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Exxon’s Exodus

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Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#81

Post by [deleted] »

prottog wrote: post #79
throwaway5752 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happy to stand by my comment. Tobacco by comparison causes negligible harm, it's just the callous disrespect for harm to others in comparison to profit that they have in common. Fossil fuel is going to end human civilization as we know it within the lifetime of people born in this century, at current rates. Saying that it has lifted people out of poverty is like saying heroin makes people happy.

> Fossil fuel is going to end human civilization as we know it within the lifetime of people born in this century And New Yorkers in the 1900s thought that the existential crisis facing their city was too much horseshit in the streets, and scientists in the 1960s thought an ice age was imminent. But sure! Civilization will collapse because of fossil fuels. Mark my words: more people will suffer and die in the coming…

[deleted]

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#82

Post by whatever1 »

Retric wrote: post #41
xhkkffbf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article does read like a political hack job. I'm not denying the individual stories. Just that it is logical to make conclusions about the greater company from a few people with a grievance. Indeed, the high profitability suggests that the people working there can function pretty well and work together efficiently. The company didn't win the lotto. Every few pennies the company earned must come from a very comple…

Toxic cultures thrive in companies like Exxon where todays profits are largely the result of past investments. A disgruntled employee isn’t going to destroy walk in business at Exxon, and they don’t need to constantly innovate to keep up with changing customer demands. It’s essentially a one dimensional business where increasing production and lowering costs is enough to reach profitability. That makes useful metrics…

No. Crude prices are driving all the profitability and hide all deficiencies. With the current crude prices you can put a toddler in the C suite and BigOil.co will still be printing cash like crazy

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#83

Post by scottLobster »

ianbutler wrote: post #78
scottLobster wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked with people who both came from and went to Google and Facebook, that has not been my experience. Sure maybe a select few fall into that category, and all of the people I've worked with who went to/from FAANG were technically talented and decent to work with, but they got things wrong too. They weren't gods among engineers. At no point did I look at something they coded and think "no way I could have don…

"were technically talented and decent to work with" that is my point in it's entirety. I didn't say they were gods among engineers I said they had skillsets general engs don't have or learn just from working at normal co. Getting things wrong is still very much a human thing, which everyone is, technical talent -- which is what these tech cos look for means they can pick up the skillset while at whatever acronym co t…

Sure, but I could say the same about roughly 2/3 of my immediate co-workers, and most of the rest are at least good to work with.

Maybe I misinterpreted your comment, but you seemed to imply that engineers at FAANG making FAANG-level salaries in part earn those salaries due to rare technical acumen. My point is, for many of them, that probably isn't the case. Sure the 300/400k positions will go to the Wozniak and Carmack-equivalents of the world, but the 150k entry/mid level positions at FAANG are still well above entry/mid level for traditional industry despite, as best I can tell, performing roughly the same work with roughly the same talent. I don't know exactly what kind of salary the disgruntled Exxon engineers had in mind, but I don't think a market correction to that 150k level would be out of order if these companies really want to put their money where their mouth is, particularly given inflation and, in the case of Exxon, record profits.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#84

Post by Retric »

whatever1 wrote: post #82
Retric wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toxic cultures thrive in companies like Exxon where todays profits are largely the result of past investments. A disgruntled employee isn’t going to destroy walk in business at Exxon, and they don’t need to constantly innovate to keep up with changing customer demands. It’s essentially a one dimensional business where increasing production and lowering costs is enough to reach profitability. That makes useful metrics…

No. Crude prices are driving all the profitability and hide all deficiencies. With the current crude prices you can put a toddler in the C suite and BigOil.co will still be printing cash like crazy

“todays profits are largely the result of past investments” is another way of saying a toddler in the C suite could print money today.

However, actual incompetence can cause ungodly amounts of damage.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#85

Post by whatever1 »

Retric wrote: post #84
whatever1 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Crude prices are driving all the profitability and hide all deficiencies. With the current crude prices you can put a toddler in the C suite and BigOil.co will still be printing cash like crazy

“todays profits are largely the result of past investments” is another way of saying a toddler in the C suite could print money today. However, actual incompetence can cause ungodly amounts of damage.

What I imply is that the consequences of the covid era management will not be surfaced until crude prices go back closer to the operating costs.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#86

Post by ianbutler »

scottLobster wrote: post #83
ianbutler wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"were technically talented and decent to work with" that is my point in it's entirety. I didn't say they were gods among engineers I said they had skillsets general engs don't have or learn just from working at normal co. Getting things wrong is still very much a human thing, which everyone is, technical talent -- which is what these tech cos look for means they can pick up the skillset while at whatever acronym co t…

Sure, but I could say the same about roughly 2/3 of my immediate co-workers, and most of the rest are at least good to work with. Maybe I misinterpreted your comment, but you seemed to imply that engineers at FAANG making FAANG-level salaries in part earn those salaries due to rare technical acumen. My point is, for many of them, that probably isn't the case. Sure the 300/400k positions will go to the Wozniak and Car…

To be clear I expect entry and mid level FAANG to be clearing 200k+. I agree the rest of the industry should be making about 150k. But in case it's unclear most of that 200k+ comes in the form of RSUs or other equity compensation. I don't expect Exxon to compete on that because their stock can't support it, they can probably compete on the cash portion though.

