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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

#631

Post by hamburglar »

Jensson wrote: post #627
hamburglar wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is completely a mind game. Salient according to what criteria? Is he going to be happy to see wonderful high level distributed designs? Great coding practices at the micro level? Unit tests? Performance-oriented code? Ops greatness? CRUD boilerplate that any junior IC could jump into without much understanding (seems like this might be a stealth winner if he’s gearing up to build a skeleton crew of low-seniority…

> That is completely a mind game. Salient according to what criteria? Is what you do worth your salary? That is a pretty simple criteria, if you deliver significant value in basically any way that should be enough. Why do you think this is would be so hard? We had to write down reasoning like this to motivate our job at Google 1-2 times a year, it isn't hard to do.

Ok now do it in 10 code screenshots.

My complaint isn't in the general concept of justifying your value. My complaint is in the request to have every coder in the company boil this down to such a simplistic representation of it on short notice in an environment where every indication is that it's going to be considered for a laughably small amount of time and then you might be fired on the spot if you didn't focus on the right axes.

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

#632

Post by user_named »

ben7799 wrote: post #495
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…

I keep trying to figure out how many employees actually built twitter in the first place. I've been on there a long time, but have never been a heavy user. Twitter seems like it was mostly complete a long long time ago. It's changed far far less than say facebook over the years. I'm sure stuff has changed but I would struggle to remember what's different than say 10 years ago. They had 2000 people when they IPOed. Bu…

You think that Twitter is a code base. It's not. It's a business.

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

#633

Post by s1artibartfast »

hamburglar wrote: post #631
Jensson wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is completely a mind game. Salient according to what criteria? Is what you do worth your salary? That is a pretty simple criteria, if you deliver significant value in basically any way that should be enough. Why do you think this is would be so hard? We had to write down reasoning like this to motivate our job at Google 1-2 times a year, it isn't hard to do.

Ok now do it in 10 code screenshots. My complaint isn't in the general concept of justifying your value. My complaint is in the request to have every coder in the company boil this down to such a simplistic representation of it on short notice in an environment where every indication is that it's going to be considered for a laughably small amount of time and then you might be fired on the spot if you didn't focus on…

Why does everyone assume that people won't have a chance to explain the value of their code in these interviews? How much time do you think you would need to put together a list of your 10 biggest contributions and some screen caps to illustrate them?

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

#634

Post by Jensson »

hamburglar wrote: post #631
Jensson wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is completely a mind game. Salient according to what criteria? Is what you do worth your salary? That is a pretty simple criteria, if you deliver significant value in basically any way that should be enough. Why do you think this is would be so hard? We had to write down reasoning like this to motivate our job at Google 1-2 times a year, it isn't hard to do.

Ok now do it in 10 code screenshots. My complaint isn't in the general concept of justifying your value. My complaint is in the request to have every coder in the company boil this down to such a simplistic representation of it on short notice in an environment where every indication is that it's going to be considered for a laughably small amount of time and then you might be fired on the spot if you didn't focus on…

It is an email with an explanation of what you do, then some screenshots with code. People who mostly delivered value by writing code at Google wrote an explanation what they did, and often linked to different changelists with code they had written. The only strange part here is the screenshots of code instead of PR's, but adapting to that isn't very hard, take some screen shot of the diff or some part of the code and explain how that code fullfills the things you talked about in the email.

A person who can't do that lacks the soft skills to be an effective software engineer.

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

#635

Post by hamburglar »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #633
hamburglar wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok now do it in 10 code screenshots. My complaint isn't in the general concept of justifying your value. My complaint is in the request to have every coder in the company boil this down to such a simplistic representation of it on short notice in an environment where every indication is that it's going to be considered for a laughably small amount of time and then you might be fired on the spot if you didn't focus on…

Why does everyone assume that people won't have a chance to explain the value of their code in these interviews? How much time do you think you would need to put together a list of your 10 biggest contributions and some screen caps to illustrate them?

> Why does everyone assume that people won't have a chance to explain ...

