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Failing the startup game at Unbabel

esoteric-code.blogspot.com

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Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#41

Post by TomGullen »

yuribit wrote: post #29
homakov wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe he wants his story to sound more dramatic >So here I am, back where I started with barely enough money to eat. Come on, you're 37 years old Java professional from Sweden (which is not Nigeria or something). Even unemployed people there get more money which I used to make being programmer. > When I informed my landlord that I wouldn't be able to stay as long as planned she kicked me out of the apartment What,…

Completely agree, where are all the money you earned in the last 16 years?

Who cares? He can spend it how he wishes, doesn't detract from the mistreatment he is claiming in any way.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#42

Post by DanBC »

ransom1538 wrote: post #26

Ok. I have been hacking in startups for 10 years or so. A few rules to note. 1) Startups almost always fail. Pretty much assume at any point you can be let go for any reason. If you can't afford to blow 3 months of salary and be paid in "promise" - don't do it. 2) Startups are not for everyone. Enjoy good code? Like a peaceful atmosphere? Need comments? Love structure and strategy? Welp - you will fail at a startup.…

> 3) Legal. You are going to sue a former employer? What a great way of ruining your future. Future employers will avoid you like the plague.

That's weird.

I would have thought that firms would prefer ex-employees to use the courts appropriately to settle disputes, rathar than using blog posts.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#43

Post by marktangotango »

linker3000 wrote: post #15

I feel for you too. It wasn't a startup and the job was local, but I took a salary drop and swapped a cosy-but-unrewarding role with a global corporate to join a 40-strong SaaS development company that wanted someone to come in and sort out their internal and customer support infrastructure - they had no strategy, procedures or hierarchy and were constantly firefighting - shuffling resources between projects accordin…

Yikes most all of that applies to my current role... But at the end of the day, a chaotic process IS a process. And if the company is pulling in money the process is successful by at least one measure.

I think the trick is to grow past the 'whatever it takes' phase and get to the long term, steady, maturation phase. Which is what we are trying to do.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#44

Post by VLM »

ransom1538 wrote: post #26

Ok. I have been hacking in startups for 10 years or so. A few rules to note. 1) Startups almost always fail. Pretty much assume at any point you can be let go for any reason. If you can't afford to blow 3 months of salary and be paid in "promise" - don't do it. 2) Startups are not for everyone. Enjoy good code? Like a peaceful atmosphere? Need comments? Love structure and strategy? Welp - you will fail at a startup.…

"Legal. You are going to sue a former employer? What a great way of ruining your future. Future employers will avoid you like the plague. "

And that leads to contracts not being worth the paper they're printed on unless you're independently wealthy, and without any rule of law or justice, the system goes down the tubes.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#45

Post by DanBC »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #21
andystannard wrote: post #8

Hi I think they are legally able to do this from my understanding of EU law. It sucks especially if you have had to relocate for the job but you obviously were not enjoying working for them. It sounds as if the lead dev might be feeling overprotective of his own work and does not want to let go. I am sure you will find another job easily enough as good devs are in demand. Hopefully at a place where you are valued and…

If the contract has a minimum period, then they have to show ' cause' when firing someone. Not being a good fit won't be good enough. If it was, the minimum period in a contract wouldn't be worth anything as that's easy for an employer to say with no backup. This issue is a major difference between typical contracts in the EU and the at will employment status which is typical in the US. It makes it 'easier' for start…

> Depending on the rental contract - if it's anything like the UK, the author may have a cause of action against the landlord as well - normally there's a minimum notice period.

"kicked out" could include "followed all the legal procedures and evicted me".

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#46

Post by FollowSteph3 »

I hate to say this but whenever you relocate that is your decision. The company isn't really in any obligations to keep you or pay your move back unless you pre-negotiate that either with a signing bonus or as a clause in your contract. Generally a relocation is offset with a signing bonus and higher salary which is why the risk is worth it, but never doubt that it's a risk you have to take. I know because I've done it myself before, moving countries and all.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#47

Post by fimdomeio »

I fear that if the OP was portuguese, what happened would probably look kinda normal. In the last 10/15 years or so most labour laws have been destroyed or made irrelevant and the crysis just made it even worse. With the scarcity of money it appears to have grown a culture of chaos. To me this story is just another one.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#48

Post by emil0r »

yuribit wrote: post #29
homakov wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe he wants his story to sound more dramatic >So here I am, back where I started with barely enough money to eat. Come on, you're 37 years old Java professional from Sweden (which is not Nigeria or something). Even unemployed people there get more money which I used to make being programmer. > When I informed my landlord that I wouldn't be able to stay as long as planned she kicked me out of the apartment What,…

Completely agree, where are all the money you earned in the last 16 years?

Taxes, cost of living (food, clothes, rent, etc) and possibly loans.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#49

Post by morgante »

prawn wrote: post #38
ransom1538 wrote: post #26

Ok. I have been hacking in startups for 10 years or so. A few rules to note. 1) Startups almost always fail. Pretty much assume at any point you can be let go for any reason. If you can't afford to blow 3 months of salary and be paid in "promise" - don't do it. 2) Startups are not for everyone. Enjoy good code? Like a peaceful atmosphere? Need comments? Love structure and strategy? Welp - you will fail at a startup.…

"Legal. You are going to sue a former employer? What a great way of ruining your future." Could say the same thing to Unbabel if this story is as OP has written it up. Not going to pay out the contract? What a great way of ruining your future. Future employees will avoid you like the plague.

> Could say the same thing to Unbabel if this story is as OP has written it up. Not going to pay out the contract? What a great way of ruining your future. Future employees will avoid you like the plague.

Yup. Neither party comes out looking good from this.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#50

Post by VLM »

TomGullen wrote: post #40
onion2k wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lesson is that it's hard to find good developers. More generally, it's quite hard to find good . People assume that available talent fits some sort of bell curve, with lots of 'average' people out there, but really it's more like an inverse square curve - there's a lot more people at the bottom end than the top. When you find the good ones you're nice to them because it's in everyone's interest.

> When you find the good ones you're nice to them because it's in everyone's interest. Why do you have to differentiate being nice to people based on their abilities in any way at all? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your point?

Maybe its a "when you don't have much left, whats left is more important".

Like the discussion of employee talent vs qty graph shape, there exists a similar graph of employer quality vs qty of some shape. And if you know as an employer you're at a very low point of that graph, unable to execute, unable to meet deadlines, unable to pay contracts in full, all you may really have left is nice personal charisma, making it all the more crucial.

You can behave like IBM or Google if you're IBM or Google. Little startup, maybe not.

If all you've got left is the ability to be nice because everything else is lost, then being nice is becomes more important than at Accenture or insert any other large company.

Its similar to the concept of "grace under fire" which used to mean something other than a sitcom or a martial arts TV show.

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