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If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

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Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#271

Post by Teandw »

buildbot wrote: post #18
r721 wrote: post #3

>In an email for remote Twitter engineers, Elon Musk says he wants to speak to people on video ("only those who cannot physically get to Twitter HQ are excused") but "if possible, I would encourage you to fly to SF to present in person." He'll be at the office until midnight. https://twitter.com/ZoeSchiffer/status/1593665774744350721

This shows how out of touch he is - fly, right now, possibly across the country, just to please me. He has no concept or care of how much that might cost or disrupt someones life.

He literally says if you can't, you're excused from needing to. It's important to not lie.

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#272

Post by softwaredoug »

errantmind wrote: post #223

I'm no Elon fan, but why does essentially everyone in these threads automatically assume he is wrong? Has no one here worked at companies where there was more dead weight than talent? Where 80% of the work being done is by 20% of the people, and there are whole teams that do almost nothing? What if there is no clean, efficient way to discover who should be fired and so Elon's fallback plan is to test for who really w…

For one, there's more thoughtful ways of joining a company and remaking the culture that aren't a shitshow.

Instead of starting with 50% layoffs, you could have started with the ultimatum to stay for 'hardcore twitter' or not. Then you have a loyal set of employees AND reduced headcount.

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#273

Post by khazhoux »

jnwatson wrote: post #68
teaearlgraycold wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does he get away with doing almost nothing? Why can't he be fired?

Lots of staff devs do nothing but coordinate and plan technology.

Yes. But some senior devs actually do very little, for a number of reasons.

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#274

Post by InitialLastName »

jareds wrote: post #39
pydry wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seriously wondering if this is drug related. I dont think he was always this erratic.

Realizing you may have thrown away billions has a way of adding stress.

He didn't throw it away, he's working on donating it to improving global public discourse by eliminating Twitter.

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#275

Post by timeon »

extesy wrote: post #127
Teandw wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you can? It's basically asking to see what you consider your best work. If you're earning 100k a year and the most important code you show is how you turned a link colour from light blue to blue -- then your $100,000 a year job has now become questionable. It's hardly losing the plot to ask someone "What have you achieved and what do you think your best work is?"

If the new link color brought in 0.1% increased engagement and $5M increased revenue then that engineer's salary is more than justified.

I wonder if even color scheme in requested screenshot can influence review.

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#276

Post by kibwen »

jimbob45 wrote: post #52
DabbyDabberson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People I know at SpaceX are terrified of him. They all secretly track when he comes into the office, and actively hide from him.

Isn't that true of most CEOs though? When a CEO comes around, you have nothing to gain and your entire employment to lose. Edit: The point is not that we all reside in toxic workplaces. The point is that there is no upside to interacting with a CEO. A parallel situation might be giving a loaded pistol with a child. In that case, the upside is that they now have one thousand and one chew toys instead of one thousand.…

Any CEO who forces you to bend the knee in order to remain employed isn't a CEO that's worthy of your employment. If an executive wants my respect, they can earn it by doing things that are worthy of respect.

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#277

Post by rwhyan »

331c8c71 wrote: post #193
MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #28

The thing I don't get is the hyper-focus on salient or "fancy" code. We're not all Jeff Dean and most code is bland and boring plumbing work anyways. Even in awesome ML powered systems, it's still 99% bland foundation, 1% cool algorithms. Hell, as a manager, you don't want only "rockstar" developers because they'll become bored working on the plumbing code, which again, is most work. From datascience there's the phra…

I am lost. Where did Musk say anything about fanciness of the code? Or is it your interpretation of what he said?

> Before doing so, please email me a bullet point summary of what your code commits have achieved in the past ~6 months, along with up to 10 screenshots of the most salient lines of code.

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#278

Post by michaelmrose »

khazhoux wrote: post #241
piva00 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you expect a staff engineer in the middle of driving a multi-year project to revamp some large crufty part of the architecture to a better state, something that will pay off in 3-5 years time, be able to take screenshots of their "best work" to prove to Elon Musk they're worth it? It's a special kind of hell, it manages to be much worse than the hell it is on having to politically push this kind of project to…

In this hypothetical, did the staff engineer do anything besides attend meetings in the last 12 months? Did they write any code, or design docs, or actually contribute anything? Elon’s a jerk, but this thread seems to be full of people saying “I deliver value even though I can’t actually demonstrate any evidence of it.”

Do you write code?

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#279

Post by ryyr »

greatpostman wrote: post #179
haolez wrote: post #58

What if Twitter actually succeeds after this? I'm not saying that it's likely, but what if? Let's imagine it as a thought exercise. What will this say about the current state of software engineering in startups and big techs?

This is what everyone is afraid of. His firings are an assault on the professional credibility among a lot of people

i don't care for elon & co.'s broader mission, but for this reason i am hoping the skeleton crew that remains succeeds - i admit that it's naive to expect any positive change to come from it though

Re: If you (still) work at Twitter and you can code, head to the HQ now

#280

Post by adventured »

golem14 wrote: post #245
adventured wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what Elon thinks based on his actions. He's trying to decimate the workforce on purpose, although it's not going as smoothly as he hoped from outside appearances. He wants huge numbers of Twitter employees to quit, and he has been very clearly laying out the terms for behavior for the type of people he would like to run Twitter with. He's intentionally shaking the tree violently. He's hoping that the types…

But will the remaining eng be what he wants? I assume he already laid off most h1bs, who would say and do anything to not get deported but might not be the best engineers. Still, the people that claim to work 'hardcore' might just say that. They might survive for 3 months, which is how much severance they are forfeiting.

That's naturally the billion dollar question. Can he get what he wants and can he get it in that physical region, where Twitter operates out of, now that he has burned many bridges.

He will move the Twitter HQ, within 12-24 months I'd guess. He'll move it to Texas. Most likely he has already begun preparations for that and we'll see an announcement within six months.

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