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Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

thinkgrowth.org

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Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#211

Post by sokoloff »

lovich wrote: post #170
sokoloff wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are applying to dozens or hundreds of jobs at once? How is that possible? I'm generally only considering 1 new employer at a time, and the most I've ever done concurrently was applying to two companies in CA at the same time. How could there even be dozens of companies that you'd want to work for at any given time?

Maybe it's different in SF but out on the east coast I've seen people be passed for the wrong version of jQuery on the resume, or literally "not enough eye contact". Applying to jobs out here is kind of a crap shoot where you shotgun out to a ton till you get past enough bullshit to be given in person interviews where you can actually demonstrate your skills

> I've seen people be passed for the wrong version of jQuery on the resume

Well, those people dodged a bullet, then...

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#212

Post by Retric »

donmatito wrote: post #178
sgift wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if I am told what to do without consulting me, then I don't care. There is a lot less stress on me. If it appears decision was stupid and project will not meet deadline, I make sure everyone knows and rarely ever put in more than 40 hours on such projects. I envy people who can change into "I just do what I have to do"-mode when they don't have 'skin in the game' ... I always feel as if I have skin in the game…

You say you envy them but I'm not sure you really do. Working without feeling involvement or purpose in what you do is mind-numbing. Of course lots of people have to endure it, and some find solace in hobbies/family. But if you are the type of person who always feel you have skin in the game, I don't think you'd last a month in a position where you don't care :-D

That's an odd viewpoint. Work hands me money, some projects are interesting others less so. But, doing a good job is enjoyable even if you don't care about the end result. Like playing a sport without paying attention to the score.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#213

Post by ck425 »

renolc wrote: post #205
andrey_utkin wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> teams are anonymous, and decide themselves what they work on. Could you please elaborate how that worked technicall? Does that affect git log authorship metadata? What about discussions on company chat/maillist about the issues being worked on, are they also anonymous? Does this make tracking real contributions of individuals impossible?

I believe they meant "autonomous" rather than "anonymous."

Yeah, this. Spelling fail.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#214

Post by sokoloff »

hinkley wrote: post #157
scdoshi wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many (if not most) companies do stock refreshes annually, don't they?

My memory is fuzzy but the one place I got options that were worth anything, it would have taken me about 8 years to double the stock grant I was given when we were acquired. So I had this big block of initial options of which hundreds of shares vested every quarter, and then dozens of shares of the subsequent grants came due at a slightly different time. To me, the first rule of rewarding someone is to make sure the…

> To me, the first rule of rewarding someone is to make sure the recipient did all of the work before the reward. If you make them work afterward then it sours the desserts.

For executives and directors, I disagree completely. The shareholders are paying them to make and execute decisions that will grow the company (and share price) over a long period of time. The share-based compensation plan should reflect (and help align) that they are being paid to make long-term decisions.

Those are inherently "promise/award before the hard work is done" type of grants as I see it. (Why would I pay you more for a decision you've already made or work you already did, unless we're just talking about a modest spot bonus for a job well done?)

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#215

Post by Eridrus »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #199
Eridrus wrote: post #15

Despite the overall theme of this interaction, opening an office in the East Bay seems more employee friendly than keeping them in Palo Alto.

Then why'd most of them leave?

Because the company was staffed by those developers already happy working in Palo Alto, obviously.

I'm just speculating that there may be more developers who are happy with the East Bay location in the wider pool of developers, not that this was a good move for the then current employees.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#216

Post by sokoloff »

RealityNow wrote: post #138
bastijn wrote: post #135

I can't entirely follow the article. What I read is a CEO of a 10k+ employee company had to relocate to grow and sustain growth. A team of 70 people was affected. He made the (right|wrong, pick as you like) decision 70 people leaving now is better than 10k+ having to miss out on the future opportunities. That is what I read from this article. Though all is speculation as there is no real information in there apart fr…

"Too bad, but we need the space. They’re lucky they work here. If they leave at least they’ll have ‘name of our company’ on their resume." It's not merely about the decision to relocate, it's the indifference towards the engineers and viewing them as dispensable minions who are lucky to have the privilege of working for this company, often without the equity and earnings potential of early employees. Treating your wo…

At some scale, when making facilities decisions, you have to treat your employees as replaceable (which is not exactly the same as disposable, but close).

