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Failing the startup game at Unbabel

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Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#181

Post by gone35 »

vasco_ wrote: post #131

For the record I am a co-founder and CEO of Unbabel. I feel that I should respond to these allegations. 1 - The contract we had with Andreas was full time employee contract. The first three months were "at will" which means that either one was free to terminate the relation at any time. We have a signed contract to prove it and I am happy to share a sample of the contract to anyone that wants. When we fired him, we n…

A position just opened up :)

Most inappropriate HN job posting, ever.

Is it perhaps a culture/language barrier? Do they even realize how callous their little segue is?

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#182

Post by rokhayakebe »

hanspeter wrote: post #107
rokhayakebe wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read yourself? What do you know about his life? Could he have lost all his savings due to a a divorce, or an accident, or some other type of tragedy? What if he always had to support others?

I hope he didn't take the decision to leave a good job in a country with one of the best economies in Europe for a start-up job in a country with one of the worst economies in Europe - while having no savings and/or having to support others.

I cannot speak for the OP, but we are more likely to make "bad" decisions when the situation appears desperate.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#184

Post by carterehsmith »

enjo wrote: post #140
btipling wrote: post #59

The truth of it is that the startup life isn't for every engineer. Startup code is messy. You don't have architects who draw UMLs for you, you don't have the luxury of time to do things right. At a small startup everything is often falling apart at the seams. Morale can rise and crash, repeatedly, like a roller coaster. Small startups often have to visit the iron bank of technical debt and take out a huge loan to put…

>At a small startup everything is often falling apart at the seams... >Morale can rise and crash, repeatedly, like a roller coaster... >You're looking at the short term: days and weeks, not months and years... None of this rings true to me. Not at any startup I've worked at/founded at least(6 in total over the last 12 years). In reality good startups are relatively even keel. Hell I would argue that startups, almost…

Did you ever work for a “non-startup”? Like, you are a car manufacturer, have to create some telemetrics software that has to work reliably in all kind of conditions, and hopefully not kill people, and has to be supported for the next 12 years minimum?

Compare to the startup that can just “pivot” at will and/or just end it with one of those “it was an amazing ride” blog posts.

Not trying to be smart, just presenting some perspective.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#185

Post by carterehsmith »

jprince wrote: post #52

As terrible as this experience was, what's most alarming is that you're 37, have been working for nearly 20 years in this field, and don't have enough savings to tide you over even two months without work. You really need to learn to save your income and cut your lifestyle. I hope that if it turns out your story is true, that these guys are in some way brought to justice, karmic or otherwise. Best of luck.

Good point. To add to that, I must say that something is odd with this story.

Honestly, if I hired a 37-year old, that started programming at the age of 8, I would have thought that I was hiring a “senior developer” (or hopefully a “wizard”).

Salary would be, appropriately, much higher than that for a beginner, or an intermediate.

What I would expect is, that the “senior developer” will look at our code, understand what is right, and wrong, and tell us what to do to fix it.

What I would not expect is, is that the “senior developer” is twiddling his thumbs waiting for a “guidance”. And is bitching about the quality of the code. Well, you were hired to tell us what to do, and to make things happen. What we expect is advice and leadership. If all you can offer is bitching & random complaints, thanks, but “this is not a perfect fit”.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#186

Post by true_religion »

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #148
vasco_ wrote: post #131

For the record I am a co-founder and CEO of Unbabel. I feel that I should respond to these allegations. 1 - The contract we had with Andreas was full time employee contract. The first three months were "at will" which means that either one was free to terminate the relation at any time. We have a signed contract to prove it and I am happy to share a sample of the contract to anyone that wants. When we fired him, we n…

I'm always surprised when a company is so quick to publicly comment on a sensitive personnel matter, but that said, it's interesting to note what this response doesn't contain. The OP basically called into question the quality and stability of Unbabel's platform ("The code was a tangled mess of mindless duplication, half-implemented features and misleading comments. Of the few automated tests that existed, most didn'…

> The subtle implication of the post: the OP may have been terminated because he recognized these things.

