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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

#251

I have no opinion on Disney, as it's not available in my country, but generally for me Netflix's latency from the play button is much better than youtube's or HBO Go's. HBO's app / web page is full of bugs that would be probably easy to fix (it gets stuck even after I turn my new Samsung TV off and on again, I need to force quit the app). At the same time while youtube offline video watching always works for me on my…

Altered Carbon, especially season 1 was pretty good imo

2nd season was ruined by politics and lost lots of viewers/ratings, which meant that Netflix had to stop producing it. They should just kept the 2 original Takeshi Kovacs.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#252
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…

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…

Even better. The second time will be much easier than learning it all from scratch the first time.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#253

I have no opinion on Disney, as it's not available in my country, but generally for me Netflix's latency from the play button is much better than youtube's or HBO Go's. HBO's app / web page is full of bugs that would be probably easy to fix (it gets stuck even after I turn my new Samsung TV off and on again, I need to force quit the app). At the same time while youtube offline video watching always works for me on my…

Not Netflix, but if you liked House of Cards, may I suggest both Succession and Billions ? I love analysis of power and those shows are in a class of their own regarding that, very similar to HoC, but I'd say better.

I love both of them, and both of them are on HBO in my country, just like Boardwalk Empire (which is in the same genre and also amazingly executed, though it's not a new series).

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#254
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We're talking about what this person should do though. They can't change the broken system but they can best work it to their advantage with some effort.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#255
post #210
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…

I think the question really is, when are these companies going to wake up to the idea that most people in their mid-40s who are successful programmers aren't writing leetcode, they're preventing junior engineers from checking in bad code, and handling large-scale outages with a few lines of analytics and config changes.

Because they can get leetcoding programmers who can also do all those things you mentioned.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#256
post #237
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question really is, when are these companies going to wake up to the idea that most people in their mid-40s who are successful programmers aren't writing leetcode, they're preventing junior engineers from checking in bad code, and handling large-scale outages with a few lines of analytics and config changes.

I think you're absolutely right in terms of senior engineers' responsibilities. My take is the following: - It's hard to evaluate the skills you mentioned. They're important, but generally "softer". - It's easy to validate if someone solved a cut and dry algorithms questions. As far as I can tell, it's basically a proxy for an IQ test. I'm not justifying this, but that's my guess for why companies do this.

It's almost as if the qualities you want are someone's EQ (emotional quotient) and not IQ.

...which sucks for high IQ low EQ persons like myself. My hardest problem to solve at work is always myself.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#257
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…

Honestly I respect that and prefer that as well; just tell me up front so I can move on and not waste any more time. I come from a wall street background and did break through eventually, but they just leave you hanging with no follow up. And the recruiters treat candidates like dates they are ghosting, its really not an acceptable way to treat a human being after they put days even weeks into preparing and coming in…

I think you're missing the logistics needed to do this:

1) to officially reject someone usually needs asking around to build consensus that regardless of any changes to org structure, to outstanding offers, to the current set of interviews, etc. that this person will not get an offer from the company. Information is usually not precise, and often partially missing in the interview loop. Most of the information is focused around the top candidates, so "maybe" tier candidates are less discussed and decisions are not really made on them. So then you have to talk to your manager, colleagues, HR, etc. to make sure everyone is on the same page. A mistake here is costly.

2) you usually make offers to the best candidate, and if they decline, move down the list. So to reject someone means that this best candidate has accepted the offer. But they get a certain amount of time to consider it (often weeks, sometimes months), when you're frozen. Then you have to remember to reach out to the rejected candidates (I guess you put it on your calendar, and someone has to ensure this happens). To do fast rejections, you need short acceptance timelines, which is offputting to some candidates. Why risk pissing off your candidates you're giving an offer to, to make candidates you're not giving offers to happier?

3) even if your best candidate accepts, something might happen before they start (they change their mind), or you find out within a week of their joining that they're problematic. If you didn't reject other candidates, you can still approach them and say "sorry, we originally didn't have a position for you, but now we do", whereas rejecting them "we're moving on" closes that door

4) I haven't even gotten to the legal or reputation repercussions if you reject someone and do it in a way that can be interpreted as a problem. You can't let any employee deliver the news. This all needs policies and coordination.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#258
post #210
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…

I think the question really is, when are these companies going to wake up to the idea that most people in their mid-40s who are successful programmers aren't writing leetcode, they're preventing junior engineers from checking in bad code, and handling large-scale outages with a few lines of analytics and config changes.

The harsh truth is there are enough 40th out there who can do that AND implement DFS on a whiteboard, so why not take them? At min. it arbitrarily shows their motivation to get the job.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#259
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…

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.

Google and FB don't do technical interviews for internal transfers, so they insist on a uniform hiring bar. Netflix pays so much money they can demand whatever skills they want candidates to have. All 3 companies have interesting and difficult challenges.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#260
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've seen plenty of mid-career engineers get jobs at FAANGs. I don't think you're right.
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