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Why I have left Samsung

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Re: Why I have left Samsung

#111

Post by mikecane »

michaelochurch wrote: post #98
mikecane wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree with you. Corporations will often test you out in what you consider to be a "crap" job. Why? It's not a test of skill, it's a test of initiative . Without slamming him -- it's his personal choice, after all, and good luck to him -- this is why some people don't advance. They see a position as being "beneath" them when actually they're being watched to see if they can -- on their own -- bring something…

Corporations will often test you out in what you consider to be a "crap" job. Why? It's not a test of skill, it's a test of initiative. Without slamming him -- it's his personal choice, after all, and good luck to him -- this is why some people don't advance. They see a position as being "beneath" them when actually they're being watched to see if they can -- on their own -- bring something new to it. It's a total wa…

>>>It's a total waste of time to play that game.

I disagree and the experience of many others in prominent positions have experience that runs counter to that. From the outside, it's easy to dismiss it as a "game" (which is a bit odd, given the popularity of games in software...). From the inside, find a better way to separate those who can make an actual contribution to those who just do what they're told and need to be told what they should do?

>>>Were it not for the job-hopper stigma

In large companies, perhaps, where your entry depends on a corporate checklist. But in a smaller company where the opinion of those doing the hiring counts for more than procedures, it won't matter if you have the skills they need to fill the job. Let's not forget that Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft are all behemoths the size of non-digital corporations.

Re: Why I have left Samsung

#112

Post by Dystopian »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #92
hkmurakami wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose that I could argue that complaining about an incompetent former employer does literally no good for one's future career prospects. It can only hurt you, and that lack of foresight may be considered "unprofessional" by not considering your own best interests. (some companies won't care about his rant against Samsung, but some other bigcos will. No company will actually give him bonus points for his public co…

He didn't say they're incompetent, to the contrary, just that he didn't like it, and that being directly involved in something that makes more sense to him is more fulfilling to him in the meantime. So yes, he won't be hired by people without reading comprehension who snoop around on blogs, but what makes you think those are particularly productive anyway? And how is this relevant for someone looking to start his own…

Bigcos aren't the only ones who would be turned off by this post - I do due diligence daily on new employees at a small dev shop, we work startup hours and get dirty when it comes to the work we do (I do mindless crap daily that feels like I should have an intern that does it for me).

The op's post wreaks of entitlement and puts doubt in my mind that he'd be able to sit for 5 hours and setup staging servers, or batch review and comment code so new employees can follow quickly, or do one of the 100 other small, time-consuming, mundane tasks that we all get stuck doing sometimes at ANY size company level.

Re: Why I have left Samsung

#113

Post by lifeisstillgood »

xtracto wrote: post #94
mikecane wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree with you. Corporations will often test you out in what you consider to be a "crap" job. Why? It's not a test of skill, it's a test of initiative . Without slamming him -- it's his personal choice, after all, and good luck to him -- this is why some people don't advance. They see a position as being "beneath" them when actually they're being watched to see if they can -- on their own -- bring something…

I used to be like that (no really I did): I started programming when I was about 7 years old (LOGO, then Basic, then C). I finished my degree in Software Engineering with the highest grade of all my peers and with honours. About one year before graduation I started working at a software company (doing some rent-a-car systems and tourism web-dev) but inside me thinking I was so-much-better than what I was doing (progr…

Can I suggest you nip off and read michaelochurch's blog about 1.3-1.5 programmers.

If you are not (as a Phd (in CS?)) delivering 5x your value and knowing that you are you are being underused or overpaid.

Re: Why I have left Samsung

#114

Post by viraptor »

raverbashing wrote: post #24

The only reason I'll never work for a "big" company again: Clearcase If the job involves this tool, I won't even apply. (Yes, there are some other bad tools as well)

Isn't that backwards? You don't want to work with clearcase, not big companies from what I read. I work at a $very_big_company and use git (and hg/bzr in some cases).

There just happens to be a correlation between those two sometimes.

Re: Why I have left Samsung

#115

Post by ctek »

michaelochurch wrote: post #83
praptak wrote: post #51

Warsaw software developers' job market has gotten really interesting since Google opened an engineering center here some umpteen months ago. There is just no reason to stick to crappy jobs at this time. Edit: OTOH, this is no reason to go with a bang - releasing some pressure is just not worth it.

Warsaw software developers' job market has gotten really interesting since Google opened an engineering center here some umpteen months ago. There is just no reason to stick to crappy jobs at this time. What makes you think Google is better? Google pays decently, but the work isn't interesting unless you have social access. Being in an Eastern European satellite office, you're not going to get the machine learning wo…

Google in Poland does work on interesting work from what I've read... search and gmail for example.

