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I worked 80 hour weeks to deliver a platform for a hedge fund,then they fired me

efinancialcareers.com

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Re: I worked 80 hour weeks to deliver a platform for a hedge fund,then they fired me

#111

Post by khokhol »

dfadsadsf wrote: post #24

I just do not believe this story. Nobody in the right mind will fire key software engineer 48 hours after system goes live. This is where all the bugs/problems show up and you need all hands on deck to fix them. Six months after launch when all problems are solved - absolutely, you can fire engineer. 48 hours after launch? absolutely not.

Nobody in the right mind will fire key software engineer 48 hours after system goes live.

Perhaps there was a backstory of sorts we're not aware of. But there is absolutely nothing surprising about companies firing people right after handing over huge and/or critical projects. They do it all the time, for both good reasons and bad. Managers in finance are known to be especially "bold" in making decisions like these.

Re: I worked 80 hour weeks to deliver a platform for a hedge fund,then they fired me

#112

Post by cyclotron3k »

nhumrich wrote: post #16

To play devils advocate, what we don't know from the story is how effective the playform was. 48 hours after release he was fired, possibly because it was terrible.

We also don't know how big the dev team is. It's heavily implied that it was one, but not actually stated.

Re: I worked 80 hour weeks to deliver a platform for a hedge fund,then they fired me

#113

Post by oblio »

jprete wrote: post #82
brink wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a double-edged sword. On one edge there's the risk of greed, but it's also unparalleled in incentivizing and rewarding ambition.

Ambition is not necessarily a positive trait.

No, but many things have been invented a lot sooner due to it, than would have been invented otherwise.

Completely laid back cultures advance very slowly.

Re: I worked 80 hour weeks to deliver a platform for a hedge fund,then they fired me

#114

Post by communitynotes »

earthwalker99 wrote: post #110
sillysaurusx wrote: post #108

Please stop working more than 40 hours a week. It’s your choice, and you don’t need to choose to. When it goes badly, you also don’t need to use it as a point of honor. It’s not. It just means you let your employer exploit you. Doing it because you want to is a little different. I often do. But you have to understand that the only thing you’ll get out of it is mild intellectual gratification, and sometimes not even t…

> It just means you let your employer exploit you. By definition, all labor on which another profits is a case of exploitation, regardless of length in time.

"all labor on which another profits" is not the definition of exploit.

https://www.google.com/search?q=exploit+definition

Re: I worked 80 hour weeks to deliver a platform for a hedge fund,then they fired me

#115

Post by throwaway019254 »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #108

Please stop working more than 40 hours a week. It’s your choice, and you don’t need to choose to. When it goes badly, you also don’t need to use it as a point of honor. It’s not. It just means you let your employer exploit you. Doing it because you want to is a little different. I often do. But you have to understand that the only thing you’ll get out of it is mild intellectual gratification, and sometimes not even t…

> It’s your choice, and you don’t need to choose to.

And if I don't choose it, I can just choose to not pay bills/rent when I'm fired. What a simple solution.

Re: I worked 80 hour weeks to deliver a platform for a hedge fund,then they fired me

#116

Post by Buttons840 »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #108

Please stop working more than 40 hours a week. It’s your choice, and you don’t need to choose to. When it goes badly, you also don’t need to use it as a point of honor. It’s not. It just means you let your employer exploit you. Doing it because you want to is a little different. I often do. But you have to understand that the only thing you’ll get out of it is mild intellectual gratification, and sometimes not even t…

I can understand that sometimes the technology at work might provide a platform to try some things you're interested in, but if you're honest about what your long term goals and dreams are, those probably have very little to do with work.

I used to get frustrated at work, thought I could recreate one of our systems in a better way, maybe I could have, but ultimately it was just a CRUD app, and making slight improvements to CRUD apps is not my dream. Running my own CRUD app, maybe, but not for someone else. (Nor were they asking me to recreate that system.)

My real dream is something more like "figure out how to bring strong AI to the gaming industry to create more interesting single-player strategy games", but that's hard, much easier to chase some tangent on someone else's CRUD app.

Re: I worked 80 hour weeks to deliver a platform for a hedge fund,then they fired me

#117

Post by sakjur »

earthwalker99 wrote: post #110
sillysaurusx wrote: post #108

Please stop working more than 40 hours a week. It’s your choice, and you don’t need to choose to. When it goes badly, you also don’t need to use it as a point of honor. It’s not. It just means you let your employer exploit you. Doing it because you want to is a little different. I often do. But you have to understand that the only thing you’ll get out of it is mild intellectual gratification, and sometimes not even t…

> It just means you let your employer exploit you. By definition, all labor on which another profits is a case of exploitation, regardless of length in time.

And yet people understand the sentiment. Having footnotes pointing out the inherent unfairness of capitalism when criticizing the employers that go further than societal norms to exploit their employers seems like an excessive level of formality (to expect) for HN.

Re: I worked 80 hour weeks to deliver a platform for a hedge fund,then they fired me

#118

Post by devmor »

throwaway019254 wrote: post #115
sillysaurusx wrote: post #108

Please stop working more than 40 hours a week. It’s your choice, and you don’t need to choose to. When it goes badly, you also don’t need to use it as a point of honor. It’s not. It just means you let your employer exploit you. Doing it because you want to is a little different. I often do. But you have to understand that the only thing you’ll get out of it is mild intellectual gratification, and sometimes not even t…

> It’s your choice, and you don’t need to choose to. And if I don't choose it, I can just choose to not pay bills/rent when I'm fired. What a simple solution.

As you can see from the article you're commenting on, it does not protect you from being fired, so I don't see your point.

Re: I worked 80 hour weeks to deliver a platform for a hedge fund,then they fired me

#119

Post by lacrimacida »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #56
dfadsadsf wrote: post #24

I just do not believe this story. Nobody in the right mind will fire key software engineer 48 hours after system goes live. This is where all the bugs/problems show up and you need all hands on deck to fix them. Six months after launch when all problems are solved - absolutely, you can fire engineer. 48 hours after launch? absolutely not.

Do people continue paying plumbers and contractors after the job is done? Of course not… I think it is too easy for an outsider to treat software the same.

Plumbers get paid for their work though. Some eager youngster gets exploited, at least once in their lifetime.

Re: I worked 80 hour weeks to deliver a platform for a hedge fund,then they fired me

#120

Post by Frost1x »

communitynotes wrote: post #114
earthwalker99 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It just means you let your employer exploit you. By definition, all labor on which another profits is a case of exploitation, regardless of length in time.

"all labor on which another profits" is not the definition of exploit. https://www.google.com/search?q=exploit+definition

That’s not what OP said. They said it was a case of exploitation and they are correct. People just don’t like to hear it phrased that way because it brings up negative connotations.

Now, while the agreement may be exploitive that doesn’t mean it isn’t mutually beneficial or that the situation be zero sum, at least viewed at a small scale. It’s perfectly possible to be exploited by someone and still end up in a better situation regardless. The level and terms of exploitation are what matters.

As a member of the labor force you ideally want to minimize that exploitation and be charging as close to your value add as the market will bear. In an idealized situation, you pull more than the market rate in some way shape or form (higher pay, less work, etc.) because in a capitalistic system you should be doing your due diligence to help the labor market optimize the way the employer market is optimizing.

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