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Ask HN: New job at BigCo. Everything has friction

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Ask HN: New job at BigCo. Everything has friction

#1

Post by edmcnulty101 »

Coming from smaller companies and startups just got a job at #BigCo in the Bay.

The one thing I'm noticing is that it's miserable to work here because EVERYTHING has friction and takes days to get done and has to go through numerous teams and approvals just for the simplest stuff like a new VM or an SSL cert from their own in house CA.

I get great satisfaction at work out of accomplishing things and this is just rediculous to the point of making me dislike working.

To get anything done is emotionally exhausting.

Anyone else dealt with this?

Anyone have any type of jobs where friction is minimal?

Re: Ask HN: New job at BigCo. Everything has friction

#2

Post by pfortuny »

That is exactly what Big means in this context: something indistinguishable from bureaucracy. I am sorry for you but if you want to be able to work “freely” and “get things done”, a big corporation is the worst place to work in.

I am not happy to bring bad tidings.

Edit: no business gets “Big” without a good paper trail and this implies that no action is performed unless some previous paper work has been carried out.

Re: Ask HN: New job at BigCo. Everything has friction

#3

Post by edmcnulty101 »

pfortuny wrote: post #2

That is exactly what Big means in this context: something indistinguishable from bureaucracy. I am sorry for you but if you want to be able to work “freely” and “get things done”, a big corporation is the worst place to work in. I am not happy to bring bad tidings. Edit: no business gets “Big” without a good paper trail and this implies that no action is performed unless some previous paper work has been carried out.

Yeah, It's a good learning experience at least. Never worked at one of these. Guess I naively assumed that since it was from #SiliconValley it might be different.

What do you think would be the best types of jobs to target for lower friction? Startups I guess.

Re: Ask HN: New job at BigCo. Everything has friction

#4

Post by pfortuny »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #3
pfortuny wrote: post #2

That is exactly what Big means in this context: something indistinguishable from bureaucracy. I am sorry for you but if you want to be able to work “freely” and “get things done”, a big corporation is the worst place to work in. I am not happy to bring bad tidings. Edit: no business gets “Big” without a good paper trail and this implies that no action is performed unless some previous paper work has been carried out.

Yeah, It's a good learning experience at least. Never worked at one of these. Guess I naively assumed that since it was from #SiliconValley it might be different. What do you think would be the best types of jobs to target for lower friction? Startups I guess.

A smaller company (not incorporated?), also.

I guess a good indicator is the size of the legal Dpt.

But I work at academia so I am not your best counselor on the topic.

Notice also that you are going to learn A LOT about “due process” and “due diligence”. This will be very useful in your future positions.

Re: Ask HN: New job at BigCo. Everything has friction

#5

Post by no_wizard »

Big Companies don't often have the same speed in terms of cross departmental (and sometimes cross team) efforts. Anything that basically splits between your immediate team and everything else has process involved, for many many reasons, one of the biggest being work tracking (Jira Tickets and the like) so that everyone else's time is accounted for to handle that task.

Once you realize its all about work tracking, basically, it becomes either more of a hurdle or easier to understand and manage, but thats basically what you're up against here.

Re: Ask HN: New job at BigCo. Everything has friction

#7

Post by kshahkshah »

Yes, many of us have dealt with this as you can see from the existing comments.

One thing you are mentioning is the friction around the dev experience however and there is perhaps an action you can take, if you're willing this early in your tenure there, to put your neck out on the line.

My very firm belief is that a bad dev experience results in a high cost of experimentation which means people don't try new things out and innovation stops. The only way things get done is through massively coordinated efforts. If you can associate a cost of the gate keeping with productivity and then directly back to the money it costs the company, or money that could be saved, or feature velocity to be gained, you can make a case for improving the experience. Making the case and seeing this all through will take you 6-9 months.

Re: Ask HN: New job at BigCo. Everything has friction

#8

Post by temp_praneshp »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #3
pfortuny wrote: post #2

That is exactly what Big means in this context: something indistinguishable from bureaucracy. I am sorry for you but if you want to be able to work “freely” and “get things done”, a big corporation is the worst place to work in. I am not happy to bring bad tidings. Edit: no business gets “Big” without a good paper trail and this implies that no action is performed unless some previous paper work has been carried out.

Yeah, It's a good learning experience at least. Never worked at one of these. Guess I naively assumed that since it was from #SiliconValley it might be different. What do you think would be the best types of jobs to target for lower friction? Startups I guess.

Do you always put random "#"s in your sentences? Is it a startup thing?

Re: Ask HN: New job at BigCo. Everything has friction

#9

Post by akira2501 »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #3
pfortuny wrote: post #2

That is exactly what Big means in this context: something indistinguishable from bureaucracy. I am sorry for you but if you want to be able to work “freely” and “get things done”, a big corporation is the worst place to work in. I am not happy to bring bad tidings. Edit: no business gets “Big” without a good paper trail and this implies that no action is performed unless some previous paper work has been carried out.

Yeah, It's a good learning experience at least. Never worked at one of these. Guess I naively assumed that since it was from #SiliconValley it might be different. What do you think would be the best types of jobs to target for lower friction? Startups I guess.

Mid-sized well established companies engaged in markets where there is active growth. You get maturity, experience, and a true desire for competition... and if you can move the needle for that type of group you will be well rewarded and you'll probably actually enjoy it.
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