Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#91

Post by cbanek » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

benmanns wrote: post #83

dktoao wrote: post #77

I think 100x is hyperbol however you slice it, run away from anyone who tells you they are a 100x developer. 10x may be achievable... but I argue that it is at least partly due to the prevailing code-base. Every competent developer is a 10x developer on a green field project just like every competent developer is a 0.1x developer on a messy legacy spaghetti-code disaster of a project (Making the differential 100x I g…

If 100x is from 100x the throughput of a 0.1x developer, in reality some developers are <0 net contribution. If I'm a 10x and the baseline/worst is -5x, then I need to start saying I'm a -50x developer.

> in reality some developers are Yes, sadly this is honestly true. Especially if you take into account the time spent to manage them, and then cleaning up after them, a person can easily be negative net contribution.

Honestly that's one of the ways I feel I've made a hiring mistake. It's okay to invest more time than it would take me to do a task to teach someone else to do a task, knowing that they can learn and improve, and eventually that investment of time will pay off. Eventually they should be teaching me things too, and doing things without needing any help. But if someone is constantly taking more time, and it doesn't look like that investment is getting paid off, I get nervous.

Then when the team starts slowing down, management will become even more resistant to getting rid of people, because you need to "go faster" which in their minds is simply some matter of headcount.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#92

Post by bob33212 » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

dktoao wrote: post #77

I think 100x is hyperbol however you slice it, run away from anyone who tells you they are a 100x developer. 10x may be achievable... but I argue that it is at least partly due to the prevailing code-base. Every competent developer is a 10x developer on a green field project just like every competent developer is a 0.1x developer on a messy legacy spaghetti-code disaster of a project (Making the differential 100x I g…

Reed is taking that into account. Reed and Netflix have been creating software for many years. They certainly have had "Rockstars" who could bust out functional but unmaintainable code. Those people are not valuable to Netflix because Netflix is looking for long term success.

A 100x engineer exists in the context of a global company like Netflix. Because if a developer makes something just 1% better that translates into millions of dollars of savings or increased revenue because on the margins just 0.001% increase of new subscribers is thousands of customers.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#93

Post by pathseeker » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

znpy wrote: post #32

In my opinion a huge role in the raise of IT people salary is their tendency to brag about their salary, one way or another. For better or for worse, this lead to discussions about salary, negotiating practices, and to people looking elsewhere. I sometimes speak with people that work in other fields and many of them have zero clue about these topics, whereas in most IT-related discussion boards (whether it's HN, redd…

I think you've got cause and effect backwards. The rocket-ship rise of IT salaries is what has everyone in the field discussing salaries. The topic wouldn't even come up if it was pretty well-bounded to $80k/year for a SWE with 5 years of experience.

However, in our field you end up with people who have sat around in their same SWE job at DuPont/Lockheed or some other boomer company for 10 years and are making $80k while new grads are hitting $150k+ TC going into Google and 7 years experienced engineers can hit $450k TC at the big tech companies.

A tech company with a good moat can easily extract millions in value out of the work of SWEs building more crap for them. That's why they are willing to compete for competent engineers. If they didn't bring in that kind of cash, the companies just wouldn't pay for it, period.

Employees talking money with each other has zero bearing on what a company is willing to offer. I worked at a hotel in high school and everyone knew the hourly pay of every position in the hotel. It didn't get us raises.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#94

Post by notJim » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

dktoao wrote: post #77

I think 100x is hyperbol however you slice it, run away from anyone who tells you they are a 100x developer. 10x may be achievable... but I argue that it is at least partly due to the prevailing code-base. Every competent developer is a 10x developer on a green field project just like every competent developer is a 0.1x developer on a messy legacy spaghetti-code disaster of a project (Making the differential 100x I g…

> Good developers are the ones that create code that resists the slide from a 10x code-base to a 0.1x code-base

That may be true of good developers. On the other hand, in my experience "10x developers" are the ones causing the slide.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#95

Post by Pfhreak » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #69

ccmcarey wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software Engineer seems a pretty safe choice.

See, I feel silly calling myself a "software engineer" - it sounds like "sanitation engineer" or "domestic engineer" to me. I always say programmer or software developer.

