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My Time at Snap

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201–210 of 264 posts

Re: My Time at Snap

#201
post #52

> trying to figure out how to rework my long-term financial plans around the hole Snap had just blown in my projected income made me feel ill. Maybe don't make long-term financial plans around a company that's obviously unstable?

Yeah buying a house in Florida, years before he was planning to actually move there was an interesting choice.

Re: My Time at Snap

#202
post #198
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does come across as an inexperienced developer with a high opinion of his own worth, and rather clueless about how organizations work. I actually came away with a good impression of Snap from the description. Even the supposedly nightmarish engineering director could, from another angle, possibly be seen in a good light: Insisting on proper analysis and design before a project commences, taking a deep interest i…

> Even the supposedly nightmarish engineering director could, from another angle, possibly be seen in a good light: Insisting on proper analysis and design before a project commences, taking a deep interest in the technical part of the project. In what world is it a good idea for an engineering director to take a deep interest in technical details of a project? Suppose that the director was right and author was wrong…

Couldnt agree more with this and having experienced something similar I will never work for a micro manager again.

Re: My Time at Snap

#203
post #198
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does come across as an inexperienced developer with a high opinion of his own worth, and rather clueless about how organizations work. I actually came away with a good impression of Snap from the description. Even the supposedly nightmarish engineering director could, from another angle, possibly be seen in a good light: Insisting on proper analysis and design before a project commences, taking a deep interest i…

> Even the supposedly nightmarish engineering director could, from another angle, possibly be seen in a good light: Insisting on proper analysis and design before a project commences, taking a deep interest in the technical part of the project. In what world is it a good idea for an engineering director to take a deep interest in technical details of a project? Suppose that the director was right and author was wrong…

Good managers are good leaders, which means they sometimes need to teach. There's nothing wrong with an engineering manager teaching someone about the proper type for a database column as an exercise in actual leadership and mentorship of their development team.

Re: My Time at Snap

#205
I've had one or two horrible work experiences like the author's. The last time it happened was bad enough that I sat down and wrote a long article very similar to this one, explaining all the things the employer had done wrong, and all the ways in which they'd made my life difficult. It made me feel much better to write it, and I read it through several times, nodding to myself at all the important points. Then I deleted it and got another job.

Re: My Time at Snap

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May as well burn down whole building and start over as a consequence for these injustices. Why aren’t you proposing that? Also, the example is absurd because urinals wouldn’t satisfy all restroom needs. Men don’t defecate in the urinal. It’s even in the name.

You are perhaps poring too much over the detail. I've no idea how you get to burning the whole building down, my rationale for conveying the importance of respecting standards, legislation and plain human decency was pretty clear I think.

The rationale I see here is that 'disrespecting' standards means we should cut off the nose to spite the face.

Why didn't you decide the building should be burned down, rather than just closing the offending restrooms? Or if not burned, closed temporarily? Or, per your example, what is the difference if they leave the restroom open but specifically disable the urinals, letting people use the sinks to wash their hands?

Where exactly is the line that you draw on what should be sabotaged to rectify the injustice? Is it just do whatever the legislation says? Does following "legislation" always equate to "plain human decency" and does that rule apply 100% of the time in the past, present, and future?

Re: My Time at Snap

#207
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just amazed that developers have the confidence to lambaste former employers in such a public, toxic and hostile manner. If I was hiring for a developer position and Google'd Marko Tupper's name, I wouldn't even agree to meet with him based on this article alone. Why would I want someone so ego and drama-driven on my team? I won't even leave negative reviews on Yelp or Google Maps out of fear of reprisal or futur…

"out of fear of reprisal" You say this like the reprisal is unfair immediately after admitting you would do the same.

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Re: My Time at Snap

#208
post #47

We have all worked for a "John" in the industry. The big systematic problem is that after being fired from Snap (probably after already collecting massive paychecks and a hefty chunk of equity), he will go to another big tech company and impress them with his resume and bullshitting skills. They will hire him and deal with his antics for a few years, while he ruins more people's careers, then he will move on. Rinse a…

25/year used to be the norm, but is less so these days. Now more and more are moving towards a heavier backloaded vesting schedule. Schedules that are 10/20/30/40 or 15/25/25/35 are more and more common at big tech co. It can make sense as well, if it takes you a certain period of time to ramp up, once you've ramped up you contribute more value and they want to retain you more there. Yes it is a mechanism to lock you…

On some level that makes a lot of sense. If you're several years from IPO (or expected acquisition), 10/20/30/40 won't do any harm to people who stick around until the stock has value, and it helps keep short-turnover employees from eating away at the total stock.

Flat vesting sort of implies that four 1-year tenures are just as desirable as one 4-year tenure. And if people can get a better cash-compensation raise by switching jobs, then staying 4 years is probably less profitable than staying 2-3. (Of course, companies could also cure that by making internal raises competitive with job-transfer raises...)

Although I do find .../30/40 a bit stranger. If somebody leaves at 3 years, you save 15% of their stock compared to flat vesting. But if the extra stock gets them to stick around, they're obviously going to leave after 4 when their effective compensation plummets. It's not obvious to me that pushing employees with no long-term intent to stick around and claim more stock is a winning move.

Re: My Time at Snap

#209
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably because they were bleeding money at that moment and weren't hiring anyone outside super unicorn seniors, but they didn't want to update their job descriptions

Yea, I've worked at a place that had job ads out despite having no plans on hiring on the grounds that "someone really amazing might apply". They never did.

There are a lot of strategic reasons to do this:

1. Internally you'll feel like you're growing still even though you aren't

2. Externally to investors same feeling

3. You will collect resumes in case you want to fire up hiring again quickly

Re: My Time at Snap

#210
post #10

There seems to be a valuable lesson for OP about the cost of not playing ball here. Assuming OPs side of things is mostly true it sounds like: - OP was working for a bad director, one so bad that they eventually got fired - Instead of placating this director and pretending to take their concerns into consideration, OP fights back more than other teammates (reading between the lines of the quote "However, given that I…

He did play ball. He played ball for month after month, even as the cost of playing ball kept ramping up and up and up. Eventually it became higher than he could stand, and he started showing symptoms of mental health problems. At that point, he wisely left rather than end up with full-blown depression. When you are dealing with people such that what they want is not for you to get a job done, but to humiliate you fo…

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