product that I can be proud of. I did this when I was building my android apps and loved it.

My problem is that the company sets us up for failure and doesn't even realize it. The business consistently gives us terrible requirements. They can't build a business process map or anything else to describe the processes they follow. They constantly miss big pieces so we end up with systems that are spaghetti code to cover all these things they miss.

The company also views struggling with new tech or roles as a negative. They don't provide any real training either, but I guess the Plural Sight self-learning trend is more of an industry thing. I joined my new team about 4 months ago and worked on a AWS Lambda in Python, Slunk alerts/dashboards, Tableau dashboards, and I have no training in any of it. I had to self-teach AWS (2 certs), Python, Splunk (User cert), and Tableau. The demoralizing part is that little of this seen as valuable. I can't improve my career by "developing" Tableau or Splunk dashboards. I need to have a steady diet of AWS and Python where the requirements are 90% there so I can architect and develop elegant, or at least practical, solutions to an interesting business problem.

Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?

#440

Post by kanobo »

xiphias2 wrote: post #59
kanobo wrote: post #11

"I am not happy" - Yes you should quit. Keep in mind this year has been incredibly unusual in terms of productivity. All the issues you describe are opportunities to have huge impact on a global scale if you decide to solve any of them. But if you truly are disgusted by the state your company then that's not your path. I think you would likely thrive if you set your own path and work in an environment you built. You…

There are literally thousands of teams in more than 50 cities in the world he can easily move to. Quitting so fast without evaluating his options would be a stupid decision.

The costs of doing business at that scale disgusts the engineer, that's not going to be different in another city. This engineer is likely intelligent and has been at the company for a year so I have no doubt he has considered other opportunities within this company so yes I do think he should quit as soon as he has a plan. Many people in this thread think the asker is somehow unintelligent and a slacker. I'm answering assuming this eng is smart and eager to work but has internal turmoil.
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