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How I Left YouTube

zhach.news

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Re: How I Left YouTube

#191

Post by bambax »

> Your level dictates your salary, your stock grants, and most importantly, the scope of problems you are allowed to solve. I found myself in a situation common to many engineers at large organizations. I was operating at a “Senior” or “Staff" level (...) but my official title and compensation were stuck at just above junior level.

This has to mean that the "level" does not, in fact, "dictate the scope of problems one is allowed to solve", but only the money part.

It's certainly legitimate to want more money, esp. when you think you deserve it compared to others. But it's a little weird the article spends so much time trying to explain they want a more senior position for other reasons after having said they're already tasked with solving senior problems.

Re: How I Left YouTube

#192

Post by godelski »

CrossVR wrote: post #177
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of a system is what it does. If the org truly cared about under-leveled employees, it would get fixed rapidly. But they don’t. I’ve seen enough people glossed over repeatedly and then when enough people leave and the org is in a less leveraged position, then the promos are no longer an issue. Such BS.

You have to realize that a company is always optimizing for efficiency and salaries are no different. Giving out promotions when people are already working at the level they'd be promoted to is simply a waste of money. This is the author's biggest mistake. If you voluntarily work on tasks above your pay grade you are signaling to the company that you don't need a promotion.

There isn't a single optimization. Define efficiency. Define over what time frame.

The problem the OP faced is that YouTube is optimizing under a short time frame and under the belief that employees are fungible. The latter being a common problem with big orgs, thinking there is no value to institutional knowledge. Yet in reality that is often extremely important

Re: How I Left YouTube

#193

Post by torlok »

tyii888 wrote: post #92
qwe----3 wrote: post #51

I guess lying on your linkedin "senior swe" is also helpful for getting a staff engineer position?

Google submits your title and salary info to theworknumber, I would advise against this (and lying in general).

I never knew this existed. It's insane how much data this service collects, and that the data is available for sale just like that. What a nightmare.

Re: How I Left YouTube

#195

Post by godelski »

lisbbb wrote: post #82
conqrr wrote: post #16

> In the software engineering world, we exist on a ladder. We call this ”Leveling”. Career is a made up game. There are no true levels or ladders in life that you have to chase. Nobody will care or remember what you did or what level you were given enough timespan. Take the bits that you want (money, skills etc) to live life, but don't get too caught up trying to win the game.

See? That's his first problem--he bought into all that corpo bs that is placed there to steal your attention and keep you in their box. If they had liked the guy and he was truly talented, he would have gazzelled right up the org chart. I guess smart people think they're smart about everything?

  > If they had liked the guy and he was truly talented, he would have gazzelled right up the org chart.
Logic is weird here. You're operating under the assumption that these orgs work perfectly.

Even if you believe they are operating at a very high level of efficiency it is a naïve assumption to make. False positives and false negatives are things that exist in every non-perfect evaluation system.

But you are working backwards

Re: How I Left YouTube

#196

Post by throwaway2037 »

qingcharles wrote: post #156
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So exactly what kind of interviews do you suggest that a company do at scale to hire people who will make $300K+ a year? Just talk them?

Hiring developers is half lottery, half dark art. Best guy I ever hired was when I was tech lead for a large streamer. I hired a guy at essentially minimum wage to write some very basic HTML pages. Within weeks he was writing code. Within a couple of years he was a much better dev than I'll ever be. I'd almost be down by literally hiring devs by picking resumes out of a hat and just having them on probation. The shee…

    > I hired a guy at essentially minimum wage to write some very basic HTML pages. Within weeks he was writing code. Within a couple of years he was a much better dev than I'll ever be.
This sounds like a wild story, and I believe it. I love an underdog. Did you ever blog about this? It sounds interesting to read about.

Re: How I Left YouTube

#197

Post by bratwurst3000 »

immibis wrote: post #178
saghm wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, how many people are actually happier with that extra $500k? It's one thing if you're not making enough to allow you and whoever else you might need to support to be happy and comfortable and be able to save enough for emergencies and retirement, but I'm dubious that someone only one other away from a half million dollar raise is in that position.

Something that's often overlooked is the time equivalent of money. If the average salary is $50k but you get $500k, you only have to work 1 year in every 10, and that's crazy. Source: got paid 180k and took 2 years off.

yes thats true if you survive it. Have two friends with a salary over 300k a year. one worked 5 years and retired the other bought more luxury products to reflect his income and is now completly burned out after 3 years but forced to work because of his 300k a year lifestyle

Re: How I Left YouTube

#198

Post by throwaway2037 »

squirrellous wrote: post #141

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…

I think this pattern of "under promotion" is probably common is all highly competitive industries with large wealth corps. Think: Investment banking ("high finance"), oil & gas, big tech, law firms, consulting, etc. When I think about the sheer number of insanely talented people trying to get in, it conjures the World War Z image of zombies trying to get over the walls. With some perspective in my industry, I constantly remind myself: There are many, many more people outside my office that can do my job -- probably better than me. I need to constantly remind my employer why I am good. (Yes, it is exhausting.)

Re: How I Left YouTube

#199

Post by paganel »

conqrr wrote: post #16

> In the software engineering world, we exist on a ladder. We call this ”Leveling”. Career is a made up game. There are no true levels or ladders in life that you have to chase. Nobody will care or remember what you did or what level you were given enough timespan. Take the bits that you want (money, skills etc) to live life, but don't get too caught up trying to win the game.

At first I though it was a metaphorical hippy way of writing about this industry, which would have been par for the course, but it looks like the author really did mean it, he really does think in the ladder and "levelling" bs. All the best to him when it comes to climbing that ladder.

Re: How I Left YouTube

#200

Post by throwaway2037 »

zhach wrote: post #123
omoikane wrote: post #37

> I was leaving because I had outgrown the pot I was planted in I wonder if the author had attempted to transfer to a different part of the company first, since a different organization might have more room to grow. It might not be possible to do a transfer plus a promotion simultaneously, but it's likely a less stressful option than leaving the company.

Author here. I debated this, but the state of Google and YouTube together and certain things internally led me to just look for external opportunities. Probably would've been less stressful. Lol.

Did you get a pay rise moving externally? One very negative thing I have found in my career: Exactly zero internal moves come with a pay rise, but nearly all external moves come with a pay rise. The choice is easy for me.
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