I don't expect FAANG people to have "rare technical acumen" I do think most people working at a FAANG are 80th percentile and up. So upper quartile in technical capability. Thing is Carmack and Dean types are 0.1% talent, they make anywhere from 700k to over a million at a FAANG. I don't think you're correctly level set on what people are earning. A person making 400k at a FAANG is like a staff engineer. But their base salary is probably 200-250k? The rest of that is bonuses and equity compensation in the form of RSUs.

For the record I'm in this earning bracket (not the dean/carmack one, but a high earning senior dev) so I have some idea of what I'm talking about with these numbers.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#87

Post by julosflb »

taw28 wrote: post #6
Covzire wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> and whether Exxon was willing to raise pay to the level of major tech companies. Why would oil companies need to hire the same kinds of engineers that a SV giant would need? If they can get that kind of salary, more power to them, but I don't see the challenges being similar enough except on a smaller scale with device drivers for industrial equipment, etc.

Oil and gas are big users of HPC. They have been doing scale for longer than SV.

Total HPC ranked 1st in 2019 within commercial sector.

https://newsroom.ibm.com/2019-06-18-IBM-Develops-Worlds-Most...

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#88

Post by ianbutler »

ianbutler wrote: post #86
scottLobster wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I could say the same about roughly 2/3 of my immediate co-workers, and most of the rest are at least good to work with. Maybe I misinterpreted your comment, but you seemed to imply that engineers at FAANG making FAANG-level salaries in part earn those salaries due to rare technical acumen. My point is, for many of them, that probably isn't the case. Sure the 300/400k positions will go to the Wozniak and Car…

To be clear I expect entry and mid level FAANG to be clearing 200k+. I agree the rest of the industry should be making about 150k. But in case it's unclear most of that 200k+ comes in the form of RSUs or other equity compensation. I don't expect Exxon to compete on that because their stock can't support it, they can probably compete on the cash portion though. I don't expect FAANG people to have "rare technical acume…

Also once you get to like Carmack/Dean levels it's like pointless to talk about their compensation because the answer is "a lot" and super variable, I don't have that level of leverage so I can't tell you but it's not something even an above average, or even a really good engineer can begin to contemplate, we're talking one in several generations type of talent. You could tell me Jeff Dean clears 10M from google yearly and I'd be like sure, makes sense.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#89

Post by ianbutler »

gamblor956 wrote: post #72
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like any industry views its IT as a cost center by default until said otherwise, even if their revenue comes from software. There is no cure for shortsightedness.

IT is a cost center in every business, including software. It contributes to the ultimate profit in the same way that HR, Legal, and Finance do. Indirectly, in support of the actual revenue-generating functions.

Can't generate revenue without a product to sell. I'd say that's pretty direct. And before you come back and go spoken like a developer. Clearly the most successful businesses and business people in history agree with my assessment, it's why an engineers total comp is so high at actual tech companies.

Re: Exxon’s Exodus

#90

Post by scottLobster »

ianbutler wrote: post #86
scottLobster wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I could say the same about roughly 2/3 of my immediate co-workers, and most of the rest are at least good to work with. Maybe I misinterpreted your comment, but you seemed to imply that engineers at FAANG making FAANG-level salaries in part earn those salaries due to rare technical acumen. My point is, for many of them, that probably isn't the case. Sure the 300/400k positions will go to the Wozniak and Car…

To be clear I expect entry and mid level FAANG to be clearing 200k+. I agree the rest of the industry should be making about 150k. But in case it's unclear most of that 200k+ comes in the form of RSUs or other equity compensation. I don't expect Exxon to compete on that because their stock can't support it, they can probably compete on the cash portion though. I don't expect FAANG people to have "rare technical acume…

Well I've never worked in FAANG, so yeah my knowledge of exact compensation levels is Glassdoor stats, which largely match up with what you're saying.

Perhaps my perspective is slightly skewed. Even just comparing to FAANG base salaries: From the perspective of a big defense contractor, we recently had a new grad start on our team, level 1 software engineer with a bachelor's in computer science from a mid-rank university, and he's making 85k/year. Maybe in 5 years he can expect to make about 115k between yearly raises and promotion to level 2, maybe 130k if he busts his ass and makes level 3 in that time. 200k+ is reserved for the engineers that manage to get their names on patents and know the right people/get lucky, and typically have decades of experience at the company and extremely deep knowledge of a high-value subject.

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