How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics • Hacker News Board

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#131

Post by codeonfire » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 7:13 AM UTC

readams wrote: post #127

biztos wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At most companies, Distinguished Engineer is the "technical track" equivalent of Vice President. So making more than a mid-level manager may not be all that great. :-) (I imagine Distinguised Engineers at MSFT do very well, and when you factor in quality of life may be happier with their jobs than VPs. But that doesn't make it parallel.)

The problem is that most companies have a small handful of such people, and lots of vice presidents. They want you to think it's equivalent, but the reality is that, Facebook and anywhere, there's only so far you can go on the technical track.

Exactly. Managers decide who is high level on the engineering side and also want to save money and have high management salaries. It's completely stupid to think that there won't be 500 VP's and 3 distinguished engineers in this situation, which is how it exactly is at the large tech companies.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#132

Post by codeonfire » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 7:17 AM UTC

jankassens wrote: post #72

1024core wrote: post #12

> Take the incentive out of “climbing the ladder.” In other words, pay everyone the same? Of course the author didn't mean that; and pay and power are the primary drivers of upward mobility. If I get paid as much as Zuck's SVPs, sure, I won't feel the urge to climb the ladder; but until that happens, I will.

There are definitely Individual Contributors who are on the same compensation level as directors. These are the engineers who revolutionize how the company operates, such as inventing HHVM and saving tons of resources.

There are going to be a couple director level IC's and several hundreds of directors. Those IC's have to make industry changing tech worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Those directors just have to show up to work and be 'in charge' of whatever those IC's are doing. That's how the scam works.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#133

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 7:50 AM UTC

ninkendo wrote: post #124

> Successful candidates should clearly demonstrate that their priorities are company, team, and self — in that order I would politely ask Facebook to go fuck themselves if they asked me to put the company before myself. I don't exist to serve a company.

Of course not. You get paid to serve the company, and they aren't interested in people who aren't going to make them more than what they pay.

You should always remember that a company will fire you the moment they think they can make a penny more that way, plan and act accordingly.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#134

Post by tlogan » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 8:02 AM UTC

wskinner wrote: post #8

"At Facebook, moving into management is not a promotion. It’s a lateral move, a parallel track. " This is nice in theory. But when your "peers" with Manager in their title have access to more information and more decision-making power, it is not in fact a parallel track. Just saying people are equal doesn't make it so, and it doesn't change the underlying organizational structures.

I wanted to make the same point.

Many large software companies have very similar structure.

Since I had personal experience working in these companies here what I found as problem:

- Management has decision making power.

- Management has ability to control $$ (bonus allocation, etc.)

- Management has access to more information than employees on "individual contributor" track

It is important to note that system work up to mid-level managers. I.e., it is works well when there is "team lead" and "manager". Manager ensures that the team is not bothered by politics and get all necessary resources while team lead ensures that things are done.

But when you come to mid-level and up even if the pay is comparable, the life is much better for managers. For example, if you are in 40s it is important to have job security. Senior managers and VPs will know when are layoffs are coming or certain groups will be sacked (since they have access to more informations). They can prepare for it. If you are "software architect", you are in the blind until the day of layoffs.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#135

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 8:18 AM UTC

khuey wrote: post #106

dredmorbius wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any specifically in the software space? Operating at scale? I've looked into cooperative business organisations in the past. From my recollections, these typically fall into a few classifications: 1. Political parties. Often themselves strongly aligned with cooperative or anarchist principles. 2. Labour unions. In some cases. 3. A few creatives collaborations, but with pretty loose integration. Artists, performers, o…

Publix is another notable one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publix

That's a supermarket.

I'm looking for tech examples.

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#136

Post by blackkettle » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 8:38 AM UTC

wskinner wrote: post #8

"At Facebook, moving into management is not a promotion. It’s a lateral move, a parallel track. " This is nice in theory. But when your "peers" with Manager in their title have access to more information and more decision-making power, it is not in fact a parallel track. Just saying people are equal doesn't make it so, and it doesn't change the underlying organizational structures.

it's absurd in any practical sense. but it's a great story to keep the rank and file mostly satisfied most of the time.

politics in the end is a part of life; it should not dominate or overshadow goal oriented work, but it is a natural, unavoidable consequence of people holding different viewpoints.

on the other hand, all the openness strategies they suggest are great, and these do work well in practice to mitigate conflict [but politics does not equal conflict].

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#137

Post by known » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 9:11 AM UTC

"Man is by nature a political animal." --Aristotle

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#138

Post by Etheryte » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 9:12 AM UTC

Leaving the interesting article aside for a moment, the page has an insane weight of fixed tool/menu/other bars. On my small laptop screen they account for 24% of the whole viewport height. Who thought that's a good idea?

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#139

Post by tmptmp » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 9:20 AM UTC

biztos wrote: post #94

wskinner wrote: post #8

"At Facebook, moving into management is not a promotion. It’s a lateral move, a parallel track. " This is nice in theory. But when your "peers" with Manager in their title have access to more information and more decision-making power, it is not in fact a parallel track. Just saying people are equal doesn't make it so, and it doesn't change the underlying organizational structures.

Follow the money, right? If, say, a Software Architect and a Senior Director have the same pay and the same perks and the same bonus structure, and it really does take a talented person the same amount of time to climb that high from (say) Software Engineer and Manager, then they're parallel. If any of that favors one side over the other then they're not. I doubt any company is going to give access to enough data to…

>>If, say, a Software Architect and a Senior Director have the same pay and the same perks and the same bonus structure, and it really does take a talented person the same amount of time to climb that high from (say) Software Engineer and Manager, then they're parallel.

I have a doubt: "the same pay and the same perks" things seem okay but "the same bonus structure" seems difficult to understand.

A manager has more visibility, more access to business info then he/she will have more chance to be eligible to "bonus" than an engineer has.

So, it'd great if you elaborate on how a Software Engineer and a supposedly equal Manager can have "the same bonus structure".

Re: How Facebook Tries to Prevent Office Politics

#140

Post by chillydawg » Sat, Jul 02, 2016, 10:15 AM UTC

tmptmp wrote: post #139

biztos wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Follow the money, right? If, say, a Software Architect and a Senior Director have the same pay and the same perks and the same bonus structure, and it really does take a talented person the same amount of time to climb that high from (say) Software Engineer and Manager, then they're parallel. If any of that favors one side over the other then they're not. I doubt any company is going to give access to enough data to…

>>If, say, a Software Architect and a Senior Director have the same pay and the same perks and the same bonus structure, and it really does take a talented person the same amount of time to climb that high from (say) Software Engineer and Manager, then they're parallel. I have a doubt: "the same pay and the same perks" things seem okay but "the same bonus structure" seems difficult to understand. A manager has more v…

To be fair, he was talking about a Software Architect, who tend to work cross team and have a broader view than an engineer coding away in a given team.