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Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

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Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#121

Post by vkou »

roland35 wrote: post #11

FAANG companies can certainly offer more money, but there are lots of things other companies can offer too (besides Ruby on Rails apparently). - ownership of the product and process - less red tape and politics - good work life balance - location other than Silicon Valley - boss who pays attention to engineer needs and wants Money is a huge factor but it isn't the only one!

> - ownership of the product and process

I work at FAMANG, and I feel ownership over my product and process. I set priorities for it, I set how work will get done on it, my team collectively determines what kind of processes we follow, and my manager just sanity checks that things are on-track.

> - less red tape and politics

Red tape, sure, politics, there's no guarantee of less politics in a smaller company. If anything, when politics happens, you don't even have the chance to keep your head down and avoid it.

> - good work life balance

There are hundreds of thousands of FAMANG engineers who have good work-life balance. There are many who don't, but there's an pretty big upside to working at a firm/on a project, where you aren't just an expensive cost center (non-eng-firms who generally don't give two damns about their engineers), and where you firm/project isn't default-dead (startup).

> location other than Silicon Valley

Large branch offices exist. Not in the mid-west, but the software jobs in the mid-west tend to be of the 'expensive cost center' variety.

> boss who pays attention to engineer needs and wants

Why would you think you can't find this at FAMANG?

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#122

Post by throwaway0a5e »

thelean12 wrote: post #35
roland35 wrote: post #11

FAANG companies can certainly offer more money, but there are lots of things other companies can offer too (besides Ruby on Rails apparently). - ownership of the product and process - less red tape and politics - good work life balance - location other than Silicon Valley - boss who pays attention to engineer needs and wants Money is a huge factor but it isn't the only one!

I feel like people try to tell themselves this, but money is BY FAR the most important factor. And FAANGs pay a ton. Maybe this can be true if you're going from like $250k to $270k from FAANG to FAANG. But most of the time we're talking about something like $180k to $250k when getting poached to a FAANG. It would take a huge amount of perks or otherwise to make that gap worth it. (Of course this isn't true for everyo…

I feel like people tell themselves the opposite so they can justify continuing to run the SV rat race.

Sure you might be able to sock away an extra $10k/yr but the valley is gonna eat most of your raise and leave you miserable if you don't drink the kool-aid.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#123

Post by Zenbit_UX »

dqpb wrote: post #7
paulgb wrote: post #3

> never underestimate the amount of money the FAANGs have to poach your talent. I really wish we'd stop using the word "poach". It's a loaded word with negative connotations, but what it really means here is "offer someone a better situation than you offered them". Employees have agency, they aren't wild elephants who need your "protection" from "predators" who just want to pay them more.

Another way of saying it: > Never underestimate how much better a person's life can be by working for a FAANG instead of working for you Edit: For those who are downvoting, I'm simply saying this is what's implied by the quote. I'm not making a statement about FAANGs.

> Never underestimate how much better a person's life can be by working for an AANG instead of working for you

FTFY.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#124

Post by cactus2093 »

cptskippy wrote: post #64
paulgb wrote: post #3

> never underestimate the amount of money the FAANGs have to poach your talent. I really wish we'd stop using the word "poach". It's a loaded word with negative connotations, but what it really means here is "offer someone a better situation than you offered them". Employees have agency, they aren't wild elephants who need your "protection" from "predators" who just want to pay them more.

> I really wish we'd stop using the word "poach". It's intentional language used by employers because it has preconceived notions and they succinctly communicate a story that benefits the employer. When you hear poached, you think illegal and victims. It makes you think that the employer has been wronged in some way and that the employee was both participatory in something illegal or at least underhanded and at the s…

You learn a lot about people (managers, founders, etc.) by how they handle their employees leaving the company. Looking over my career up to this point, the conversations I've had when leaving a company are ones that I still remember vividly, whereas I've forgotten a lot of other details about these places I worked for years.

I think back fondly about the managers that genuinely wished me well at those exciting but scary junctions, even if I had my frustrations with them while I worked there. And if I'm being honest I still hold grudges against the ones that tried to make me feel bad and acted like I was betraying them for taking another job that I felt was the right decision for me at the time.

Even from a purely self-interest perspective, it seems to me that it's in every manager's interest not to try to guilt employees that are leaving or talk negatively about them. It's the last chance you have to leave a good impression, it costs you nothing at that point, and you never know when you may cross paths again, or the employee that left may be friends with someone you want to hire in the future and warn them not to join you, etc.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#125

Post by WJW »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #98
roland35 wrote: post #11

FAANG companies can certainly offer more money, but there are lots of things other companies can offer too (besides Ruby on Rails apparently). - ownership of the product and process - less red tape and politics - good work life balance - location other than Silicon Valley - boss who pays attention to engineer needs and wants Money is a huge factor but it isn't the only one!

> - location other than Silicon Valley FAANGs have been embracing permanent work from home/anywhere over the past 5 months.

