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

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by svachalek » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 8:39 PM UTC

hintymad wrote: post #138

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…

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…

Yeah it's not so much cranking out 100X the code as it is good decisions, good teamwork, and management that clears the road rather than throws up obstacles. Some people could not do the same, even given the same advantages, but at the same time it's pretty much impossible to produce the same kind of results in an environment without those. (Source: was on this team, but not one of the original 4)

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by bird_monster » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 8:41 PM UTC

nkingsy wrote: post #336

bird_monster wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that, as you get older (or maybe further into your career? More tenured? I don't know that it's inherent with age as much as experience), you become less interested in doing ridiculous things just to prove that you can. That's not to say that other people shouldn't, just that, the value-add seems less and less worth it as time goes on. It is possible (and in fact common) to lead a full and successful career a…

I had the “misfortune” of getting fired for going to bat for a junior co-worker who was being taken advantage of by the company. If I hadn’t taken 2 months to do nothing but grind on leetcode problems, there’s no way I was ever going to do it in my precious free time (2 kids, lots of hobbies). I’d never make a bet like that on myself by choice, but in hindsight it would have been an excellent investment years ago. My…

I suppose I'm pointing out the nuance between "Big Tech Co", "Startup" and FAANG.

There are plenty of big tech companies that pay well, offer a lot of freedom, interesting tech, but are also not FAANG companies with silly interviewing practices.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by lotsofpulp » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

YokoZar wrote: post #285

leptons wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix doesn't win or lose customers based on programmer performance, they win by having content that people actually want to watch. I don't care if the UI is 10% less slick, as long as they have stuff I want to watch. The only reason I've ever considered dropping Netflix is "why am I paying for this when there is nothing I want to watch". Fortunately, they have come through with some interesting content recently, a…

Netflix programmers can help you find what you want to watch. All the content in the world won't help them if you spend your time staring at the home screen while bad algorithms recommend the wrong things.

> All the content in the world won't help them if you spend your time staring at the home screen while bad algorithms recommend the wrong things.

What? I can read about quality shows to watch on any number of websites or recommendations from people I know, and just search for the title of the show.

On the other hand, if you fill up your inventory with 99% garbage, like Netflix has, it doesn’t matter how good your algorithm is, since it’s going to come back with garbage.

I don’t notice any performance difference between HBO Max, Apple TV+, Netflix, or Amazon Prime. I press play, and it plays. What I do notice is most of the content is garbage, so I just wait to hear about good shows, and then once a sufficient number of people claim it’s worth watching, I go and play specifically that.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by nitrogen » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 8:51 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #314

leptons wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix doesn't win or lose customers based on programmer performance, they win by having content that people actually want to watch. I don't care if the UI is 10% less slick, as long as they have stuff I want to watch. The only reason I've ever considered dropping Netflix is "why am I paying for this when there is nothing I want to watch". Fortunately, they have come through with some interesting content recently, a…

I'm perpetually frustrated with nf's UI, and tend to rag on them a bit. But then, my partner got subscriptions to other services. Disney, crave, amazon, showtime... holy shit is it actually difficult to remember what I've watched and take me to the next episode? I'll still crab about nf, but the competition is hot garbage.

I wish everyone would just license and retheme Kodi or Plex and be done with it.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by arthurjj » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 8:55 PM UTC

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…

> you can do it. It will take some number of weeks or months

I think you're overstating the time needed. Passing those interviews for someone who reads HN is basically just reading Cracking the Coding Interview [1] or Programming Interviews Exposed [2] and doing the ~50% of the exercises.

Source: Worked at 2 of FAAMG and got rejected from 2 of them (because I forgot to read those book before the interview)

[1] https://amzn.to/30g9vRQ [2] https://amzn.to/3iaZknD

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by alanbernstein » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 8:59 PM UTC

ativzzz wrote: post #152

s1artibartfast wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a lot of truth to this. Big Law is a great example of this, where the nearly every firm operates in lockstep on the Craveth Scale[1]. If one firm increases salary, every other firm will for for same cycle. https://www.biglawinvestor.com/biglaw-salary-scale/

Isn't this basically collusion by companies? Didn't Google/Facebook get in trouble for trying something like this at some point?

I can imagine no other organization more capable of following the letter of the law - if not the spirit - than a group of lawfirms.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by mixmastamyk » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 9:00 PM UTC

nullsense wrote: post #298

mixmastamyk wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

A person from Netflix would have to respond, but if they're anything like other tech companies, they're doing a shit job of hiring.

Huge salaries are one way to mitigate that, by holding on tight to the good ones.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by hnlmorg » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

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 used to think this too, but as a filter I think it's having the desired effect.

Is it though? I'm a hiring manager and don't ask such questions and yet have had no problem hiring really talented engineers.

The reason I don't ask those questions is because I know that cranking up the interview pressure and asking arbitrary, revisable, common interview questions doesn't actually prove anything aside how good the candidate is at being interviewed.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by olnluis » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #270

eden_hazard wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You do have a chance. You should wonder if you want it. Ignoring the ethics of each company, the lifestyle is not for everyone. You should try to figure out if it's a good fit for you or not.

What is the lifestyle, though? I was under the impression that all FAANG companies are pretty different from each other.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Post by burnte » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 9:07 PM UTC

Guest42 wrote: post #176

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.

Agreed, it seems to me often that companies will have greater resume demands for lower levels than 90 percent of the people at the organization, many times for skills that aren’t relevant for projects or business goals, it doesn’t require a tier 1 PhD in order to rush through zen desk tickets

Oh, it's just as bad at higher levels, despite the people there generally having even FEWER of the qualifications. I'm top level IT management with a tremendous amount of actual technical knowledge, and just getting to an interview is the hardest part. I've never taken an interview that didn't result in an offer, but getting to the interview with all the demands is insanely difficult. Usually the spots get filled through unofficial channels and the person they hire for the job is unfit, technically. Incredibly frustrating when you're good at what you do.