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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

#291

Post by chinathrow »

user5994461 wrote: post #275
hintymad wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100X developers are the groups who turn impossibles into possibles. Some Uber engineers used to believe that Graphite was the best thing in the world and Nagios was second bar none, and they went ahead design a complex yet failing architecture for monitoring even when Uber's traffic was still tiny before Uber's M3 came along. This is what Netflix did with four engineers years before Uber's saga: https://www.quora.com…

Graphite has been obsolete for 5+ years. There are commercial products with unlimited scaling, great UI, alerting and a hundreds things out of the box (see datadog and competitors).

That's not the point here. OP said, that the Netflix team could at the time deliver scale, while other teams couldn't.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#292

Post by krisgenre »

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 am going to turn 40 in a couple of years. Honestly, I have never liked the idea of 'preparing for interviews'. If I want to switch job I mostly want to apply what I have learnt so far to clear the interview.

The interview at my last two jobs (current and previous one) were both vastly based on a coding task. I always prefer this as it is closest to how I work.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#293

Post by nullsense »

vecter wrote: post #237
dekhn wrote: 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.

I think it's less of an IQ test and more akin to a gang initiation ritual.

Instead of "the condition of joining our gang is you need to murder a random in cold blood" they are saying "our hazing ritual is grinding several hundred hours of leetcode and finally running the leetcode gauntlet, if you can endure that, you're in".

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#294

Post by criddell »

nullsense wrote: post #272
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…

>"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 motivation I used to think this too, but as a filter I think it's having the desired effect. From the outside looking in Life at a FAANG seems competitive in nature and they are optimizing for the people willing to push themselves that far to learn something. The ad…

I would think these companies that are built on measuring data would have some idea if the whiteboard interview works. Otherwise, why would they do it?

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#295

Post by tolbish »

kilbuz wrote: post #70
tolbish wrote: post #13

I never understood why Netflix frequently gets mentioned in the same context as Apple, Google, and Amazon. I think I hear more about it than Microsoft on here. Can anyone explain this to me? Surely they aren't the only newish company that tries to employ smart people by paying well.

When Cramer coined the FAANG acronym, Netflix was included. That group of companies was grouped together by investors due to their performance and marked dominance at the time, which has by and large continued. In addition to their stock price, these companies also pay very well. In fact, if you are lucky to get an offer from Netflix, their aim is to pay you and keep you at "top of personal market". That is, they do…

Thank you for the detailed explanation. But I always thought Netflix's scope was relatively narrow compared to the others mentioned above.

Sure a skilled software developer with an interest in networks or media platforms would have no trouble finding a job there. But what about other types of engineers like product, kernel, and embedded engineers? The companies I mentioned have divisions like Oculus, Alexa, and Chromebooks for those engineers. The comparison to Netflix in areas like those is where my confusion comes from.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#296

Post by city41 »

Xavdidtheshadow wrote: post #274
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.

If you don't mind me asking, what prompted you to leave? Also, did you find the culture as cutthroat as it's rumored to be?

There are many reasons I left, but mostly I'm interested in trying new things. I want to either pursue freelancing or find a role at a small company. Two things I've never really done before.

As for the culture. It's not nearly as cutthroat as people assume it is. But it's true that Netflix wants you to perform well. This gets balanced out with good communication from management and your peers. Netflix emphasizes candid feedback, so you pretty much always know where you stand. At least, in my experience. It's a big company, so mileage may vary.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#297

Post by function_seven »

nullsense wrote: post #272
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…

>"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 motivation I used to think this too, but as a filter I think it's having the desired effect. From the outside looking in Life at a FAANG seems competitive in nature and they are optimizing for the people willing to push themselves that far to learn something. The ad…

My favorite version of this is the driving test you take in California before you get your license.

One of the rules is that you automatically fail the test if you bump a curb with your wheels. That means, when pulling into a spot, you can't inch forward until your front wheels come to rest on the curb. Fail!

At first glance it seems like a trivial thing to fail someone for. I know in normal driving, I use curbs like this all the time. On purpose, and with no hazard to myself or others.

But the fact is, you're told this explicitly up front. "Don't do this, or you fail." Given that you're warned about it—and know this is the one thing you cannot do—if you still contact the curb, then you've demonstrated that you don't know where the boundaries of your vehicle are. (Or maybe that you're not so good at comprehending instructions?)

It works as a simple filter.

(EDIT: I checked with the DMV's test criteria[0], and I don't see this mentioned in there. There's an automatic fail for driving over a curb, but it's not clear if simply contacting it counts. Not sure if my examiner was a sliderule, or if the rules have changed since I first got my license.)

[0, p. 24] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/uploads/2020/04/dl955.pdf

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#298

Post by nullsense »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #203
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…

I don't think that's the point, capability vs. age. It's only an indirect factor, in that of someone at a certain age, tends to focus on more important things, like what it takes to build large systems, avoid mistakes, work well with people. Shooing away folks with experience is a significant loss. Also, just because you "do the work," it is no guarantee. Very likely they could pull a random question from a subject y…

Are they actually shooing away folks with experience, or do they get a tonne of successful applications from people with experience, and to limit the overwhelmingly large number of applications they filter for those who have experience and can do leetcode?

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#299

Post by hintymad »

user5994461 wrote: post #275
hintymad wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100X developers are the groups who turn impossibles into possibles. Some Uber engineers used to believe that Graphite was the best thing in the world and Nagios was second bar none, and they went ahead design a complex yet failing architecture for monitoring even when Uber's traffic was still tiny before Uber's M3 came along. This is what Netflix did with four engineers years before Uber's saga: https://www.quora.com…

Graphite has been obsolete for 5+ years. There are commercial products with unlimited scaling, great UI, alerting and a hundreds things out of the box (see datadog and competitors).

The Graphite story happened more than 6 years ago, or so I heard as I joined after M3 was in production.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#300

Post by karolist »

98codes wrote: post #184
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…

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…

The rampup at FAANG can be brutal and you'd be doing lots of learning even after getting in. The leetcode style interviews are designed to select people capable of studying and materialising broad problems in depth and scope under time constraints. They are also objective and can't really be faked nor you can talk your way in like in most banking/finance IT jobs. I was of similar opinion at some point but these realisations made me change my mind and I've come to like leetcode interviews.

But I also think they only make sense in FAANG scoped companies where all the stack is proprietary. Small companies or companies using opensource tools don't really have this rampup and doing such interviews mostly because others (FAANG) do it.

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