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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?

#471

Post by RobLach »

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…

Nonsense and completely detached from reality.

Every worker's duty is purely to themselves, not some sort of bizarre worship of their employer.

Your duty to yourself under capitalism is to extract as much capital and benefit as possible from the market in exchange for your labor. If you can commit a line of code a week and still get paid your salary, you're working EXTREMELY efficiently. Even better if you manage to get a job where they're failing to get any labor from you at all.

Conversely every employer is focused on extracting as much production as possible from their employees. Efficient companies will cut off under-producing workers without a second thought and will continuously strive to minimize the cost of any employee.

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

#472

Post by ghaff »

goldenManatee wrote: post #450
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…

It’s a transaction. The goals of the company and employee parties is to maximize their own gains with as little effort as possible. The moral imperative argument is very dubious, and sounds one-side to further the gains of the company party at the expense of additional energy from the employee. Raising matters of social change as if the employee should have some gut wrenching “come to Jesus” because “they’re so lucky…

You're seeing some responses to this that are very cultural. Personally, I don't think a slow coast is a good long-term strategy for most people under a lot of circumstances (for many reasons). But putting the least effort in is seen as pretty normal in a lot of cultures. As someone else said, you're seeing a lot of Calvinist moralizing here IMO.

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

#473

Post by paloaltokid »

bumby wrote: post #468
unethical_ban wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hey boss, I'd like to move faster on Project X, but there are too many review processes" That's just the way it is, John. "Hey, I'd like to change the change review process to streamline it from a catch-all form, to one more appropriate to our workflow" Sorry John, QA will never sign off. "Hey, why are we wasting 30% of our team on Project Z? It's a total duplication of work for Project Y, and brings no value to the…

I agree it can be demoralizing but what you've presented takes the perspective that you are just a victim to an organization rather than part of that organization. > That's just the way it is, John. Maybe you didn't communicate the value of moving faster that speaks to your boss's incentives. > Sorry John, QA will never sign off. Maybe you didn't show QA how the improved workflow actually improves the quality of the…

Having done transformation work for the last 4 years I can tell you...the individual employee will almost certainly literally die of exhaustion before they see meaningful change.

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

#474

Post by bumby »

cvlasdkv wrote: post #459
bumby wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are not cool with it, then figure out a way to change it > So either start putting in your best work, or switch teams or company and see if it suits you better. You and the OP are essentially saying the same thing, except they are adding that an honest days wage deserves an honest days work

You are assuming that FAANG companies are offering "fair" compensation for the output of their engineers. How would anyone ever make a profit doing that? Employees are very rarely the exploiters and almost always the exploited.

If it wasn’t fair, why did you accept the offer?

Let’s not pretend that FAANG employees are like an underclass that has to accept a job out of desperation.

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

#475

Post by lowbloodsugar »

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…

We could get into the conversations about entitlement, sociopathy, whatever, but lets try to help:

Situation: "I only have to work one day a week to keep up, and so I only work that one day and slack off the rest of the time".

Possible causes:

1. Depression / Mental health issues

Seek help. I know: depressed; so hard to do.

2. Doesn't actually enjoy programming.

Wait till the pandemic is over and get a different job or start a company doing something you enjoy.

3. Enjoy programming, Team sucks.

FAANGs are huge companies with thousands of teams. Find a different team.

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

#476

Post by bumby »

paloaltokid wrote: post #473
bumby wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it can be demoralizing but what you've presented takes the perspective that you are just a victim to an organization rather than part of that organization. > That's just the way it is, John. Maybe you didn't communicate the value of moving faster that speaks to your boss's incentives. > Sorry John, QA will never sign off. Maybe you didn't show QA how the improved workflow actually improves the quality of the…

Having done transformation work for the last 4 years I can tell you...the individual employee will almost certainly literally die of exhaustion before they see meaningful change.

I think the saying is “frustration is a failure to manage expectations”.

I think often we get into organizations overestimating the impact we’ll have. It seems our impact can be inversely proportional to the size of the company. But that may be an artifact of how we define “meaningful change”

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

#477

Post by icedchai »

maximente wrote: post #469
icedchai wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

yikes, this is painful to read. the power software engineers wield is almost unfair, compared to non-software laborers - there's unlimited ways in which to get paid fairly well, ridiculously easy lifestyle, and also work on tech that aligns with doing good in the world, generally speaking. one can't have it all at the same time... but with software, you can probably have one of the largest spreads of [mission, comfor…

It's easy and pays well, yes. It's generally not satisfying though. Maybe 20% of the time you're working on solving an interesting problem or doing what feels like "real" work. Much of the time you're spending in awful meetings / conference calls, answering emails, or working on features that nobody's even going to use. Maybe it's different in Silicon Valley.

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

#478

Post by marcus_holmes »

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...

Stop working for large companies then.

Large companies always have politics getting in the way of engineering decisions, resulting in annoyed engineers who can't do satisfying work.

Small organisations have less politics, more creative freedom (usually) and you can have a larger impact on the organisation.

However, they usually pay less, too. If your main priority is money then you might have to suck up the misery.

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

#479

Post by eternalban »

dasil003 wrote: post #281
eternalban wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart enough to know yourself > smart enough to pass interview.

Knowing oneself has little correlation to intelligence as far as I can tell.

Any effective 'theory of mind' requires intelligence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

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

#480

Post by mkoubaa »

skrtskrt wrote: post #462
codeviking wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like good advice, but is presented poorly. You're meeting expectations, which is great, but don't stop there. You recognize that you (and your teammates) could be doing more, so make it happen. You're entirely capable and empowered to do so: - Fix that technical debt. - Identify better tooling and demonstrate it's value to your teammates. - Proactively find things your software could do better and write ab…

This is good... only IF he can actually get to work on this stuff without being stomped on and blocked from every corner of the organization.

None of the FAANGs block personal projects from staff who are productive enough in their primary responsibility
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