Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What it's like working for American companies as an Australian

seangoedecke.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 189 posts

Re: What it's like working for American companies as an Australian

#121

Post by grey-area »

liontwist wrote: post #102
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will say there are specifically some things my fellow Australians do have do in the USA that we would not in our home country. To my fellow Australians; when you go for the big tech job interview you often have to memorize the company mission statement and values. Yes it's a complete wank. You'll never use it internally. But i have seriously been asked about the companies mission statement for Meta, Google, Amazon…

Reading this thread I’m realizing maybe Americans better understand organizational politics, and this social technology is an unappreciated contributor to productivity. I agree this kind of thing is performative, but let’s steel man the other side. You are looking for a place to spend 8 hours a day doing your most skillful craft, and you don’t want to know what the organization is trying to achieve? Yes I understand…

‘Adult’ and ‘serious thinking’ are not the words I’d use to describe this behaviour.

It’s extremely bizarre and cult-like when viewed from other cultures and comes across as insincere (which it is) and the very opposite of serious thinking - it is performative loyalty of the type that kings used to ask of their subjects.

American mission statements often have very little to do with what the company does, or even the values they actually hold (as opposed to profess to hold). They do not usually describe the work to be done.

Re: What it's like working for American companies as an Australian

#122

Post by zeroonetwothree »

kasey_junk wrote: post #17

I had a, kind of, opposite experience. I worked for an Australian company as an American in the US. My experience with the culture was the opposite. The Oz folks tended to be boastful with a chip on their shoulder. This was annoying as an employee but caused real problems when dealing with regulators and other companies. A big successful aus company just can’t throw its weight around in the US like at home. That said…

Wow you mean it’s not accurate to generalise to an entire culture from a few personal experiences? Color me shocked

Re: What it's like working for American companies as an Australian

#123

Post by johannes1234321 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #109
martinpw wrote: post #71

> Australians typically play down their achievements, while Americans like to talk themselves up Although this is obviously a generalization, it is broadly accurate in my experience. And it can be a real problem, for example at performance review time when employees are expected to write self reviews, which obviously involve putting their work in the best possible light. Also just general regular status reports that…

Self-reviews are absolutely the stupidest thing. It's a way for the manager to foist off the work of writing the review onto the person being reviewed, and a way to guarantee that the reviews are glowing piles of bullshit because of course the sensible thing to do if you are writing your own review is to oversell your achievements and not discuss any deficiencies. You're the manager -- it's your job to evaluate and r…

self-reviw can be good if it is about a honest conversation "what do you think how well you are doing" and then get an honest outside view for comparison. Often one feels and about something which somebody else didn't notice and lack somewhere else.

However most reviews I have seen are about paying the system, not honest evaluation of problems and praise of what's good.

Re: What it's like working for American companies as an Australian

#124

Post by hx8 »

> I’ve also grown to love the rhythm of busy mornings and deep-work afternoons.

I live on the west coast, and 95% of the people I work with are either east coast or in central timezone. I find that I too enjoy the rhythm of communication during the mornings and deep-work in the afternoons, although it's a lot less extreme than the author's situation.

Re: What it's like working for American companies as an Australian

#125

Post by draw_down »

brabel wrote: post #101

I am Brazilian-Australian, worked for a few years in Australia and then moved to Sweden and worked for an American company here. The company was Swedish, but was eventually acquired by an American corporation. One of the projects we were working on started getting delayed due to endless discussions about which tech to use and how to architect things (the companies used completely different stacks) so we could integra…

[dead]

Re: What it's like working for American companies as an Australian

#126

Post by leptons »

pythonguython wrote: post #104
liontwist wrote: post #94

> Americans tend to be enthusiastic about their company mission - in the extreme, believing that they’re saving the world I would explain this as commitment signaling. I don’t know if they really believe it, but they want to show they are part of the team and the talking points. Adults use language in a less literal way than introverted engineers may be comfortable with.

This also seems generational to me. I’m an American younger than 30 and the only people at my company who embody this are the senior people over the age of 40.

>the only people at my company

So your sample size is 1 company? That's very anecdotal. And you're younger than 30, so you probably haven't worked at many companies. There are plenty of people in plenty of other companies that you've never met.

Re: What it's like working for American companies as an Australian

#127

Post by kurthr »

zvorygin wrote: post #96
kurthr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the parent's experience has as much to do with being remote and at a satellite office as anything else. You're not going to hear a lot of bitch/moan on conference calls or even on Slack (which everyone knows in monitored). Granted I work in Silivalley, but I'd say that above a certain level/age, if you don't show a certain base of cynicism in private you're not taken seriously. I mean, if you've seen the dotc…

What does “whether it’s worth it right now” mean? As in, whether companies are really worth as much as they’re valued?

If you're getting paid (or have historically been like at FAANG) a significant amount in stock, you've been willing to put up with 50+ hour work weeks and crazy management schedules. If there are layoffs, management reorgs, and very high PE ratios for slow growing companies, maybe it's a good time to take a break.

Re: What it's like working for American companies as an Australian

#128

Post by Ylpertnodi »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #98
liontwist wrote: post #94

> Americans tend to be enthusiastic about their company mission - in the extreme, believing that they’re saving the world I would explain this as commitment signaling. I don’t know if they really believe it, but they want to show they are part of the team and the talking points. Adults use language in a less literal way than introverted engineers may be comfortable with.

I will say there are specifically some things my fellow Australians do have do in the USA that we would not in our home country. To my fellow Australians; when you go for the big tech job interview you often have to memorize the company mission statement and values. Yes it's a complete wank. You'll never use it internally. But i have seriously been asked about the companies mission statement for Meta, Google, Amazon…

One of the US company’s I work for asks the questions about 'our' mission statement. It's used as a way to see if someone has checked out the website, page 1, bold, and in capitals.
Post reply on HN