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Ask HN: Is it really so dull to work in huge company?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it really so dull to work in huge company?

#31

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

artyom wrote: post #21
lemonwaterlime wrote: post #17

There’s nothing dull about it! Make sure to keep detailed records of everything you and more importantly the people around you do and say. Working in a corporation is about having brag lists for yourself and nuclear information to use against those around you, especially your boss. As you get experience you realize that at any given time everyone has said or done something that could be taken out of context as eviden…

You just described Microsoft. (and I'm sure its FAANG friends too)

I remember when it was "FAANGMA" - I don't know why people stopped considering Microsoft "worthy" of being an aspirational employer.

I've done my time there (3 years as a college-hire) - still my favourite overall employer, I just had a sucky position (and undiagnosed ADHD... yah...).

P.S. If any hiring-managers in the OSG Shell team (i.e. Explorer.exe) see this, get in touch, there's so many small little bugs I want to fix!

Re: Ask HN: Is it really so dull to work in huge company?

#33

Post by hiddencost »

lemonwaterlime wrote: post #17

There’s nothing dull about it! Make sure to keep detailed records of everything you and more importantly the people around you do and say. Working in a corporation is about having brag lists for yourself and nuclear information to use against those around you, especially your boss. As you get experience you realize that at any given time everyone has said or done something that could be taken out of context as eviden…

Tried it. Turned out, being the Director's friend was way more important.

Re: Ask HN: Is it really so dull to work in huge company?

#34

Post by wharvle »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #31
artyom wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described Microsoft. (and I'm sure its FAANG friends too)

I remember when it was "FAANGMA" - I don't know why people stopped considering Microsoft "worthy" of being an aspirational employer. I've done my time there (3 years as a college-hire) - still my favourite overall employer, I just had a sucky position (and undiagnosed ADHD... yah...). P.S. If any hiring-managers in the OSG Shell team (i.e. Explorer.exe) see this, get in touch, there's so many small little bugs I want…

The term was originally about stocks of similar profile, not which employers one should aspire to have. Jim Cramer coined it, and modified it a couple times (eventually adding Microsoft).

Re: Ask HN: Is it really so dull to work in huge company?

#35

Post by renewiltord »

That's by design. Large org needs consistent throughput. Think of it like you engineer system. When small, you have pets: each computer is important. Then you scale so you maybe get rid of special computer. All computer is cattle. You want consistent performance, willing to accept lower performance for consistency. Advantage is you can build bigger building blocks. No need for 9654X with 1 GB of cache. Everything is now VM. Mechanically unsympathetic, but you swap each piece in logical space, individual device does not matter.

You go bigger. Business units now. Deliver consistent performance. All units is not Skunkwork. Just machine. Big unit. Transistor in company CPU. Eventually company as well is just transistor in nation CPU. Nation just transistor in Earth CPU.

Re: Ask HN: Is it really so dull to work in huge company?

#37

Post by matthewfcarlson »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #31
artyom wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described Microsoft. (and I'm sure its FAANG friends too)

I remember when it was "FAANGMA" - I don't know why people stopped considering Microsoft "worthy" of being an aspirational employer. I've done my time there (3 years as a college-hire) - still my favourite overall employer, I just had a sucky position (and undiagnosed ADHD... yah...). P.S. If any hiring-managers in the OSG Shell team (i.e. Explorer.exe) see this, get in touch, there's so many small little bugs I want…

It hasn’t been osg for several years now. It was WDG, then something else, then just part of Azure. When I left, windows got split in two and the shell was under the UI team.

Re: Ask HN: Is it really so dull to work in huge company?

#38

Post by xiphias2 »

As there are many people working on the same code base, change should be hard, it's a good thing.

As it takes a lot of time to go through the process of changing things, make sure to invest time in deciding what that change should be (and how to structure it in a way that it's easiest to go through the process) instead of making the change that you would do if you would work on the code base yourself.

Re: Ask HN: Is it really so dull to work in huge company?

#40

Post by jon-wood »

At least in my experience, yes, it really is that dull. If you get senior enough it manages to be both very dull and very stressful.

I managed to stick out for about a year after the startup I’d been working for was acquired by a multinational. I’d been an early engineering hire at the startup, and by that point was a technical lead for one of the teams. On being acquired I got promoted to technical lead for the newly formed division, which in practice meant endless meetings about every aspect of what we were doing. I’m talking eight hours a day on Teams calls, and a couple of hours writing things up between them.

One thing I’ll never forget is that an early task I picked up was working out how to tell if someone had opted out of marketing communications. I naively went in thinking it couldn’t be that hard, just look them up in the system that tracked these things. When I left we still didn’t have a decent solution. I’d spent months on calls with everyone up to the Data Protection Officer, and the closest I ever got was something we thought might work. For all I know they’re still trying to work it out 18 months later.

In the end I hated that job so much I took a ~50% pay cut and left a five figure retention bonus on the table to get out. I’m now happily back in a startup writing code every day, solving interesting problems, and laughing whenever someone complains about how much process and documentation there is.

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