It's possible that your or your team's productivity is actually bad, and in general at the company you are expected to do more, but the team you are on is a puddle of low productivity within the overall org. How would you know if this is the case? There are a few signs. What degree of tenure do other people on the team have? If old-timers aren't on the team, or worse, if they leave the team for others within the comp…
It's especially important at a big corporation to actively take responsibility for your career, and ask your manager about what will affect your career. For a talented young software engineer, this may seem fundamentally uninteresting, and you may moreover feel humbled by the sheer amount of money they are throwing at you, so it is easier to avoid this task — and in any case you may be able to coast for a long time i…
Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
551–560 of 648 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
#552Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure why I was downvoted, it’s absolutely true. SDE is not a meritocracy.
If you're concerned about your downvotes perhaps you can give us your theory of how it works.
If your manager's manager's manager is awesome at self-promotion, you'll make more money.
The End
Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
#553Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're answering a subtly different question than the one I'm asking. It sounds like you're saying people have opportunities to take steps to find satisfaction at FAANG jobs, but I'm asking, do people actually find satisfaction at FAANG jobs? I can see how self-directed-ness might give people a sense of agency. And I can also see how being able to seek out novelty could keep you from getting bored. But I don't think…
As "satisfaction" is such a subjective measure, I'm not sure there's any good public data, but at least a strong majority of folks fill out internal surveys indicating that they are happy in their current roles. We all find satisfaction in different ways though. Some get it from the products they work on, even if their individual work isn't exciting. Some get it from the actual challenges they're solving and code the…
I worked at a company where we were collecting safety compliance data on workers. The data was partially medical in nature, so we were legally bound by HIPAA, meaning we could not share the data with their employers. Some of the data we collected was self-reported, while some of the data was measured objectively via sensors.
Consistently, the self-reported data showed the workers were in compliance with safety standards. Consistently, the sensor data showed them to not be in compliance.
We changed the messaging around the self-reporting, to make it clear that a) we would not share self-reported data with their employers, and b) we were bound by HIPAA, and therefore could not share self-reported data with their employers. The number of workers self-reporting non-compliance increased significantly (more than doubled) but remained lower than 30%, while the sensor data continued to show compliance in single-digit percentages. The only thing we had achieved was objective proof that the self-reported data was unreliable.
The purpose of the self-reported data was to identify faulty sensors, and it was clear we weren't achieving that goal, so we eventually dropped the self-reported data from collection entirely.
Ultimately, there's no personal benefit to expressing discontent in an internal survey. Doing so takes the risk that the data will be used against you.
I do agree, there are some reasons to believe that people DO find satisfaction at FAANG job. It's just that there are reasons to believe the opposite as well, and I don't feel like I can draw a conclusion as confidently as the poster upthread who said, "They work in a field famous for people deriving immense satisfaction from their job". The only thing I'm convinced of at this point is, "I don't know."
Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
#554It's possible that your or your team's productivity is actually bad, and in general at the company you are expected to do more, but the team you are on is a puddle of low productivity within the overall org. How would you know if this is the case? There are a few signs. What degree of tenure do other people on the team have? If old-timers aren't on the team, or worse, if they leave the team for others within the comp…
It's especially important at a big corporation to actively take responsibility for your career, and ask your manager about what will affect your career. For a talented young software engineer, this may seem fundamentally uninteresting, and you may moreover feel humbled by the sheer amount of money they are throwing at you, so it is easier to avoid this task — and in any case you may be able to coast for a long time i…
Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
#555>If the market value of such incompetence if FAANG salary, how can I do good work and get paid preportionally? You're going to have to learn that, as a laborer at a firm, the quality of work you do is, at best, loosely correlated to your monetary compensation. Sometimes you can do good work, sometimes you can do bad work, but how much you're paid is going to depend greatly on a number of surrounding factors. So, acce…
Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
#556Earlier 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…
The OP is of course the new guy/gal so your not going to being doing major things from day 1.
Code is code, and can be changed. There's this weird inhibition in our industry to just trying things.
Senior or not, there's no harm in opening a PR. If there's a clear reason for not applying a change it's just a learning exercise. The PR can be closed without any negative impact.
Who knows, maybe discussing the PR will be teach the senior contributor something. I can't tell you how many times I've realized a prior constraint is no longer valid via a discussion o'er a PR. I end up informed, the new contributor ends up empowered and the code base lands in a better state -- win, win and win!
IMO these types of changes and the resulting discussions are healthy and absolutely crucial to the longevity of a successful piece of software.
Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
#557>If the market value of such incompetence if FAANG salary, how can I do good work and get paid preportionally? You're going to have to learn that, as a laborer at a firm, the quality of work you do is, at best, loosely correlated to your monetary compensation. Sometimes you can do good work, sometimes you can do bad work, but how much you're paid is going to depend greatly on a number of surrounding factors. So, acce…
This is the fallacy of modern tech-based capitalism and I hate it. The job that I enjoyed the least and where I also did the least amount of work was the best salary I ever had. The value that I added through that job was nominal at best. Other jobs that paid less felt more challenging and exponentially more interesting. Needless to say that happiness was proportional as well. I came to terms with the idea of lowerin…
I don't understand what point you're trying to make. There is no fallacy, only a collosal misconception. Salary is not, not ever was, a proxy for happiness. At most, it's a reflection of the employer's willingness and capacity to pay.
Of course a company that makes billions and wants to poach the best talent out there has the means and opportunity to pay a whole lot more than a small company with no viable business model that's burning through cash. Hell, boring institutional jobs on old banks and insurance companies pay handsomely, even though you might be required to wear a suit and tie to churn out that sweet sweet COBOL code.
Salary is not a fun index. Some industries pay more than others, and are more fun than others. This isn't news. Where is the need to spin this a capitalist conspiracy?
Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
#558Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nope. There's no bonuses at Amazon (at PE/SDE levels at least), and there are compensation bands for each level. A top-ranked SDE3 that delivered DynamoDB should have similar compensation as a top-ranked SDE3 working on internal tools.
This isnt true. Top performers on top products always have larger compensation. Its not discussed openly, but guaranteed they are receiving bonuses in the seven figures. If you think this isnt happening, you are naive or havent been on an inner circle at a large corporation. Whoever told you theres no bonuses at Amazon is not a top employee
So that's how Amazon works - people can't even get a straight answer from management as to the existence of a bonus structure (let alone how it works)? They need to whisper it to each other offer coffee, or... go on Hacker News to find out what the actual deal is?
Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
#559Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I prefer not to discuss compensation Why not?
I guess I have old school compunctions against discussing it, probably comes from generations of folks not talking about it and considering it impolite. I also have seen how people react when they realize there might be a huge pay variation for same titles - it's not good for anyone. I avoid conflict as much as possible nowadays, so it makes me more reticent. I pretty much redirect direct questions even from family b…
Re: Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
#560Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the U.S., it's much more likely that the custodians/janitors are getting underpaid.
If they were underpaid, they’d go work somewhere else they are not. There is a near unlimited supply of mop-pushers in the world.