Re: Why I have left Samsung

#116

Post by PavlovsCat »

pmelendez wrote: post #110
PavlovsCat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't say they're incompetent, to the contrary, just that he didn't like it, and that being directly involved in something that makes more sense to him is more fulfilling to him in the meantime. So yes, he won't be hired by people without reading comprehension who snoop around on blogs, but what makes you think those are particularly productive anyway? And how is this relevant for someone looking to start his own…

>"He didn't say they're incompetent" I am not sure about that. From the article: "Secondly Samsung as a corporation is a place of absurdity where doing unnecessary things for about 40% of time is a rule" That sounds like incompetence to me :)

How about actually reading the whole thing? It works so much better that way.

I suppose that all companies when exceed some size become something like this - as Paul Graham stated in his essay this is because of effect of scale.

Re: Why I have left Samsung

#117

Post by bobdvb »

kyllo wrote: post #103

(for example you have to use IE to work because much of their sofware works only as ActiveX controls) This is a problem endemic to South Korea. They actually passed legislation in the late 90s mandating the use of ActiveX for security. Now that ActiveX is an orphaned technology, that isn't working out so well for them. They are trapped on an old version of IE.

Former colleagues told me that Samsung is also known to put two teams on a task, tell neither that another team is working on said same problem, then whoever succeeds is a rockstar and whoever fails is 'restructured'.

Korean companies aren't the easiest to work for, I should know I also just left a large one, but the Koreans work harder than any other group I know. Just a shame they work harder not smarter because they waste so much time.

Re: Why I have left Samsung

#119

Post by michaelochurch »

mikecane wrote: post #111
michaelochurch wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations will often test you out in what you consider to be a "crap" job. Why? It's not a test of skill, it's a test of initiative. Without slamming him -- it's his personal choice, after all, and good luck to him -- this is why some people don't advance. They see a position as being "beneath" them when actually they're being watched to see if they can -- on their own -- bring something new to it. It's a total wa…

>>>It's a total waste of time to play that game. I disagree and the experience of many others in prominent positions have experience that runs counter to that. From the outside, it's easy to dismiss it as a "game" (which is a bit odd, given the popularity of games in software...). From the inside, find a better way to separate those who can make an actual contribution to those who just do what they're told and need t…

I disagree and the experience of many others in prominent positions have experience that runs counter to that. From the outside, it's easy to dismiss it as a "game" (which is a bit odd, given the popularity of games in software...).

I'm using "game" as a synonym for "gamble", not "engaging, interactive experience".

When you let your boss assign you crap work to support his career goals while you don't learn anything, you're essentially gambling. The idea is that if you let him use your career in the way that a teenager uses a Kleenex, for about 3 years, his sense of indebtedness will inspire him to start giving you real work and this sudden turn to political favor compensate for your wasted time.

What actually happens is that the real work always goes to people with higher-quality work experience than what you got. You're not eligible for the good stuff, because you wasted years of your life on the garbage out of a misguided sense of loyalty (or perhaps financial desperation).

From the inside, find a better way to separate those who can make an actual contribution to those who just do what they're told and need to be told what they should do?

People who try to work directly for the company by solving important problems they weren't told to solve get fired for breaking the #1 Rule of Corporate Survival: Never Outshine Your Master: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMy8Tf-zCag. (Ok, that's actually one of the 48 "laws of power" and I don't agree with the whole body of work, but that one is 100% true.)

Re: Why I have left Samsung

#120

Post by praptak »

michaelochurch wrote: post #83
praptak wrote: post #51

Warsaw software developers' job market has gotten really interesting since Google opened an engineering center here some umpteen months ago. There is just no reason to stick to crappy jobs at this time. Edit: OTOH, this is no reason to go with a bang - releasing some pressure is just not worth it.

Warsaw software developers' job market has gotten really interesting since Google opened an engineering center here some umpteen months ago. There is just no reason to stick to crappy jobs at this time. What makes you think Google is better? Google pays decently, but the work isn't interesting unless you have social access. Being in an Eastern European satellite office, you're not going to get the machine learning wo…

> What makes you think Google is better?

Statements from friends who work there plus knowledge from seminars they sometimes organize with Warsaw University. Example (Polish language warning :-) ): http://students.mimuw.edu.pl/SR/rok12-13/Google.html

Short translation of the above link: cluster management, availability management, load balancing. OS-level things, definitely not maintenance of a legacy ticketing system for "real" devs in California.

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