Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

insights.dice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 448 posts

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#241

Post by pantalaimon »

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…

I think people often underestimate how bad the average programmer is out there.

It’s apparently not unheard of to have C programmers who don’t know function pointers or even structs work, or who don’t know what a build system is (only ever used an IDE).

There are many people who will just plug stuff together until it works somehow, without understanding why or how it works in the end.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#242

Post by winphone1974 »

MR4D wrote: post #205
98codes wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean doing the work _again_. I had all the algorithm stuff down cold out of college and maybe for another 5 years after. Now after 20 years of rarely needing any of it and having it be a web search away when I did, I couldn't come up with any of it on demand. "Doing the work" meaning having to study to relearn a thing that I'll maybe use sparingly in my work means the interview process is broken, not anyone's mot…

Lots of things are broken. The question is do you want to work hard enough to overcome it? My guess is you’ve got a good enough job already, so it’s not worth the effort.

But these are the people we need to entice to leave their jobs! The best potential hires always have jobs; they rarely go to the open market. They rarely respond to open casting calls and don't need to go through the broken song and dance routine. We know this as the most reliable metric is prior work directly with someone who you trust who vouches for them. Everything else like whiteboarding data algos is weak sauce.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#243

Post by dktoao »

bjornsing wrote: post #119
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…

It all depends on the problem space: if the deliverable is a program that produces a proof of Fermat’s last theorem then Andrew Wiles would have been a 1000000000000000x (or Inf) engineer on that project at a certain point in time... Also, there are entirely different “10x engineers” being talked about as one and the same here. The copy-paste spaghetti guy probably couldn’t even get a job at Netflix...

Agree, my model isn't complete.

Unrelated to your point but I think a lot of people who write really bad code are the only choice because they are experts in another essential domain, and there aren't a whole lot of experts in both that domain and writing software. So you do what you can. There is a reason that code written by EE's is often derided as terrible.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#245

Post by tsss »

tunesmith wrote: post #213

I think the article improperly conflates Rick and a 10x developer. I have an essay I wrote a while ago lying around that talks about the Intermediate Programmer - Rick sounds like a perfect example. The IP is the one that has the gumption to try out various inventions and experiments, usually focusing on the trying to solve a problem with a perfect Beautiful Machine, but that doesn't yet have the perspective to know…

Maybe Rick just does what ever is the most fun. I don't give a rats ass about the business as long as they can pay my salary.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#246

Post by winphone1974 »

jtdev wrote: post #173
unoti wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...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 difficult to find the motivation to spend hundreds of hours working on imaginary problems. Kudos to you for doing this though. Many/most of the best developers I’ve ever worked with wouldn’t consider wasting their time on such nonsense. It seems to be somewhat of a litmus test for determining how subservient one is.

This a pretty mean way to dismiss someone who has a different viewpoint from you. Many developers enjoy these problems the same way someone might study a niche subject for fun or attend a Simpsons trivia contest; it's fun. No need to call them a sheep

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#247

Post by city41 »

langitbiru wrote: post #196
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?

I don't think I can effectively answer this one. I fall right into the "average developer" bucket and have never worked at Google. So I don't think I have the proper exposure on this.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#248

Post by kevstev »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #211
subsubzero wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is really a myth(highest pay). I know that bytedance pays more than netflix(stock + cash), also hedge funds, citadel and DE Shaw pay way more than netflix does. 500k-700k all cash, I just chatted with their recruiters the past month and this is what they saying comp packages for senior+ engineers go for.

Pay per hour is less at hedge funds and/or income is more volatile. Plus I would put a hefty quality of life premium for being able to live on the west coast over being stuck in NYC/Chicago.

I have not had much volatility when working at a hedge fund, or even finance more generally. It might be different in a pure front office role where your bonus pool is directly tied to the profit you generate, but being in a tech role, you can generally expect to get what you got last year, plus a little (for varying values of little) more than you got last year. At worst my comp stagnated during the financial crisis.

Hours can vary widely between teams/projects but I generally don't have an issue with the hours- like all companies we have our crunch times, but the general day to day is pretty much 9-6.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#249

Post by mbesto »

cbanek wrote: post #104
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…

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…

> 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.

I'd also argue that a lot of people over-architect solutions and they miss out capturing markets, which leads to real life economics for a business. YMMV

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#250

Post by bdavisx »

wegs wrote: post #207
gcheong wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the sheer arrogance so many SV companies have thinking that what they are doing is so special it requires "10x" developers compared to every other company out there.

Well, the problem is in the Typical Man Month. 10x as many 1x developers will deliver a worse product on a longer schedule than 1x as many 10x developers. Even if you assume 150% developers at 300% the cost, it's worth it. The number of communications channels grows quadratically with the number of people in the org. You'll come out ahead at larger organization sizes. Fewer, higher-productivity people is a huge win i…

I completely agree with your premise on the 10x developer in concept (although what 10x means is up for debate). I agree with the fact that a team of "good" developers will outperform a team of The issue is, whiteboarding people on trivia programming problems doesn't determine if they are a 10x/good developer - it only determines if they understand the particular trivia they are asked.
Post reply on HN