Moving headquarters 5 miles in any given direction is going to help some people and hurt other people. We just went through this ~20 months ago and some people who were on the "hurt" side have indeed left because their commute got pushed over a pain threshold. But, if we'd moved 5 miles in the other direction, a different set of employees would have been negatively impacted.

It's a small scale trolley problem and unless you can expand in exactly the same place, someone's going to get run over. When the CEO realizes this, it's entirely rational to draw conclusions like 'For those who are harmed, well at least they had the experience and name of working at [growing, perceived successful] company X.'

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#217

Post by walrus1066 »

sgift wrote: post #152
e59d134d wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my professional experience, every time higher ups made a decision without input from worker bees, the project failed, delayed, or cancelled. I personally love it when higher-ups make a decision without consulting me. Because then I have zero skin in the game. I don't work ridiculous hours. When I am involved in decision making, then I make sure project succeeds. Sometimes that means working late hours, taking pro-…

> But if I am told what to do without consulting me, then I don't care. There is a lot less stress on me. If it appears decision was stupid and project will not meet deadline, I make sure everyone knows and rarely ever put in more than 40 hours on such projects. I envy people who can change into "I just do what I have to do"-mode when they don't have 'skin in the game' ... I always feel as if I have skin in the game…

I think you need to learn this ability, otherwise you might suffer a burnout.

You need to remember, whether you put 40, 60 or 80 hours p/w into a death march project, won't be recognised. Everyone will be too busy to tally who's working more. By sacrificing more of your free time, you are just working for free for the people driving the project, who may be doing this purely for political reasons. You will also make it more likely for similar projects in the future.

I maintain it's better to not overstretch yourself and let the project fail. Better for your health, and better for the company, so they manage the next project better and have workers who aren't burnt out.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#218

Post by sokoloff »

35bge57dtjku wrote: post #127
sokoloff wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are applying to dozens or hundreds of jobs at once? How is that possible? I'm generally only considering 1 new employer at a time, and the most I've ever done concurrently was applying to two companies in CA at the same time. How could there even be dozens of companies that you'd want to work for at any given time?

You could look at all postings over the last month, from many different online sources and in 2 - 3 of the top tech cities. You could probably do it just by looking in a single city.

I wasn't doubting that there are hundreds of companies who would be potentially interested in hiring someone with my skills.

I was puzzled that I would be interested in working for so many different places. I now realize that some people seem to simply not care where they work, at least at the apply-for-job stage. That was the piece that I was missing.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#219

Post by walrus1066 »

RealityNow wrote: post #99

This post rings eerily true. Recently had a company all-hands where the CEO said basically the exact same lines. The whole "if you don't love working here, then you should leave" bit made me cringe. Easy for you to say when you've got a significant equity share in the company. The saddest realization I've had working at companies is how power-hungry people are, how little respect the people in power often have for th…

In a democracy, if you are unhappy with how the leaders runs the country, you vote them out.

In a workplace, if you are unhappy with how the management run the company, you vote with your feet and leave, nobody's forcing you to stay.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#220

Post by conanbatt »

maxxxxx wrote: post #14
throwaway7645 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to fit: 1.) move from Palo alto to east bay 2.) manufacturing company with software engineers 3.) lots of people leaving 4.) CEO changing the world. However, I'm sure many companies meet that.

Wasn't there the story where Musk scolded someone who took off to be at the birth of his child?

It really sounds fake. Even if Elon really believed that to be true, it would be very dumb to say it.
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