161–170 of 171 posts
This is more a complaint against people not solving hard problems enough (a la Steve Yegge) than a complaint against bean bags - those are just metaphors.
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A lot of people interpret "Aaron worked on RSS 1.0" as "Aaron was involved in creating RSS", but in fact, he had almost nothing to do with that. There were many versions of RSS prior to v1.0, and it was already pretty established by the time he got involved. And actually, the standard had already forked before that point, and the one that ended up being called "RSS 1.0" was the less-popular fork that never really wen…
Yeah and Larry Page's Google engine was a toy demo until Jeff Dean rebuilt it. We can knock the wind out of almost anyone with the cutting insight that they were part of a team and not Godlike ubermensch.
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I'm pretty sure he understands that Google is his employer and not just some nice person giving him stuff.
Well, the whole point of TFA was that it's not really that easy to distinguish between the two notions, even if you consciously understand it. That is, the employeer can use the "nice food / ping pong table" etc, in order to get people to work for free (unpaid overtime, crunch marches, uncompetitive pay, etc).
Here's the thing, you've got your view of the world, of Google, and then there's the reality, in which Googlers tell you that your model doesn't match the facts, or that Google is consistently rated one of the best places or work, or that Glassdoor rates Google in the top 50 companies for work/life balance. A sweat shop of induced labor via sweets and candy it is not.
But oh yeah, I might be completely brain washed and believe Larry Page is my best buddy, that's why I spend my nights on social media and hacking on game code, and not working on finishing up stuff at the office from home.
Thanks for the free gifts Larry, I promise from now on I will work long overtime hours for free.
Funny, my experience is the opposite on literally every concrete assertion about people and motivations. Looking at my team, and the broader team under my director, only one was hired "straight out of college". Well, if you consider fresh PhDs to be "straight out of college", there are a few, but I doubt Aaron meant folks approaching 30 with kids on the horizon when he was talking about people just out of college. Pe…
I'm personally aware of a very incapable 22 year old, fresh graduate, who has been hired for north of $200k. I'm also aware of a whole bunch of other folks who have been variously hired within months of graduation, so I'd wager there's some selection bias from your corner too.
To give you perspective, I've seen CEO and CTOs of acquired startups in the $50-100 million range can land at mid level engineering levels at Google. If incompetent people with no experience are landing director level jobs @ $200k base salary as a common practice at Google, I want in on this scam!
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I'm surprised at how polarizing no offices vs open offices is. My first job at IBM, I had an office with two co-workers. They were great, but on days they were out it was sooo isolating. When I quit and took a job at a start up in SF with an open office plan, I loved it immediately. I could look across the room and see if the systems guy was there or getting coffee, instead of pinging into the Sametime void. So, I'm…
I've worked in cubicles and in an open office most of my life. I'm now working for a company with offices with doors, and I have to say, offices are pretty much the worst. In an open office (and to a lesser extent, places with open cubicles), you can have constant interaction with other people. You can scan the room quickly to see who's busy, who's concentrating, who looks available for a quick chat, etc. You can hea…
This is precisely why I hate open plan. I don't want to be under constant surveillance by others. I don't want to be interrupted every 15 minutes by people asking me questions. I don't want others to be monitoring my screen and checking up on what I'm doing. And when I'm 15 layers into a complicated class hierarchy the last thing I want to do is get into a conversation and completely lose my zone.
Software development does not require 24/7 constant "collaboration". A quick progress meeting a day, maybe more if there is some discussion required, is sufficient in most cases. If there is a particularly technically challenging problem at hand, then sure--get some people into an office and brainstorm together. But in the end, people are going to be working alone 90% of the time. We don't need to be collaborating [i]all the time.[/i]
Also, you are forgetting the obvious: In an open plan, people talk about general bullshit, not just work. They talk about their kids, wives, weekend plans, the weather, sports teams, the latest tech gadgets, last night's game, etc, etc, etc. It gets distracting to the point where I can no longer do any meaningful work without earphones on. Last week, I measured the average noise level in my open office and it was something like 65 dB (this is equivalent to having a pretty loud conversation going next to you all day long). I felt my blood pressure rising and I even complained to management. How people can actually get work done in such an environment is beyond me.
You're probably in the minority when you say you prefer open plan. I'd trade my shitty desk for a real office any day.
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I'm surprised at how polarizing no offices vs open offices is. My first job at IBM, I had an office with two co-workers. They were great, but on days they were out it was sooo isolating. When I quit and took a job at a start up in SF with an open office plan, I loved it immediately. I could look across the room and see if the systems guy was there or getting coffee, instead of pinging into the Sametime void. So, I'm…
This is something I've found very weird: there's a sharp difference between the opinions of people I know in person and people online. HN commenters love to hate open office plans. It's one of the few topics on which they agree with /r/programming! And yet everywhere I've spent time has been in favor of open offices. This includes a few startups, sure, but also an enterprise software company (Guidewire), an academic…
Most office layout decisions are made by upper management--who usually (conveniently) end up with private offices while the rest of the employees are forced to sit in the open area.
"And if I need to concentrate, I can just put on headphones or go to a quiet room."
The problem is that not all people working in open offices have this option. For example, at my company there is no such thing as a "quiet room."
My opinion is that there should be a mix of both. Let people choose.
I don't work at Google and from where I sit now, it's hard to imagine myself wanting to work for Google, but this complaint that it's infantalizing its employees is ridiculous. Making your own food and doing your own laundry are not substantial life challenges. Growing up is not about learning to do chores you don't actually have to do. (When you make enough money to pay someone to mow your lawn, are you back to bein…
I transferred to the Motorola division so I kind of have both perspectives while being at Google. In some regard, a lot of Googlers don't even know how good they have it. What Google manages to do pretty well is pick the right people for 'the company' and then acclimatize them extremely fast to everything: process, tools, lifestyle and sometimes koolaid. In doing so are we infants? Perhaps. But fundamentally this is…
So what's the moto side like?
Funny, my experience is the opposite on literally every concrete assertion about people and motivations. Looking at my team, and the broader team under my director, only one was hired "straight out of college". Well, if you consider fresh PhDs to be "straight out of college", there are a few, but I doubt Aaron meant folks approaching 30 with kids on the horizon when he was talking about people just out of college. Pe…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm surprised at how polarizing no offices vs open offices is. My first job at IBM, I had an office with two co-workers. They were great, but on days they were out it was sooo isolating. When I quit and took a job at a start up in SF with an open office plan, I loved it immediately. I could look across the room and see if the systems guy was there or getting coffee, instead of pinging into the Sametime void. So, I'm…
This is something I've found very weird: there's a sharp difference between the opinions of people I know in person and people online. HN commenters love to hate open office plans. It's one of the few topics on which they agree with /r/programming! And yet everywhere I've spent time has been in favor of open offices. This includes a few startups, sure, but also an enterprise software company (Guidewire), an academic…
You answered your own question. Colleges and your office have libraries or quiet rooms to flee to.