111–120 of 135 posts
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…
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…
What is "patient income?" How much money the MBAs in private equity that took over the hospital made by penny pinching and cutting corners in quality of care?
> " ...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 disagree. As someone with a CS degree, this was and is a stereotype for a reason.
> so that "Engineers" can be kept out of "Business Decision-Making" and thus Controlled/Managed easily.
This sounds almost like a conspiracy theory, how have the "industry" come to this conclusion together exactly?
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…
Big tech or otherwise, non-solicits are no joke. Be aware of them, and their enforcement in your jurisdiction.
Ugh spot on. I actually quite enjoyed the work I was doing at the Big Cos and Unicorns, and wouldn't mind doing it to this day. However, the culture that performance management wrought was so awful, it makes me not want to work in tech at all. The incentives they create are so perverse, it's sad how much they crush otherwise fun and innovative environments.
Small companies with better aligned incentives (equity incentives vs. bonus and promotion as the primary upside), indie work (and unrelatedly thereby also not giving away 80-90% of the value you create to the founders and VCs), or being a founder, is the answer, at least it was for me.
My previous company (~50 employees) did not have performance reviews at all; Instead, employees were handed out a blank spreadsheet with names of every personnel, and asked to fill who should get how much fraction of the bonus pool.
The numbers were aggregated by CEO once a year, and bonuses were paid out accordingly.
I liked the system when I worked there, because it served as a yearly check on how I was perceived. The results were sometimes brutal, though.
> " ...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…
If you are from East or South Asia, a US tech job comes at the end of a grueling competitive educational, hiring, and visa process. If you really struggle with self-promotion you'll get filtered out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Big tech or otherwise, non-solicits are no joke. Be aware of them, and their enforcement in your jurisdiction.
IANAL but my understanding is that they're generally not enforceable in California?
Everywhere else in the US does. Sometimes limited, e.g. to a year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saying it's being done badly is not the same as saying that one could do it better. Some things are hard to do, hard to incentivise, or both. And sometimes there really is a dollar bill lying in the street.
Some things also, weirdly, turn out to be unimportant. If you start a company with great project estimates internally but a mediocre product, you’ll fail. And if you make a great product but struggle to estimate feature costs internally, you’ll do fine. It sure would be nice if we could all correctly estimate costs, but accurate estimates are clearly not essential for startups to crush it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know of a similar case, the employee in question had to go through a similar process of questioning and audits just because they switched from FAANG A to B and somehow their manager came to know about it. After that incident, many members left the team for other companies; they’ve been careful to not update their LinkedIn page with the actual company that they’re working for. When asked, they often said that they w…
I'm a bit surprised to learn this isn't common knowledge. Don't say anything when you're leaving. Don't say where you're going, do NOT do the exit interview (Or do it but give the most generic positive answers only). Give 2 weeks and comply with all the work requests your manager gives you to exit clean. You might think it is sad it has to be this way, but this is business. You aren't breaking up with a romantic part…
only once did I wait out a formal non-compete for a few months in my youth though it was well worth it...