121–130 of 135 posts
I worked on a 20-ish team of good-but-not-brilliant engineers. Our secret weapon was liking each other and having very low turnover over the course of 10 years. As a principal engineer at Meta and LinkedIn, it’s still the most productive team I’ve ever been on
No matter how much I try to explain to some executives that you don't want the most productive individuals, you want the most productive team, they just don't get it.
[for companies with idk 100 or less headcount] Good culture boils down to: 1. Predictability. Flavors of it: deliver features on time, roadmap stays mostly stable, on demand requests are known about ahead of time, business struggling or doing well transparent, tech debt / upkeep are first class citizens of planned work. All of this is project management and communication. 2. Org pays market rate and has good benefits…
I agree with most of this. However in my time I've never seen a company that was a., successful and b., prioritizing tech debt/upkeep at the same time. I presume AI will fix this however maybe not since it's so tempting to defer strategic decisions to it. I have seen tech companies flourish which had tech, or tech-adjacent leadership. I've never seen a really good tech company that was lead by an MBA, a "vibe bro", o…
Do you actually mean "don't use Slack" or actually just "use Teams"? If the former, I don't think that makes a lot of sense unless you own a lot of Salesforce stock. There's a number of Slack alternatives that pretty much deliver the same experience.
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Curious, how? To me it is obvious that an org with a good culture will be more able to identify and reach its targets than a dysfunctional org lacking trust and safety.
it's simply not equivalent to web search, I mean, I don't understand how one would come to that conclusion? we can argue about how much more productive you get, but, it's definitely not the same as what we had before
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>Org pays market rate and has good benefits. This is so important. One of the things that kills company culture before the company even takes off is getting a sense from the founders that they're just trying to fool desperate/clueless people into working for them for less than what they're worth. The startups that actually succeed have the philosophy "find the best people and pay them a lot". All the successful unico…
By definition, paying employees well means paying them above-market, not market rate. If you pay people market-rate, nobody writes home about the compensation. Market-rate is also not "underpaying" i.e. below-market. Paying above-market rates is walking a tightrope. On the one hand, experienced employees who are well-versed in your systems and your organization are indeed worth more than market-rate (i.e. someone new…
If paying people less encourages poor performers to find roles elsewhere, it encourages your high performers to do this even more probably...
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By definition, paying employees well means paying them above-market, not market rate. If you pay people market-rate, nobody writes home about the compensation. Market-rate is also not "underpaying" i.e. below-market. Paying above-market rates is walking a tightrope. On the one hand, experienced employees who are well-versed in your systems and your organization are indeed worth more than market-rate (i.e. someone new…
> On the other hand, it also retains poor performers, who you want to steer to finding roles elsewhere If paying people less encourages poor performers to find roles elsewhere, it encourages your high performers to do this even more probably...
Most software engineers are relatively well-paid compared to the wider labor market, even the engineers who are "underpaid". Kahneman's research showed that once you have enough money to pay your bills, making more than that has rapidly diminishing returns for your happiness. It's much more important to fit in - like your boss, like your coworkers, like your work, be recognized, have good work-life balance. None of that really requires above-market compensation.
When a firm pays below-market rates, it's a sign of one of two things: either they're abusing people who can't find work elsewhere, or people are happy to stay in spite of it. The latter are often really good places to work.
HN loves to complain about how money ruined the software industry. Let the people who will chase a raise from $180k to $210k go elsewhere. Let the people who want their moonshot at life-changing wealth go talk to a VC. There are other opportunities for people who realize that money isn't everything in life.
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Correction: I'm listing examples where "the market" doesn't function like an ideal, healthy market. Search, social media, key SaaS markets, healthcare, insurance, etc.
Right. So these are all examples of market forces being irrelevant. This isn't the market showing that culture doesn't matter: when the winner is predetermined, culture or anything else couldn't _possibly_ matter, as long as it is not so critical that getting it wrong kills the company in the most literal sense.
Capital beats culture most of the time today, so companies optimize how they use capital.
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>Org pays market rate and has good benefits. This is so important. One of the things that kills company culture before the company even takes off is getting a sense from the founders that they're just trying to fool desperate/clueless people into working for them for less than what they're worth. The startups that actually succeed have the philosophy "find the best people and pay them a lot". All the successful unico…
By definition, paying employees well means paying them above-market, not market rate. If you pay people market-rate, nobody writes home about the compensation. Market-rate is also not "underpaying" i.e. below-market. Paying above-market rates is walking a tightrope. On the one hand, experienced employees who are well-versed in your systems and your organization are indeed worth more than market-rate (i.e. someone new…
It's easier to deploy AI than it is to create good culture.
Very agreed.
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I agree with most of this. However in my time I've never seen a company that was a., successful and b., prioritizing tech debt/upkeep at the same time. I presume AI will fix this however maybe not since it's so tempting to defer strategic decisions to it. I have seen tech companies flourish which had tech, or tech-adjacent leadership. I've never seen a really good tech company that was lead by an MBA, a "vibe bro", o…
> I personally actively filter out companies who don't use Slack. The way communication is done in a company reflects practically every company decision. (Conway's Law) Do you actually mean "don't use Slack" or actually just "use Teams"? If the former, I don't think that makes a lot of sense unless you own a lot of Salesforce stock. There's a number of Slack alternatives that pretty much deliver the same experience.