331–340 of 645 posts
I started at Facebook a little before Alex, but left five or so years ago. It remains a highlight of my working life. It's a little sad, but expected, to hear it's become just another tech co. I'm interested to know why you didn't use your network more when looking for new opportunities. Amjad of Replit is an ex Facebook employee, after all.
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Sounds like it might be a negative thing to have on your resume now though? Rather than focusing on how an association with FB would be viewed on your resume -- you may want to ask yourself whether that company lives up to your own moral standards, and whether (just to yourself) you would feel proud of yourself for working there. Many people have come to the conclusion that it is an extremely cynical and unethical co…
So someone shouldn't take a job at one of the biggest companies because 16 years ago the founder acted like a sociopathic in some people's opinion? I can't see that affecting someone's employment. Your points are why someone shouldn't vote for Mark for president not why someone shouldn't take a job.
... acted like a sociopathic in some people's opinion?
What's with the attempt at dissimulation here? The issue is what the guy did. Not "some people's opinion" of what he did.
I can't see that affecting someone's employment.
I can't see how the founder's ethical standards (expressed not just through what they did 16 year ago, but in the present day) wouldn't affect your experience working at their company.
The fish rots from the head, as the saying goes.
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Is this the point in your career when you have so much money that you don't actually need a job?
For every software engineering faang level company that requires leet code interviews, there are 100 others that do not. Your rhetorical question is patently absurd.
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It doesn't work like that. You have to be "on" even if you aren't working. That means you feel like you can't commit to anything substantial since you feel like you should be working. Fucking off on the internet is a coping mechanism to numb the pain of being in this limbo where you aren't working; but, feel like you should be working because you are getting paid a lot. In retrospect it's easy to see that there's thi…
And even if you can manage to find things to do to occupy the time and appear busy, you'll be lucky if management considers the importance of your work and schedule it with the rest of your workload. One too many times have I had to find something to do and spend weeks or months on that thing only to have management tell me to immediately stop working on it even though that thing was actually important. This may not…
This happened to me a few years ago. I got assigned to work on a small greenfield project solo. I had virtually full creative control, and it would solve a real imminent problem for the team. Sounds like a dream project, right? And it was for the ~1 month or so I worked on it, got positive feedback from the team, etc. However, with a stroke of a (figurative) pen, the project's no longer needed and was scrapped. The manager found more money in the team's budget.
I can't say I disagreed with the decision: often it _is_ better to just throw money to make a problem go away. I felt bummed out nonetheless. _That_ I could live with, but getting dinged for "being unproductive for a month" during performance review, now that really stung.
My story might have a happy ending though. A few months ago the same problem resurfaced, this time due to a different, company-wide constraint. The lead dev solicited solutions, and I couldn't help but feel a bit smug inside when I said "um, remember that project I worked on a few years ago? I basically have your solution on a platter." We'll see: who knows maybe the manager will somehow carve out an exception for our team. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I started at Facebook a little before Alex, but left five or so years ago. It remains a highlight of my working life. It's a little sad, but expected, to hear it's become just another tech co. I'm interested to know why you didn't use your network more when looking for new opportunities. Amjad of Replit is an ex Facebook employee, after all.
If it was so great why is everyone an ex-employee?
The scope of work narrowed a lot. There was a shift to focus on review cycles instead did shipping cool stuff and avoiding being crushed by competitors like Google. Towards the end I fell into the trap of fixating on perf reviews and came close to burning myself out after switching roles.
Even in the era that I enjoyed, I met people who had a bad experience. Either due to projects that didn't pan out, bad managers, or just not being a good fit for the culture.
Nope, article is 100% about author's own well-being and happiness.
I didn’t see retirement addressed, that would be among my top priorities personally. Unless he’s already financially independent and can retire at will, taking a 30% paycut off FB’s top 5% comp could mean delaying retirement by many years. Given fixed living costs, retirement savings could easily drop by much more than 30%. I’m not disagreeing with his choice, it’s a personal one and he may not want early retirement,…
9 years at facebook, maxing out 401k and Roth Megabackdoor ~= $450k in tax-sheltered retirement accounts. That is a hell of a good start for retirement. EDIT: forgot the employer match. More like $600k.
(This is not financial or tax advice; listen to me and I will definitely lose all your money and send you to club fed.)
It always blows my mind how most interview in our field. When I first started in tech I was afraid to talk about not knowing leetcode to my peers. 15 years in and I now can confidently say I’ve yet to meet someone who thinks these are a valid metric. Why do we make this the gate keeper to our industry when we know (except for the very specific roles) we will rarely need leet code type problems. When we do we just goo…
This is not about having to use leetcode type problems in day to day work.
Knowing about those is about a state of mind and a culture: that you are passionate about tech and have what it takes intellectually to dig very deep into it and not just another drone that learnt Java just because you knew it would give you a decent-paying job.
It always blows my mind how most interview in our field. When I first started in tech I was afraid to talk about not knowing leetcode to my peers. 15 years in and I now can confidently say I’ve yet to meet someone who thinks these are a valid metric. Why do we make this the gate keeper to our industry when we know (except for the very specific roles) we will rarely need leet code type problems. When we do we just goo…
Somebody here on HN recently shared the notion that leetcode tests are a legal way to discriminate by age or lifestyle, as older and well-rounded developers do not have the time or inclination to grind on such things.
Interviews are by definition a legal way to discriminate.
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"Most corporations" don't do global surveillance on the scale Facebook does. It's that simple. It's not about 100% purity. Just not doing this one little, tiny, fundamental-to-their-entire-business thing.
I view ad targeting as good for the world: they help make my life better by aiming me at products and services relevant to my interests and needs, sometimes when I didn't even know such a thing existed. It saves poor reinvention of the wheel in so many cases. And FB-the-social-network is also great in theory: groups help you make friends and go deep into very niche interests. Without it, I would be a more normal, les…
Let me give you another point of view:
Ads benefit the already wealthy corporations above small businesses that cannot pay billions for ads and add another lay on to inequality.
"Reinventing the wheel" is sometimes necessary for innovation, often called disrupting the market.
Also, I believe that endless consumerism is actually killing the planet and ads (no only banner ads but also product placements) play a huge part in making people feel insecure and less worthy just because they don't have the newest gadget.