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Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#191

Post by drdebug »

omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #159
drdebug wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, their quality is sometimes questionable but to be fair OTA has preallocated/fixed bandwidth, while netflix on the other hand likely gains from optimizing for lower bitrates.

They can optimize for lower bitrates, which they've been doing for a while, but the recent drop in bitrate is really awful. https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/netflix-degrading-hd-v... Even if they are bandwidth constrained, I wouldn't be surprised if some shows looked better at 480i/.5Mbps than 1080p/.5Mbps.

Yes, and it's very frustrating too: they lowered the bitrate when Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for Internal Market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thierry_Breton said the internet would not support the extra load due to work-from-home/COVID. Breton was CEO of Orange, internet & 4G provider. This is all sounds very suspicious, and it was clearly wrong. Some of us pay for UHD quality and we don't get what we initially paid for.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#192

Post by jcadam »

unoti wrote: post #163
jcadam wrote: post #144

I interviewed at Netflix several years ago. It was a fairly standard SV interview. That is - whiteboard questions on basic data structures and algorithms (I'm 40 and I still absolutely suck at those). Failed of course :) But they put me up in a really nice hotel, so there's that. In the years since, I've definitely lost all interest in working in SV (the fact that I've failed every single interview I've had with SV c…

> ...whiteboard questions on basic data structures and algorithms (I'm 40 and I still absolutely suck at those)... at my age it's time to accept that the window has closed on some things :) If you want to learn and are willing to put in the work you can do it. It will take some number of weeks or months, but it is totally doable with reading and practice. I read and practiced for a few months before getting my job at…

It's a specific kind of work - I assure you I spend a lot of my spare time learning and working on hobby projects. The grind of drilling on brain teasers and toy interview problems is something I have little patience for anymore.

In any case I'm doing ok these days. Most CA employers (short of, say, Google or Netflix) wouldn't offer a big enough pay increase to offset the cost of living, and besides, I hate living in cities. My current dream is to find a good paying remote gig and live someplace... remote :)

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#193

Post by fsloth »

asciident wrote: post #116
cbanek wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I'm a 100x developer or anything, but I think people underestimate the compounding interest of being a 5x-10x developer. If you architect things just right today, that can save you a lot of time tomorrow. Spending time testing today can save weeks of bug time later, which can be spent to create something useful, compounding on itself. If we say green field is 10x, and someone is doing good things, I thi…

I was involved in an accidental situation where two teams at different companies worked on the exact same project from the same starting point, each led by different developers. This was not the company's core product, but a necessary part of it (for anonymity, let's say this was the device driver for a fancy piece of hardware). The lead developers on each selected different frameworks, used different data architectu…

Yes - excellent developers are a productivity multiplier.

It’s not about the 12’o clock shoot-from-the hip duel - the one who shoots more codepoints in the general direction leaves winner.

A piece of code - if it ends up in production - has so many potential ways to waste work hours that avoiding just a fraction of them is a huge win.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#194

Post by pier25 »

Netflix seems to have the best tech, at least from a user perspective in Mexico.

On my LG tv their app is the best, by far. I wish all the other services just served their content through Netflix. All new content has 4K HDR with Dolby vision/atmos and streaming is quite fast on my 200 Mbps fiber connection.

HBO Go is pure garbage. The app is clunky and has way worse UX than Netflix. The streaming quality is absolute crap. There's banding everywhere and the image seems to pause for a frame or two every second or so. This is extremely annoying when the camera pans. Game of Thrones doesn't even have 5.1 sound. No English subs (for those shows where sound is not so great). Last time I checked there was no 4K HDR.

The Amazon Prime app has better UX than HBO Go and has much better streaming quality, but the experience is still quite mediocre. The whole UI seems from 10 years ago. When you're binging a show they always insert ads in between episodes and the app forces you to skip recaps and the show intro every time. The quality of the streaming degrades quite often for a couple of seconds. Also, no English subs. They also have an HBO channel but it suffers from the same quality issues as HBO Go.

I haven't tried Apple+ and Disney is not available yet.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#195

Post by eden_hazard »

chrisseaton wrote: post #151
jcadam wrote: post #144

I interviewed at Netflix several years ago. It was a fairly standard SV interview. That is - whiteboard questions on basic data structures and algorithms (I'm 40 and I still absolutely suck at those). Failed of course :) But they put me up in a really nice hotel, so there's that. In the years since, I've definitely lost all interest in working in SV (the fact that I've failed every single interview I've had with SV c…

I think if you don't break into major SV companies early in your career it becomes extremely hard to do so later on because people start assuming you must have already tried and failed so aren't at the right standard.

I'm entering my late 20s. I'm wondering if I still have a chance

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#196

Post by langitbiru »

city41 wrote: post #115

I left Netflix about 2 months ago after over 5 years working there. Overall I would say the average developer there is about on par with any other company I have worked at. But the great ones were truly, astonishingly, great.

> But the great ones were truly, astonishingly, great.

Like Jeff Dean or Sanjay Ghemawat?

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#197

Post by asdff »

subsubzero wrote: post #133
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)

Netflix's quality of content on original shows really took a nose-dive the past few years. They had a stable of excellent shows with writing punching above the pack compared to network TV or cable: HOC, The Crown, Stranger Things, Narcos to name a few. But recently some of those shows have been spun out/watered down to death, and a ton of junk has been released by them. I'm rather bearish on this company think barrie…

The people who were coming to netflix with these shows can now schedule a day full of meetings in Los Angeles with every single major streaming service who are looking for the same. Imo, netflix is simply being poached.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#198

Post by abritinthebay »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #39
abritinthebay wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used to work there. Yes, he is. Absolutely. Without a second of doubt.

FYI, you appear to be shadowbanned. Your comment was showing up as dead to me.

Wouldn’t shock me. I snapped back at an HN moderator for being a hypocritical ass a while back.

HN is a clique.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#200

Post by C1sc0cat »

giblaz wrote: post #135
MiroF wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why they are willing to compete for competent engineers. The skyrocketing wages for engineers are because until recently, tech companies were illegally conspiring to not compete for competent engineers.

Yep, the compensation has been lagging compared to the money it's been generating.

And I would argue that engineering compared to other professions has always been lower paid.
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