Ask HN: What is a good company for you?

#1

Post by baxtr » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 1:47 PM UTC

Inspired by a discussion here today (1), I wonder what’s a good company for people to work at.

Is it the people?

Is it the vision they pursue?

Is it the topic they work on?

What is it for you?

(1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33342361

Re: Ask HN: What is a good company for you?

#2

Post by anonym29 » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 2:01 PM UTC

For me personally, a corporation's ethics are huge. I permanently lose all trust and respect for the types of companies that silently and willingly complied with programs demanding blatant betrayal of customer privacy, like PRISM.

Re: Ask HN: What is a good company for you?

#3

Post by apinnes » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 2:03 PM UTC

Great question. For me, to be a great company it must have a combo of traits: a mission I'm bought into, a team that compliment each other, and great work-life balance.

Re: Ask HN: What is a good company for you?

#4

Post by prh8 » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 2:04 PM UTC

All those things sound nice, but ultimately, it's going to be a company that allows me to be in a good situation with my keeping work stress low, work volume reasonable, vacation high, compensation high.

All companies end up being terrible in some way, but the biggest factor will always be what life it allows me to create for myself.

Re: Ask HN: What is a good company for you?

#5

Post by bravetraveler » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 2:07 PM UTC

I'm very... Selfish? I suppose is the way to put it.

Beyond what's required, I don't really care about the 'vision'. I'm here to exchange effort for money.

As long as it's reasonably in my skill set/responsibility and doesn't require me to push a boundary like kicking puppies, that's the deal of the day

I care about how I feel about waking up in the morning more than anything. The people I need to work with should be decent, and I don't do well pigeonholed

Finding a place with

    - capable teammates
    - restraint to not commit members to the first thing they are found to be good at forever

... is harder than you'd expect

If my anxiety reaches a certain level or consistency, I'll look elsewhere

I'm a wizard with Linux internals yet lately find myself "the network guy", for example.

If I didn't know my current team could catch up I'd be carrying so much burden

Re: Ask HN: What is a good company for you?

#6

Post by icapybara » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 2:14 PM UTC

1. Top tier product and technology 2. End product is meaningful 3. Interesting technical challenges

Re: Ask HN: What is a good company for you?

#7

Post by vitorfhc » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 2:15 PM UTC

I've worked at startups and big tech companies and I am still trying to find what I consider "good". It is something that changes a lot during someone's life because one day you are single and don't have any kids, in the other you are a father and don't want to risk unstable companies.

As a naive student, I've tried to find the perfect company: good people, smart coworkers, humanized vision, challenging opportunities, career growth, etc. Today, the only thing I can guarantee is that you have to pick your poison.

Re: Ask HN: What is a good company for you?

#8

Post by Bubble_Pop_22 » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 2:21 PM UTC

In one word: Microsoft

They put a PC on every desk, today was a slow day and I used at least a dozen flavors of Microsoft….all of them for free.

It’s also important to stress the free part, they don’t pursue piracy and just elect to recoup those losses by charging their Fortune 500 clients a bit more.

People will point out to the DOJ proceedings in 2000, but I have no sympathy for paper millionaires who didnt cash out in times of fat cows and didnt realize that software is a winner take all market. Even less sympathy for ideological people who want to impose their niche preferences over everybody else.

99% of people use computers to access informations , communicate with the world and to store/manipulate written or numerical data. Nobody makes all those 3 tasks easier than Microsoft.

Re: Ask HN: What is a good company for you?

#9

Post by vitorfhc » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 2:28 PM UTC

bravetraveler wrote: post #5

I'm very... Selfish? I suppose is the way to put it. Beyond what's required, I don't really care about the 'vision'. I'm here to exchange effort for money. As long as it's reasonably in my skill set/responsibility and doesn't require me to push a boundary like kicking puppies, that's the deal of the day I care about how I feel about waking up in the morning more than anything. The people I need to work with should be…

having capable teammates decreases a lot how much effort you need, it's something that I highly recommend

Re: Ask HN: What is a good company for you?

#10

Post by gtramont » Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

That's an interesting question. I've been meaning to write something about it for ages. Here's a brief:

People, vision and ways of working. With time, I've developed my values and principles that makes me practically unemployable if I don't turn a blind eye to some of them. Alternatively, I could start my own company.

    * Small, empowered, and trully cross-functional team;
    * Highly collaborative in ensebles;
    * Unified flow with limited WIP;
    * No middle-management;
    * Little-to-no hierarchy;
    * No titles or levels;
    * Team-set salaries;
    * Organic team growth;
    * Test-driven;
    * Trunk-based;
    * Continuous delivery;
    * No perverse incentives;
    * …

Like XP, they complement each other. So, in order to actually reap the benefits of a practice, other practices ought to be adopted too. Many of the cargo-culted practices and problems fade away when doing things fundamentally different. And very few places challenge the status quo (especially when it comes to management). Forming a (real) team is very hard, and very fragile. Like trust, which I didn't mention above, as I believe it to be a natural consequence of building such an environment.

Needless to say that it is pretty much impossible to find a place like this. Although, with some compromises on my values and principles, I consider the current company I'm working with way above average; granted, I helped shape the culture, which seems to be diluting/changing now as the compromised values are missed. The company is trending towards mediocrity in that sense.