I think the fact that this is happening to every coder at twitter in a few hours' span, coupled with the fact that thus far, the firings have been capricious, hasty, and based on apparently very little data. Nothing about these exercises seems to be "measured" in the "carefully considered" sense.

If you're thinking of these in contrast to standard performance evals that we all expect to have to do, you should also actually compare the processes in a meaningful way. Perf evals: you get weeks to work on them, you get to write a long-form essay making your case, you rarely ever get fired on the spot for not doing well, you get all manner of coaching and documentation about how to do well on them (including very specific tips on criteria for success). Compare and contrast with "bring me 10 screenshots of your code by 2pm today" along with the recent atmosphere of "anyone who doesn't meet the surprise criteria we just sprung on you is fired" and you wonder why people think this is absurd?

He can run his company how he wants, but this is way out of line with what I (and obviously many others) have come to expect. Don't understand the outrage? Well, this is the explanation. We've never had to put up with this shit before, and we don't feel like starting now. 1200 people quit yesterday. We still don't know how many were unwilling to jump through this latest dumb hoop. We shall see.

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

#636

Post by dorkwood »

bagels wrote: post #625
dorkwood wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't these all be part of the plan, though? Make himself look incompetent so that people underestimate him?

What value does he derive from us underestimating him?

Trump's election victory in 2016 was largely due to people underestimating him. His stupidity was a necessary component in his victory. Similarly, if Elon convinces everyone that he's just as stupid, if not moreso, he may be able to get away with equally impossible feats.

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

#637

Post by bagels »

someguy212 wrote: post #597
FireBeyond wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just hope whoever processes severance checks is still working. In the dotcom era, I was in the middle of a mass layoff. At the meeting, "everybody go back to your desk and dial extension 1234, and you will get a message with your employment status, instructions and next steps". PBX crashed. PBX took a while being brought back up because, well, the people responsible for supporting it wanted to find out whether _t…

I'm not enjoying how many comparisons lately I am hearing to the dotcom era.

We're seeing layoffs and stock crashes, but not as many completely unsound businesses. Meta is still making a ton of money.

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

#638

Post by pifm_guy »

I can't think of a single salient feature added to twitter in the last 6 months.

Which does raise questions what all those coders were working on...

The fact half of them have been fired and twitter is still running shows that they weren't all required for maintenance.

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

#639

Post by nikau »

pmoriarty wrote: post #268
maxbond wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my last exit interview, my CEO was asking me how he could improve his understanding of the engineering team. I threw out the idea that he could meet with people for 15 minutes on a rotation. He explained that he couldn't do that without terrifying people. Just because people are scared of the CEO doesn't mean most CEOs weaponize this into a tool of micromanagement.

It's a sad comment on the corporate world that so many are terrified of those they work for.

At will employment in a nutshell.

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

#640

Post by s1artibartfast »

hamburglar wrote: post #635
s1artibartfast wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does everyone assume that people won't have a chance to explain the value of their code in these interviews? How much time do you think you would need to put together a list of your 10 biggest contributions and some screen caps to illustrate them?

> Why does everyone assume that people won't have a chance to explain ... I think the fact that this is happening to every coder at twitter in a few hours' span, coupled with the fact that thus far, the firings have been capricious, hasty, and based on apparently very little data. Nothing about these exercises seems to be "measured" in the "carefully considered" sense. If you're thinking of these in contrast to stand…

Of course nobody is excited to explain what value they provide on short notice to keep their job. Nobody likes getting fired either.

I agree that these exercises are neither measured, careful, or well coached.

It is a blunt and imperfect way to see who codes at all, who can articulate their job, who can handle uncertainty and pressure, and also who will follow orders.

Taking a screenshot and explaining your code is not some impossible task. People just don't like the stakes.

My point is that it seems like people are overly focusing and critical of the request itself, when when request is a practical way to meet the goal. it just happens that the goal is crazy, unmeasured, rash.

I agree it is out of line from what people want and expect. I'm not sure there is any way to cut >75% of staff and gut a company culture in weeks that would fit the expectations and desires of employees. The situation is unheard of.

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