Heh, I tend to try and avoid 'programmer' because programming is only one part of the job. It's like calling a carpenter a 'measurer'.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#96

Post by drewg123 » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

birdyrooster wrote: post #67

ketamine__ wrote: post #11

What happens when the Rockstar programmer needs time off because of a death in the family? Is Hastings okay with that if it's in the middle of an important project that can't easily be taken on by others? If great programmers are limited by supply I suppose he has no choice but to keep them.

My manager was forced to go help his family in a foreign country for a month and they fired him before he returned. They did this almost routinely (and still do from those I speak to) to people who had to take time off. It’s a highly political and backstabby kind of place. It’s the only company in SV I’ve worked at (been at more than half of FAANG) where yelling matches were not uncommon in meetings. The culture slid…

Where do/did you work at Netflix? I've never seen nor even heard of these things in Open Connect after 5+ years..

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#97

Post by purple_ferret » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

PakG1 wrote: post #84

purple_ferret wrote: post #78

It's interesting that Netflix's strategy with content is almost the complete opposite. Pump out junk reality TV and test lots of shows for a season only to drop them once they don't put up acceptable numbers (i.e. get past the Initial Probationary Period)

I'm not really a watcher of Netflix, but could you give some examples of what you're talking about? I didn't even know that Netflix did reality TV for example. And everything I've ever read or heard about top-tier actors and directors who work with Netflix is that they really respect the art and let the artists work. I've only read a lot of stories of a lot of creative freedom and a long leash. So would be curious to…

The Circle (was very popular), Love is Blind, Too Hot To Handle, 100 Humans, Dating Around, Glow UP, Back with the Ex, Nailed It, Interior Design Masters, Next In Fashion, Sugar Rush, Skin Decision, etc

Every show about dating, cooking, design, fashion, plastic surgery you could imagine.

These are just some Netflix Originals that showed up when I searched The Circle

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#98

Post by lambdasquirrel » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #62

d23 wrote: post #34

> Eventually, Rick snapped. Once he departed the company, the team of supposedly “mediocre” engineers redid his work to make it more elegant and efficient: “We didn’t have any mad geniuses building everything from scratch. But our productivity was never higher.” A silly strawman. I'd firmly put someone like this in the bucket of "not that effective."

That was my thought too. The problem here isnt with "superstar developers", it's with people who don't understand the work trying to label people as such and doing a piss-poor job. Someone who doesn't write code others can read isn't even a mediocre developer, hes a bad one. It's arguments like these that make me very skeptical of the claims that 10x developers don't exist, as I've yet to hear such an argument that d…

> That being said, I fully agree with the article's framing of this view as simply saying that talented developers need a healthy working environment in order to reach their potential.

The flip side being, a talented developer might not want to join a company where an engineer like that has been the top dog (and the people below haven’t been around enough to have an idea what being a senior engineer is about). It just ends in tears and frustration for the ”talented developer.”

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#99

Post by MiroF » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

notJim wrote: post #94

dktoao wrote: post #77

I think 100x is hyperbol however you slice it, run away from anyone who tells you they are a 100x developer. 10x may be achievable... but I argue that it is at least partly due to the prevailing code-base. Every competent developer is a 10x developer on a green field project just like every competent developer is a 0.1x developer on a messy legacy spaghetti-code disaster of a project (Making the differential 100x I g…

> Good developers are the ones that create code that resists the slide from a 10x code-base to a 0.1x code-base That may be true of good developers. On the other hand, in my experience "10x developers" are the ones causing the slide.

> 10x developers

If they're causing code quality slide, they're not a "10x developer."

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#100

Post by ohyes » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

hanniabu wrote: post #43

ohyes wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 500k a year I'd be more than willing to show up at an office. I assume they're spending money on testing and whatever protocols they need to enforce to ensure they don't kill / incapacitate their golden legion of software engineers. And when you're making that much money, it becomes much easier to (for example) have someone else do your grocery shopping.

> I assume they're spending money on testing and whatever protocols they need to enforce to ensure they don't kill / incapacitate their golden legion of software engineers. If it's anything like my experience and anecdotal experiences from my friends, then they're just giving you the illusion of safety and not actually providing a safe working space.

At Netflix specifically or at other places?

It's expensive to actually implement useful COVID measures (but not impossible and not necessarily illusory), but if you already have such huge employee expenses and are serious about in person work, I can't imagine you wouldn't spend the money and put the work in.

I agree with you that shops with less luxurious budgets would have a difficult time doing anything that meaningfully reduces the risk to their employees and should probably stay home.