151–158 of 158 posts
The only reason I'll never work for a "big" company again: Clearcase If the job involves this tool, I won't even apply. (Yes, there are some other bad tools as well)
Isn't that backwards? You don't want to work with clearcase, not big companies from what I read. I work at a $very_big_company and use git (and hg/bzr in some cases). There just happens to be a correlation between those two sometimes.
It's not a question of scale, it's a question of management. Companies like Samsung, others and etc are managed by idiots. Pure and simple. Suit wearing, non-technical morons. Congratulations on your new job, exercise, fresh air and freshly picked berries and vegetables. Sounds pretty decent compared to sitting in front of a screen slaving for knock-off phones with shitty vendored junk. Seeing the company you work fo…
Every time (~5/month) I hear the "managers are idiots" rant I start to wonder, how is it possible that all the smart people: 1. aren't managers. 2. aren't able to convince the "idiots". I'm also curious why smart people become idiots when they're promoted. Come on. Managing is hard and definitely looks different depending on your position. To make it even more "funny" I can tell you that "employees are idiots" is a f…
I've had 7 managers. 6 of them were good and 2 of those I'd even classify as stellar. Only one was a bad manager. As a result, I simply don't talk about management very much. I suspect that a lot of people are in the same situation.
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Whining? Where? Or was that an attempt at irony? Child? I would call it "rather wise for that age". Have you ever worked on a farm, by the way? Unprofessional? Define "professional", then.
I suppose that I could argue that complaining about an incompetent former employer does literally no good for one's future career prospects. It can only hurt you, and that lack of foresight may be considered "unprofessional" by not considering your own best interests. (some companies won't care about his rant against Samsung, but some other bigcos will. No company will actually give him bonus points for his public co…
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I tend to agree with you. Corporations will often test you out in what you consider to be a "crap" job. Why? It's not a test of skill, it's a test of initiative . Without slamming him -- it's his personal choice, after all, and good luck to him -- this is why some people don't advance. They see a position as being "beneath" them when actually they're being watched to see if they can -- on their own -- bring something…
Corporations will often test you out in what you consider to be a "crap" job. Why? It's not a test of skill, it's a test of initiative. Without slamming him -- it's his personal choice, after all, and good luck to him -- this is why some people don't advance. They see a position as being "beneath" them when actually they're being watched to see if they can -- on their own -- bring something new to it. It's a total wa…
This is probably harder than taking a project that doesn't exist and making it exist, but that's why it's also more respected. It shows that no matter where you land, you'll be able to make the best out of it, and that makes you incredibly valuable to...everyone.
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Corporations will often test you out in what you consider to be a "crap" job. Why? It's not a test of skill, it's a test of initiative. Without slamming him -- it's his personal choice, after all, and good luck to him -- this is why some people don't advance. They see a position as being "beneath" them when actually they're being watched to see if they can -- on their own -- bring something new to it. It's a total wa…
The best way to get good projects in a company is to get put on a project that's failing and make it succeed . My first boss at Google did this - he was on a project that was going nowhere, introduced a bunch of modern software-development methods to the team, and got the project unstuck. He's a Principal Engineer now. This is probably harder than taking a project that doesn't exist and making it exist, but that's wh…
In order to do that, you need a political protector who can guarantee, in advance, that performance reviews will come out in your favor no matter what happens. There's just too much risk for it to make sense otherwise.
If you have such a protector, then you're an unusually lucky person and most of my advice isn't for you.
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The best way to get good projects in a company is to get put on a project that's failing and make it succeed . My first boss at Google did this - he was on a project that was going nowhere, introduced a bunch of modern software-development methods to the team, and got the project unstuck. He's a Principal Engineer now. This is probably harder than taking a project that doesn't exist and making it exist, but that's wh…
get put on a project that's failing and make it succeed. My first boss at Google did this - he was on a project that was going nowhere, introduced a bunch of modern software-development methods to the team, and got the project unstuck. In order to do that, you need a political protector who can guarantee, in advance, that performance reviews will come out in your favor no matter what happens. There's just too much ri…
You take the risk because you're secure enough in yourself that it doesn't really matter whether you succeed or fail or if you get that promotion anyway. If it doesn't work out - so what? You miss out on that promotion, but you still drew a salary the whole time. That's a lot more than you get if you found a startup and it doesn't work out.
My former boss had no such guarantee when he took the initiative with that project - if it had failed, he would've remained a SWE 3 forever (or, well, at least until he succeeded with some other project). I had no such guarantee when I volunteered for the 2010 search visual redesign - and I didn't get promoted, though I did get my picture in Businessweek and a reputation internally as a person who gets shit done. I also had no such guarantee when I volunteered to help start Google's Authorship program, but I did get promoted for that one, and a nice pick of future assignments. And since then, I've had a major project I initiated (which I'd hoped would be my ticket to staff and senior staff) get canceled and a major open-source 20% project get put in limbo. This blows, but that's life. I was an entrepreneur before Google; some of my projects have been mild successes (enough to get me professional reputation but no money) and many of them got me far less than I got at Google for sinking a year of my time into this failed research project.
What you're asking for is rewards without having to run any risk, which is a generally unattractive quality in a person. There are jobs that give you this bargain, at least until the company goes under - you could be a code-monkey at a Fortune 500, or an accountant, or a unionized laborer. But that wouldn't give you respect, which I think is what you're looking for. People respect folks that are willing to take risks for what they believe in, and accept the consequences when those risks don't pan out.
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There is a real market for these beautiful b2c software products Careful. "Beautiful" software isn't necessarily a large addressable market in B2C...right now. Not saying you're wrong, but bigco's software packages value security, safety, and supportability over beauty, usability, and time-to-build. It's sad but it's true.
> bigco's software packages value security, safety, and supportability over beauty, usability, and time-to-build. Why does it have to be either/or? I mean you can have secure/safe and supportable software which is beautiful and usable. It eventually helps in the long-run.
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>"He didn't say they're incompetent" I am not sure about that. From the article: "Secondly Samsung as a corporation is a place of absurdity where doing unnecessary things for about 40% of time is a rule" That sounds like incompetence to me :)
How about actually reading the whole thing? It works so much better that way. I suppose that all companies when exceed some size become something like this - as Paul Graham stated in his essay this is because of effect of scale.