Do they pay as much for an Alaska-based dev as for a SV-based dev though? I'd be surprised if that was standing policy outside of a few smaller companies (Basecamp is fairly famous for paying SV salaries to all remote employees)

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#126

Post by WWLink »

JPKab wrote: post #86
paulgb wrote: post #3

> never underestimate the amount of money the FAANGs have to poach your talent. I really wish we'd stop using the word "poach". It's a loaded word with negative connotations, but what it really means here is "offer someone a better situation than you offered them". Employees have agency, they aren't wild elephants who need your "protection" from "predators" who just want to pay them more.

The thing that hits me is the "$500k+/year in the valley". Is this really a thing? Am I a giant dumbass for staying in Colorado? Even factoring in my stock grants, I'm nowhere close to that number.

I feel the same way about being a dumbass for staying in los angeles lol. Here I am getting low 100k and some linkedin recruiter tells me about a 400k job. Wait WHAT?!

Man I'd happily take up one of those Google jobs, but being an embedded software guy, I'm not even sure what they'd want me for. It seems like a lot of silicon valley companies are a great place if you're a web dev, or use C#/Java all the time.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#127

Post by benburleson »

thomascgalvin wrote: post #93
cptskippy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really wish we'd stop using the word "poach". It's intentional language used by employers because it has preconceived notions and they succinctly communicate a story that benefits the employer. When you hear poached, you think illegal and victims. It makes you think that the employer has been wronged in some way and that the employee was both participatory in something illegal or at least underhanded and at the s…

> The reality is that the employee was being taken advantage of by the employer and received an offer more closely aligned with their actual value. In the vast majority of cases, I agree. If someone is working at CompuTech for $100K per year, and gets an offer from TechuComp for $110K per year, that's market forces working in favor of the developer. This is a good thing. But there is the possibility for entities the…

It really depends on the perspective. If we're considering this a zero-sum situation, we have to conclude that your situation is good for developers in general because it will cause all developer/engineer salaries to rise to meet the (possibly inflated) salaries that the market has deemed required to recruit talent.

On the other hand, does it mean that some employers won't have money to hire talent? And will that result in some businesses failing? And is that ultimately bad for developers? I don't know, but it feels like it's such a big system that it will balance itself if that is the case.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#128

Post by cmrdporcupine »

fizwhiz wrote: post #36
roland35 wrote: post #11

FAANG companies can certainly offer more money, but there are lots of things other companies can offer too (besides Ruby on Rails apparently). - ownership of the product and process - less red tape and politics - good work life balance - location other than Silicon Valley - boss who pays attention to engineer needs and wants Money is a huge factor but it isn't the only one!

You paint a false dichotomy here. These compensation numbers are just as likely in NYC. Work life balance at many of the FAANG companies tends to be better than other companies ( especially startups), and I've had plenty of bosses that pay a great deal of attention to my needs.

I upvoted both your comment and parent.

9 years at a FAANG and I'd willingly trade plenty of my money and golden handcuffs for a workplace that was more productive, creative, with better communication, and so on.

But when I look I just find shops with distorted work life balance, pointless whiteboard coding interviews, egotistical pseudo-feudal lord bosses with an illusion of hierarchical dominance, and a bunch of 25 year olds insisting on the merits of the latest JS framework flavor of the month.

Want experienced engineering talent (well, maybe they don't)? Money is not the only factor. Smaller companies are shorter on cash, but there are plenty of other things at work that smaller companies can control for...

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#129

Post by sjburt »

thomascgalvin wrote: post #93
cptskippy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really wish we'd stop using the word "poach". It's intentional language used by employers because it has preconceived notions and they succinctly communicate a story that benefits the employer. When you hear poached, you think illegal and victims. It makes you think that the employer has been wronged in some way and that the employee was both participatory in something illegal or at least underhanded and at the s…

> The reality is that the employee was being taken advantage of by the employer and received an offer more closely aligned with their actual value. In the vast majority of cases, I agree. If someone is working at CompuTech for $100K per year, and gets an offer from TechuComp for $110K per year, that's market forces working in favor of the developer. This is a good thing. But there is the possibility for entities the…

I really fail to see the distinction. If someone is willing to pay 600k for something, then the value of that thing on the market is 600k. That is what a market is.

Re: Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix

#130

Post by paulgb »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #104
LordKano wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Approximately 10 years ago, I was really unhappy with my work situation and was checking job postings. I found one that sounded right up my alley and I reached out to the agency that posted it. They told me that because I was working for another one of their clients, they wouldn't submit me for the job because they felt it was unethical. I responded that I wasn't owned by my employer and just as they were free to let…

It's reasonable for them to want to avoid conflicts of interest. They act as an agent of the employers and don't want to get into scenarios where they can't do a proper job of representing their client's interests. It's seems counterproductive to blacklist them for behaving ethically just because it worked against you in one scenario. No recruiting agency is ever going to act in your best interests because you aren't…

In the instance that LordKano reached out to them, they were acting as an agent of the company he was applying to, not the company he currently worked for (even if they had an ongoing relationship with that company). By discarding a qualified applicant, they unethically prioritized their relationship with another client over the company they were supposed to be acting as an agent of in that instance.
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