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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?

#61

Post by throwup238 »

DANmode wrote: post #55
throwup238 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and nuclear information to use against those around you, especially your boss. Always remember MICE: Money, Ideology, Compromise, and Ego. You probably don't control the money and the only ideology is capitalism so compromise and ego are the ones you should focus on. Honey pots work the best as compromise (especially sexual in nature) and you should always practice your skill of manipulating your coworkers' egos to…

Can't imagine willingly putting oneself in the environment you're describing. These are people playing on the same team as you? What kind of humans choose work environments where they're surrounded by foes? Hoping this is winding down.

I was just poking fun but everyone seems to have taken it so seriously.

I can’t imagine anyone working in such an environment. The MICE acronym is from counterintelligence and espionage.

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

#62

Post by Setch-l »

Tips for assessing big company roles:

- How is tech debt addressed? Are teams allowed to work on tech debt to keep the overall codebase functional. This one is fairly obvious, but a lot of bigger companies have allowed tech debt to get out of control which impacts the experience of writing code and/or accomplishing anything. The worst of these will layer in absurd processes rather than addressing the tech debt. - How does the work the team is doing now roll up to the overall strategy of the company? If the hiring manager can’t answer that question it means the company likely runs on politics rather than a coherent strategy.

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

#63

Post by cmacleod4 »

There are exceptions. I spent 15 years as a developer at Bloomberg, which is a fairly big company, working on the software behind various financial trading plaforms. That could be intense, demanding, stressful, sometimes satisfying, sometimes frustrating, but never dull. We were organised as small teams, each responsible for some particular product or service. So you would know a lot about what your team was doing, and could easily approach any of them. Often you would need to coordinate with some other group, which I found a bit harder, but that's mainly because of my rather unsociable personality. There were company processes of course, sometimes annoying but mostly reasonable. High performance was expected and rewarded. That can be brutal if, for whatever reason, you fall behind, but if you can handle the pressure it's a great gig.

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

#64

Post by al_borland »

In my experience, that sounds about right. At least the part about the complexity being in the process. The hard part of any big project is usually not the tech, it’s the politics, organization, and getting decisions made.

As for getting to know people, I think you can get to know some people, just don’t expect to get to know everyone. When I was in the office my section of the office had about 20 desks and it was connected to another room with about 40 more. The 3 people right around me I worked with and talked to all the time. Another guy who was pretty close, was on the phone a lot and did something else, but on many occasion we spoke. Ask him one minor question about what he’s doing and he’d talk to you about it for 3 hours. The room of 40, there were a few people I knew decently well and I’d go to lunch with a few of them extremely often. Occasionally someone would organize something outside of work which also gave some opportunities to see what people were really like.

It’s definitely a different type of vibe and not for everyone. The upsides with a big company are often more stability, benefits packages, they usually pay decent, and there is more opportunity to specialize if you’re into they. The downside is that you’re mostly a cog in the machine.

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

#65

Post by maximus-decimus »

bunabhucan wrote: post #46
ilc wrote: post #41

Something most people don't think about with large companies: They aren't monoliths. Your experience could be totally different in a different part of the company. 300k people is going to create a ton of variance. That said, I've found the larger the company, the more politics matters. And the more politics matters, the less your performance matters, and the more the other things matter. Personally, if given my way,…

There was an abusive manager (cursing, shouting, making subordinates cry) at a 200+k employee client I worked at. Subordinates told HR. I assumed they would fire him but they transferred him. I asked my manager because that seemed bonkers to me. He explained that that group had jobs to do that were low priority, had their own building, could only be transferred to. You couldn't leave except by quitting/retiring. Some…

I had heard of the Japanese just putting you in a room with nothing to do instead of firing you, but this sounds next level. They basically created a corporate version of hell, where people don't truly die but have to endure others sinners for eternity.

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

#66

Post by nine_zeros »

al_borland wrote: post #64

In my experience, that sounds about right. At least the part about the complexity being in the process. The hard part of any big project is usually not the tech, it’s the politics, organization, and getting decisions made. As for getting to know people, I think you can get to know some people, just don’t expect to get to know everyone. When I was in the office my section of the office had about 20 desks and it was co…

> In my experience, that sounds about right. At least the part about the complexity being in the process. The hard part of any big project is usually not the tech, it’s the politics, organization, and getting decisions made.

This has been my experience a well. The reason why working in corpo policy heavy company is hard is because of processes, blockers, and a management that is more interested in political maneuvers than any actual product or services.

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

#67

Post by AndyNemmity »

No. There are pockets within even large companies that have extremely intelligent people, and basically feel like a startup.

You can work in a large company, and still accomplish amazing things. But you have to avoid at all costs not being in an area of bright, intelligent people with leadership that protects it from having to be just another cog in the machine.

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

#68

Post by neongreen »

jon-wood wrote: post #40

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 newl…

What were the biggest obstacles to figuring out whether someone has opted out of marketing communications?

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

#69

Post by pavel_lishin »

nine_zeros wrote: post #66
al_borland wrote: post #64

In my experience, that sounds about right. At least the part about the complexity being in the process. The hard part of any big project is usually not the tech, it’s the politics, organization, and getting decisions made. As for getting to know people, I think you can get to know some people, just don’t expect to get to know everyone. When I was in the office my section of the office had about 20 desks and it was co…

> In my experience, that sounds about right. At least the part about the complexity being in the process. The hard part of any big project is usually not the tech, it’s the politics, organization, and getting decisions made. This has been my experience a well. The reason why working in corpo policy heavy company is hard is because of processes, blockers, and a management that is more interested in political maneuvers…

This is true even if there aren't heavy policies in place; in fact, it's worse, because you have to figure out or guess how decisions get made, and by whom, and there's no day to day consistency. You end up working on projects that get cancelled for no reason you can tell, you have to pitch ideas without knowing what the metrics they'll be judged on. It's arguably more demoralizing.

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

#70

Post by mike22 »

Anecdotes from my experience, in a large US bank (millions of customers), specifically in a product with active investment:

Yes, processes for getting things done are dull and frustrating. Team leads often urged minimizing time spent on them by using political clout with the gatekeepers to expedite them.

Tech was not too exciting, all the open source stuff used were mature, vetted by security folks/scans, and possibly had in-house layers built on top of it.

Did get to see where my projects fit in end to end, including contributing to data shown in a widget high up on their mobile app’s dashbord, and also to several thousand internal users who are movers and shakers.

Standing up a new REST API and exposing it to the internet required much upfront design and lots of approvals. But at the end of the day it’s to ensure minimal risk while making maximum impact on the tremendous customer base.

Pay was not approaching the FAANG stratosphere. Had two WFH days per week. Office had a section of a floor reserved for the group, and hotdesking with “soft” reservations based on history of actual desks used.

Overall did learn a lot about tech, business, and leadership, but the cog feeling was still definitely an undertone.

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