31–40 of 135 posts
> The problem is that every employee is judged by their ability to get work done That's mostly not true.
What's also mostly true is people have a mostly incorrect perception of their abilities.
It's like when 85% of drivers believe they are above average.
If it was mostly untrue, they'd be crushed by a competitor who did a better job.
> doubly so in places that attract talent through the mythos of only hiring the best. Does any job-seeker think of that in recent years? I can't think of a company who only hires the best, and I don't very often anymore see companies trying to claim that. I suspect job-seekers are thinking about compensation, career advancement, and what they'd be working on.
> see companies trying to claim that You're not paying attention. Did you see the Internet Brands return to home viral corp video they emberrassingly took down?
Google definitely used to have that mythos/meme (said by others, so the company didn't have to say it), but I don't hear anyone saying that recently.
I'd guess a lot of people would have their own special stories to tell. However, do not underestimate the fact that some of these stories might not be easily disclosed. A "friend of mine", let's call it Bob, decided to leave one of the big tech companies (call it "A"), and join another big tech company (call it "B"), which offers him exactly double the salary. Due to a very unlucky combination, a former colleague at…
Be aware of them, and their enforcement in your jurisdiction.
The flip side to these performance cycles is all the time in between in which often very little actionable feedback is provided to engineers which makes the mid year and end of year reviews so difficult. Across 3 companies and 8 managers, I have yet to receive feedback that was productive in helping me understand what skills or track record is lacking and what is necessary to move up. Managers are (often) bad at prov…
> " ...as well as a handful of unlucky folks who deliver solid results but lack social grace and self-promotion skills. " Ironic that what was once the character archetype for geeky programmers have now become pariahs in the industry they pioneered. Now we all toot our own horns as loudly as we can, hoping to drown out our fellows, in search of the next bonus or job hop and devil take the hindmost. Introverted, have…
Do you think Steve Wosniak's career would have been different if he had had those promotional soft skills?
This article reminds me a bit of a 'ethics' issue in one of the top-name journals, Science or Nature, some years ago. Every article was about the ethics of sharing credit, granting tenure, awarding prizes, etc. Not a word about anything like the ethics of designing AI systems for the military to use in autonomous kill vehicles, reckless gain-of-function research with pathogenic microorganisms, etc. So, here we have a…
Maximize shareholder value
I'd guess a lot of people would have their own special stories to tell. However, do not underestimate the fact that some of these stories might not be easily disclosed. A "friend of mine", let's call it Bob, decided to leave one of the big tech companies (call it "A"), and join another big tech company (call it "B"), which offers him exactly double the salary. Due to a very unlucky combination, a former colleague at…
That kind of provision is usually unenforcable if not illegal. (Bob speaking of it would probably risk attracting meritless lawsuit, but frankly meritless lawsuits are a fact of life and us comfortable tech folks ought to be willing to brave them for the sake of society)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> see companies trying to claim that You're not paying attention. Did you see the Internet Brands return to home viral corp video they emberrassingly took down?
I mean non-ridiculous companies/people claiming that. Google definitely used to have that mythos/meme (said by others, so the company didn't have to say it), but I don't hear anyone saying that recently.
> A dream team is one in which all of your colleagues are extraordinary at what they do and highly effective working together. [...] Dream teams are about performance, [...] Sustained “B” performance, despite an “A” for effort, gets a severance package with respect.
> " ...as well as a handful of unlucky folks who deliver solid results but lack social grace and self-promotion skills. " Ironic that what was once the character archetype for geeky programmers have now become pariahs in the industry they pioneered. Now we all toot our own horns as loudly as we can, hoping to drown out our fellows, in search of the next bonus or job hop and devil take the hindmost. Introverted, have…
The original archetype was a completely overblown caricature (based on some outliers) and wasn't true mostly. It was just an image pushed by the industry so that "Engineers" can be kept out of "Business Decision-Making" and thus Controlled/Managed easily. But now as you say, self promotion is everything and has been taken so far that one cannot call oneself "A Programmer" but a "Rockstar/Ninja/10x/whatever Programmer…
I don't think that is true in the places I've worked at. Whether in interviews or in daily work, people only pretending to know things are not rewarded (unless nobody notices, but that means that nobody in the room is knowledgeable, which is a problem in itself).
People not being transparent about the limits of their knowledge is a big red flag for me in interviews.
What other Big Tech cultural policies haven't worked out, but they're stuck with?
And are those mimicked by countless other companies?