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Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

thinkgrowth.org

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Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#111

Post by kchoudhu »

mrbill wrote: post #108

When I worked for a large multinational energy services firm, one of the bosses I had (they changed every 2-3 years) was a huge bully. One of those "great coworker, bad manager" types. My wife had passed away, and as a result, my performance had dropped. One of his lines (verbal in person, not on paper) was "If you don't want to work here, there are plenty of people that do." He was the only boss I've ever had that m…

I had a manager like this.

I scheduled a 1:1 with his boss. Half hour meeting, didn't tell my boss what we talked about beyond "a discussion about my career". My manager didn't even come up in the meeting.

Instant improvement in manager's behavior. Assholes know they're assholes, and the appearance of connectedness (along with deliberate efforts to keep them off kilter) is usually enough to keep them in line.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#112

Post by supergeek133 »

Ugh. So much this. Story time.

Doing work with a 3rd party firm on some simple dev work (integration into a few partner APIs). We're a big Azure customer, 3rd party knows this. Gives us ARM templates for resources needed to deploy.

Get on the phone with the IT folks internally, state we need these ARM templates deployed and monitored. Queue two week (plus) process, 100 questions, and department to department costs (all of it is outsourced) which are quite outrageous.

The costs are so high that they probably wash any revenue/profit from the partnership.

You know what? I have access to one of our Azure subscriptions. I'll just do it myself guys, to hell with the consequences.

Usually this results in noise later, but screw it, I made us money now versus incurring additional cost and made some money later.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#113

Post by jmspring »

dleslie wrote: post #102
RealityNow wrote: post #99

This post rings eerily true. Recently had a company all-hands where the CEO said basically the exact same lines. The whole "if you don't love working here, then you should leave" bit made me cringe. Easy for you to say when you've got a significant equity share in the company. The saddest realization I've had working at companies is how power-hungry people are, how little respect the people in power often have for th…

Avoidance of power inversion is, IMHO, the greatest contributing factor to this state. Management have little to no incentive to assisting the upwards mobility of their subordinates as it is, but the social stigma of someday possibly answering to those you have authority over can drive individuals to undermine the aspirations of others.

A colleague at a former company asked his then manager about the track for promotions. Said manager basically laughed and said "if you got that promotion, then you'd be competing with me". This was a company that had bands that were lumped together for purposes of evaluation.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#114

Post by jmspring »

mrbill wrote: post #108

When I worked for a large multinational energy services firm, one of the bosses I had (they changed every 2-3 years) was a huge bully. One of those "great coworker, bad manager" types. My wife had passed away, and as a result, my performance had dropped. One of his lines (verbal in person, not on paper) was "If you don't want to work here, there are plenty of people that do." He was the only boss I've ever had that m…

I had a boss like this. Talked with his bosses multiple times, no change. When I left a couple of weeks prior to my one year vest and another colleague did the same a couple of months later (both of us key/senior people), they noticed a little bit. Eventually said individuals behavior and reputation impacted his own goals when seeking funding. That said, upper management didn't do anything until after the fact.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#115

Post by laughingman2 »

RealityNow wrote: post #99

This post rings eerily true. Recently had a company all-hands where the CEO said basically the exact same lines. The whole "if you don't love working here, then you should leave" bit made me cringe. Easy for you to say when you've got a significant equity share in the company. The saddest realization I've had working at companies is how power-hungry people are, how little respect the people in power often have for th…

I am in a quickly growing mid-size company which has reduced this problem. The co founders are cool, considerate and have respect for new developers. They provide opportunities to shift across teams and roles based on the principle that not everyone would find right fit in the start. And the CEO answers even mundane questions anonymously. I find it one of the main reasons to stay there even though I have been working there for 2 years now from my graduation.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#116

Post by sanderjd »

RealityNow wrote: post #99

This post rings eerily true. Recently had a company all-hands where the CEO said basically the exact same lines. The whole "if you don't love working here, then you should leave" bit made me cringe. Easy for you to say when you've got a significant equity share in the company. The saddest realization I've had working at companies is how power-hungry people are, how little respect the people in power often have for th…

I'll take the unpopular position of supporting a small room of a few "higher ups" making decisions. This is exactly what you want: a small number of people with a lot of skin in the game making important decisions. Good leaders gather feedback and counter-arguments beforehand, but then make a firm decision, and it's diminishingly rare for that decision to please everyone. The people who are not pleased should still follow their lead, despite thinking the decision is wrong. Sometimes the decision is wrong and sometimes the people who think the decision is wrong are the ones who are wrong. There's no way of knowing a priori, and someone needs to be empowered to take the leap on doing what they think is best, and it makes sense for that person to be a "higher-up". Decision by committee or by democracy is too inefficient for a business.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#117

Post by [deleted] »

peterwwillis wrote: post #104
RealityNow wrote: post #99

This post rings eerily true. Recently had a company all-hands where the CEO said basically the exact same lines. The whole "if you don't love working here, then you should leave" bit made me cringe. Easy for you to say when you've got a significant equity share in the company. The saddest realization I've had working at companies is how power-hungry people are, how little respect the people in power often have for th…

We tolerate tyranny and imbalanced power structures everywhere in this country. Corporations are a cheerio in our cereal bowl of oppression.

[deleted]

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#118

Post by dleslie »

jmspring wrote: post #113
dleslie wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avoidance of power inversion is, IMHO, the greatest contributing factor to this state. Management have little to no incentive to assisting the upwards mobility of their subordinates as it is, but the social stigma of someday possibly answering to those you have authority over can drive individuals to undermine the aspirations of others.

A colleague at a former company asked his then manager about the track for promotions. Said manager basically laughed and said "if you got that promotion, then you'd be competing with me". This was a company that had bands that were lumped together for purposes of evaluation.

AFAICT, the best route to promotion is a transfer to a separate administrative unit altogether, and so avoid this situation; and the best route to a raise is to leave to another company.

Relying on your loyalty to be rewarded is a fast track to being played for a sucker.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#119

Post by danek »

jmspring wrote: post #114
mrbill wrote: post #108

When I worked for a large multinational energy services firm, one of the bosses I had (they changed every 2-3 years) was a huge bully. One of those "great coworker, bad manager" types. My wife had passed away, and as a result, my performance had dropped. One of his lines (verbal in person, not on paper) was "If you don't want to work here, there are plenty of people that do." He was the only boss I've ever had that m…

I had a boss like this. Talked with his bosses multiple times, no change. When I left a couple of weeks prior to my one year vest and another colleague did the same a couple of months later (both of us key/senior people), they noticed a little bit. Eventually said individuals behavior and reputation impacted his own goals when seeking funding. That said, upper management didn't do anything until after the fact.

Yeah I've noticed that usually you need at least 4 people to quit before anything happens to the boss. Even if they know he sucks they're gonna try and keep him on. No idea why, but it has the appearance of "he's part of the mgmt club and you aren't"

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#120

Post by gedy »

peterwwillis wrote: post #104
RealityNow wrote: post #99

This post rings eerily true. Recently had a company all-hands where the CEO said basically the exact same lines. The whole "if you don't love working here, then you should leave" bit made me cringe. Easy for you to say when you've got a significant equity share in the company. The saddest realization I've had working at companies is how power-hungry people are, how little respect the people in power often have for th…

We tolerate tyranny and imbalanced power structures everywhere in this country. Corporations are a cheerio in our cereal bowl of oppression.

Country? I'd say species.
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