171–180 of 613 posts
This is only sort-of related, but a while back there was a beautiful Twitter thread, I think about Google product managers or engineering leaders, who come into a product, revamp a bunch of features and come up with metrics to show that they were successful with it in the short term, and then use that as the case for their promotion and time it just right so they can disengage and bail over to the next product, just…
What would be problem with such a system?
My experience has been that some companies pressure engineers to want to advance. If you come into a performance review and say "actually I'm happy where I am" it's seen as a lack of motivation and will count as a mark against you. I had a boss say to me "I always want to move to the next level and I expect the same of my reports". Whatever, I guess I'm a poor employee because I like my job.
Some (many?) companies have an 'up or out' requirement where each position has a time limit to get promoted, unless it's a 'terminal position' which is ok to stay at. When I was at Facebook, this was administered by using the next level review guidelines after you had a position for N months (depends on the position), and if you don't meet those expectations, putting you into the firing pipeline (PIP, etc). One of ma…
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As of 2022, it's now difficult anywhere in most US metropolitan areas.
"Most of the US" != the five places you'd be willing to live. Outside of the HN bubble, a $200k salary _easily_ affords a home in most markets. https://cdn.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/documents/metro-...
What often happens when an employee doesnt get promoted? they leave and usually are able to get that next level role in another company. Why is that?? Why does the current company require employees to show a track record and data points to be promoted, while they hire externally for the same position and often only look at resumes, interview and maybe an assessment. Why isnt it the same bar for internal vs external.…
That sounds like a recipe for an incredibly toxic environment. Not only are you hired for a specific pigeonhole, you are expressly forbidden from progressing through it: at least in some sane companies promotion is preceded by already having done the new role for a time and the title jump merely formalises the situation.
In fact, I thought the pigeonhole hiring in traditional finance was bad enough. You just managed to outdo decades of dysfunction in one try.
The last thing we need in tech is a codified caste system.
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At least in my own small company - I'm hoping to promote the concept of the T shaped technical leader ladder. You're rewarded/measured on two metrics - breadth and depth - a depth metric - leadership in your own specific project team where you add features. - a breadth metric - you've demonstrably shown that you've gotten other teams outside your own to contribute to your project effectively. Additionally and perhaps…
I think both are important but it’s not necessary for any one person to excel at both. Some will naturally be better at depth and others at breadth. As long as you acknowledge both types of contributions I think it will work out well.
So currently there are two narrowly defined options for career progression:
* technical leadership on core project/domain
* engineering management
Perhaps instead of eliminating the depth option for the technical track and making the T shaped depth/breath mandatory, just make it an additional option to provide an additional track for people to take for career progression.
* deep technical leadership on core project/domain
* broad-based technical leadership on core project/domain and supporting role on multiple projects
* engineering management
Former Googler here. This person has correctly identified that a key reason why google sucks is that people very often... > choose between doing what’s best for users or what’s best for their career But the root cause isn't that people want to get promoted. It's that Google promotes people for the wrong reasons. Put very simply, the problem is that Google promotes people for "solving hard problems" not for solving US…
So what happens when you promote someone for maintaining the same system for years? When do you stop promoting them? There's a person on my team who is happy to maintain what he works on. He has worked on fundamentally the same project for over a decade. He's a senior level engineer, and as far as I know doesn't have aspirations beyond that, which is perfectly fine. Assuming he keeps doing that work, and no more, doe…
Building half working shiny things is bad for the company, and erodes user trust.
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Is this a joke? What is median household income for families in both of these cities? Fairly sure it's below 100k.
In San Francisco, the median household income was $120k. That’s 2 years ago mind you, and a lot of inflation has occurred since then. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/sanfranciscocitycalifornia
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Seems pretty sexist to associate solving hard problems with masculinity. Women at Google also work on hard problems.
The sexist part is not the "hard problems" but the competitiveness. I don't think sexism is intrinsic to solving hard problems - certainly gender-inclusive companies work on hard problems successfully. But in my experience those companies tend to be more collaborative. Google needs to celebrate heroes. Like Jeff Dean. Or Sanjay Ghemawat. Those are Great Men. They are "Living Gods" because they solved Really Hard Prob…
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When is this straw man argument going to die?
So, probably never. It’s a bit of a loaded term for lots of folks. I can understand why, even if that’s not how it’s often meant.