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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

#561

Post by darkteflon »

fknorangesite wrote: post #534
Balgair wrote: post #340

Now he's saying that he wants people to fly in to present their code to him by midnight. On the Friday before Thanksgiving. Into one of United's big hubs. With 14 hours notice. And a lot of cold fronts over the eastern seaboard. Likely more like 10 hours with travel times and the line of potential people that are presenting. I'm honestly gobsmacked. Look, if you're on of those engineers and are unfortunate enough to…

Right? The only way this shit show would be worthwhile is if it were starring John Candy.

Excellent, thanks.

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

#562

Post by karmakurtisaani »

smt88 wrote: post #57
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it is still closed and no one told him. The movie is going to be great.

I don’t want to see this movie. So far, it’s an entitled and mentally-ill man-child learning that all the praise he’s gotten in recent years is for other people’s work, and he’s not a domain expert on every type of technology. I think we all deal with enough of that on a small scale to be sick of it.

I'm afraid it's a bit optimistic to assume he's learning anything here..

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

#563

Post by lentil_soup »

khazhoux wrote: post #485
michaelmrose wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you write code?

Only at home these days. First fifteen years of my career, as engineer and TL, I wrote a ton of code — every day was for coding, and even late nights and weekends for the extra-fun projects. Now as a manager and sometimes architect, no code from me but I still review code and spend time stopping bad ideas, getting teams to work together, and all that fun stuff. But I still regard code merged into master, as the ultim…

So you wouldn't have a single screenshot of code to show for the past year either?

So, you DO understand what we're trying to say on this thread. I don't get why you are defending this measure as a valid way to measure engineers

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

#564

Post by pas »

someNameIG wrote: post #538
mike_d wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is trying to destroy the company, literally. Twitter's now second largest investor and likely cash backer of Elon's shares is Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz. Twitter was a huge enabler of the Arab Spring and leaders of oppressive regimes around the world would love to see it shuttered.

> He is trying to destroy the company, literally. I don't buy this as he's doing it in a way that makes him look like an incompetent fool.

quite possibly he is a bit on the manic side of behavior (which makes him almost impervious to what others think of him; also he seems to be popular enough with a certain crowd, so he might not care much)

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

#565

Post by eternalban »

ncallaway wrote: post #338
erulabs wrote: post #270

I think people miss the point with the "tell me what code you've written in the last 6 months" task. The idea is hopefully not to qualitatively quantify anyones work - the idea is to find folks who have nothing whatsoever to show, and yet have titles like "staff software engineer". Anyone who has worked at a large enough company knows there is a solid 10-15% of folks doing nothing. The new leadership probably asked t…

> the idea is to find folks who have nothing whatsoever to show, and yet have titles like "staff software engineer". Shouldn't that have been the idea *before* they laid off half the employees? How fucking idiotic of a leader do you have to be to lay off half the company and *then* try and figure out who is producing literally nothing of value?

First one was a loyalty/chump test.

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

#566

Post by googlryas »

kilolima wrote: post #519
googlryas wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Twitter about sending short messages to the world or to people who are listening to you? How different are you envisioning Twitter could be? I really just want to make sure this isn't a cop out in the chances his stunts succeed(ie yeah it's successful now but it's different!)

If that was the purpose of Twitter it would still function with JavaScript disabled.

Maybe that's part of the bloat elon is looking to cut

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

#567

Post by [deleted] »

Teandw wrote: post #428
hamburglar wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the goal was actually to see what employees think is their most important work, that (and criteria) would be specified, instead of playing "what is he looking for" mind games.

He did specify. He asked for most salient. Salient means "most noticeable or important." He hasn't played any mind games. He's asked for exactly what he wants.

[deleted]

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

#568

Post by rifty »

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?

In the case of success I think it probably just puts back into perspective that all things considered most employees are still average quality despite being made out to be situationally necessary. That there may be some overestimation of how many actually are necessary and misattributing for who is actually high quality.

The degree you would buy into this probably depends on how much you believe that Twitter is a good representation for the rest of the industry. I imagine a number of people would prefer to believe it is not in the case of success if it is their self value in question.

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

#569

Post by bumblewax »

eternalban wrote: post #565
ncallaway wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the idea is to find folks who have nothing whatsoever to show, and yet have titles like "staff software engineer". Shouldn't that have been the idea *before* they laid off half the employees? How fucking idiotic of a leader do you have to be to lay off half the company and *then* try and figure out who is producing literally nothing of value?

First one was a loyalty/chump test.

Is this similar to the "I throw half the resumes away to avoid hiring unlucky people" concept?

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

#570

Post by khazhoux »

qwytw wrote: post #543
khazhoux wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to assume he’ll delegate to people he trusts.

I would fine it hard to make this assumption based on how he's behaving. Also does he really have that many at Twitter people whom he trusts? And are there many who trust him?

I think he’s brought in buddies, and heads of engineering from tesla and spacex.
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