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

How I Left YouTube

zhach.news

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 345 posts

Re: How I Left YouTube

#141

Post by squirrellous »

Google is a somewhat widely known place where promo is a huge problem, but the problem isn’t particular to Google. Generally companies will require you to repeatedly “prove” you are worth the additional compensation before agreeing to it. The friction varies, but the structural incentives are always there. Therefore if the goal is to maximize earnings, and assuming you are a high performer, it’s in your best interest to job hop once in a while.

To not play this made-up game, you either decide to stop caring about compensation, or be your own boss. Of course these are not always realistic depending on one’s life situation.

Re: How I Left YouTube

#142

Post by the_af »

nyjah wrote: post #135
shevy-java wrote: post #114

Youtube is getting problematic. I write this as someone who basically has some videos running in the background all the time, mostly just DJ music in the background. First, searching for videos sucks. Yes, the first few results can be useful, then more and more crap shows up. This just wastes my time. But, more importantly - more and more AI videos means I am being bombarded with more time wasters. I have about zero…

I’m a YouTube premium subscriber. Just yesterday I found myself opening a private window to watch a video with ads, rather than letting the algorithm know I was watching the video on my account. Even if I remove the video from my watch history, YouTube can’t help itself. You make a great point on stale content and the overall enshittification is becoming intolerable.

Wow. In my case the YT recommendations system works very well, only suggesting things similar to what I've already watched and liked.

I would never use YouTube in incognito mode or logged out... it's positively garish and loud with garbage.

Re: How I Left YouTube

#143

Post by compiler-guy »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #66
Scubabear68 wrote: post #14

Reading this I feel like I live on another planet. I recognize this guy seems to only be dealing with FAANG type companies, but the disconnect from my own reality is so vast it’s hard to reconcile. I have never worked anywhere with the L4/L5/whatever crap. No one I have worked with has either. It sounds downright dystopian that people are reduced to a basically a number (if you leave out the L). I am assuming he left…

The levels are a real thing, but "navigating the NDA minefield" is not, it's just something Googler's say to make themselves feel more special

I had never heard that expression until I read this article today, and I spent a very big chunk of my career at FAANGs. I think he just invented it. NDAs were never a problem for me when switching jobs either.

The article was interesting and much of it rang true, but not this detail.

Re: How I Left YouTube

#144

Post by [deleted] »

rufo wrote: post #127
whymauri wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you worked at BigCo before? This was 1:1 my experience at a large company and within months they were asking for a +1 leveled boomerang. You can't take denied promos at face value, honestly.

> You can't take denied promos at face value, honestly. This was my experience as well. Maybe your manager didn't push hard enough for you at the level calibration meeting. Maybe your director didn't like the project you were on as much as the one another manager's engineers worked on, so they weren't inclined to listen to your manager push for you. Maybe the leadership team decided to hire a new ML/AI team this fisc…

[deleted]

Re: How I Left YouTube

#145

Post by browningstreet »

mixologic wrote: post #54
browningstreet wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That bubble is not the world Hence the author's "In the software engineering world". Nothing in author's write-up led me to think he doesn't understand that.

Yeah, no. Most companies do not have that exact hierarchy. Maybe at FAMGA etc, but most engineering jobs are not there.

Sure, not that exact hierarchy. But a hierarchy. At other places it might be Senior, Principal, Director, etc. at some places they’re given, at other places you fight for it. Variations of leveling.

Re: How I Left YouTube

#146

Post by gen220 »

cyberax wrote: post #33

> Do say: "I optimized a high-throughput distributed system to prioritize user retention metrics, reducing latency by 150ms through a custom caching layer." Ugh. Pain. I'm hiring, and I've been filtering out resumes that are heavy on these kinds of metrics. Because I literally get thousands of entries with these kinds of wording. Often with excessively precise numbers, like "by 23.5%". My problem is that it's hard to…

FWIW, I agree that less ink on a resume is usually a higher signal, and I also find that indicators for “ownership”, social trust, autonomy, and proxies thereof are more valuable than number go up narratives.

But sometimes people feel like they must play this game to get past the pre-interview loop screen; I’ve interviewed plenty of people with number go up narratives who’ve done exceptionally well. It’s challenging to make hard and fast rules!

Re: How I Left YouTube

#147

Post by 20after4 »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #13

>At one prominent tech company, I underwent 13 separate interviews for a single role. In what insane world does this make any amount of sense?

It really doesn't make much sense. The article was actually insightful on this point, or at least this matches my experience:

> it suggests they operate on a consensus-based model that stifles autonomy

The one place where I experienced a lot of rounds of interviews (at least 8 interviews, I think) was at the Wikimedia Foundation. It's an organization that is very explicitly built on consensus-based decision making. There were many great things about working there and at first it was very different from typical corporate culture. In some ways it was stifling, at least for someone who isn't a savvy politician. By the time I left in 2021, they had fully adopted the same kind of leveling system as discussed here, with all of the same political and structural constraints on advancement.

Re: How I Left YouTube

#148

Post by alpb »

zhach wrote: post #98
aeyes wrote: post #93

I have seen this from the manager side at these kinds of companies, explaining to your manager that you are quitting because your level does not match your work is a waste of energy. Their hands are usually tied. Promotion decisions are made by committees which are 1-2 levels above your manager, your manager presents the candidates. They round up a pot of multiple teams which are discussed at once and there are usual…

Author here. My manager and I discussed lengths about the capabilities they do, and it is just like this. It's not his fault at all. It's a game at the end of the day, and it's your choice whether or not you want to keep on playing

Having been at G and also getting denied promo several times consecutively, it's almost always a manager's fault. They're either not bringing the committee feedback to you properly or not representing your work well in that room. Either way it's a sign that they're unable to do better, and you're better off not reporting to the long term.

Re: How I Left YouTube

#149

Post by neilv »

> The strain comes from context switching. From 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, I had to care deeply about our quarterly goals and production stability. Then, from 6:00 PM to midnight, I had to care about inverting binary trees and system architecture design.

We really need to stop the tech interview nonsense.

Here is an experienced, practicing software engineer, who can't get a job without drilling for and performing frat hazing rituals.

Re: How I Left YouTube

#150

Post by nyrheter »

foxheadman wrote: post #15
paulcole wrote: post #10

Love how he’s critical of the 13-interview hiring process despite having done all 13 of those interviews. “Nobody drives there anymore. There’s too much traffic.” These companies can do 13 interviews because people will put up with them. The little place I work does phone screen, work sample, final interview, reference check. We can be done in a week. Nobody wants to work with me bad enough to sit through 13 intervie…

You manage to live a life where if you don't like something, you can just avoid it?

Yes. Parameters: not interested in status/money/clout, rich in happiness/love from family, european.
Post reply on HN