These things are self evident to any programmer who isn't in their first year of work. I can't see anyone being fired over recognizing what their experience allows, especially since you hired them for that experience.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#187

Post by true_religion »

parennoob wrote: post #150
stretchwithme wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say its not mandatory, right there in your quote.

De facto and de jure are two different things. Mandatory is "De jure", when you say (for example), ”Surfing with the team every weekend is part of your contract. Otherwise, you will be let go.” What I'm asking about is ”De facto”. If practically, you are letting go of people who can't or won't surf with you on the weekends because of ”culture fit issues”, surfing becomes a de facto (but not de jure) requirement of th…

In the US, the motto is "don't invite your employees anywhere" due to the fact they might later litigate that you preferred your friends to them.

In Asia on the other hand, it literally is mandatory to socialize with your employer.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#188

Post by ryanx435 »

vasco_ wrote: post #131

For the record I am a co-founder and CEO of Unbabel. I feel that I should respond to these allegations. 1 - The contract we had with Andreas was full time employee contract. The first three months were "at will" which means that either one was free to terminate the relation at any time. We have a signed contract to prove it and I am happy to share a sample of the contract to anyone that wants. When we fired him, we n…

> every Wednesday we go surfing.

I was in the military were they have a thing called mandatory fun time. basically, you are required to go to a bbq or some other "fun" thing. I hated it. I'm one of those people who draw a hard line between work and the rest of my life. when I'm at work, I'm working crazy hard to get the job done. period. when I'm not at work, I'm doing my own thing. period. I have no desire to mix the two.

> beers on Friday afternoon

again, this is a negative, from my perspective. I would much rather be home relaxing or out drinking with my friends then forced to go out with coworkers. I like my coworkers, and we are friends, but the minute you try to take my Fridays away is the minute I start looking for a new job.

I'm an good employee. I work hard and over deliver compared to what I'm payed. but I will not give up my freedom for my job. no way.

and it doesn't matter of you say it isn't mandatory. if you hold company events, they are mandatory. a rose by any other name it's still a rose.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#189

Post by enjo »

carterehsmith wrote: post #184
enjo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At a small startup everything is often falling apart at the seams... >Morale can rise and crash, repeatedly, like a roller coaster... >You're looking at the short term: days and weeks, not months and years... None of this rings true to me. Not at any startup I've worked at/founded at least(6 in total over the last 12 years). In reality good startups are relatively even keel. Hell I would argue that startups, almost…

Did you ever work for a “non-startup”? Like, you are a car manufacturer, have to create some telemetrics software that has to work reliably in all kind of conditions, and hopefully not kill people, and has to be supported for the next 12 years minimum? Compare to the startup that can just “pivot” at will and/or just end it with one of those “it was an amazing ride” blog posts. Not trying to be smart, just presenting…

While that is absolutely true, I don't follow how that relates to my post? There is nothing inherent about the flexibility of a startup that means it has to be the frenetic roller-coaster that the thread starter referenced.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#190

Post by hawkice »

jacquesm wrote: post #168
neilk wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The code was a tangled mess of mindless duplication, half-implemented features and misleading comments. In my experience, a lot of code is like this, and the majority of startup code is like this. I have found there's almost zero correlation between startup success and good coding practices. I have no data, but I suspect there's a negative correlation. Before you protest, I know that your code is a shining example…

I can't comment about any specific code bases for obvious reasons but I'm more often than not positively surprised by the quality of the code at the start-ups that I look at. Of course there are corners being cut, but usually that's for very good reasons marked with copious 'todo's. Start-ups definitely aren't equal when it comes to this and in my experience there is a definite correlation between those that ride tha…

Seconded.

I have been at startups where it's a total mess that will never be cleaned, and I've been at startups where the code is always tip-top because everyone knows you get big B2B points for implementing their dream feature right after a regular "how are you liking our service" followup.

I haven't worked at mega-corps, but I've seen bits of code that is so much worse than imaginable that I expect there are places that scrape pretty far below the bottom of the barrel, but that might just be a volume issue (the worst 1% of code will be mostly mega-corp code because most of _all_ code is in mega-corps).

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