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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

#221

Post by tonyedgecombe »

inopinatus wrote: post #54
banned1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Emphasize that the most important part of software development is moving fast." No, that is not the case most times. The most important part of software development is, as with any other part of the company, to maximize the value of the company. That may be speed, but if you have 1m users the most important thing may be to preserve trust, to acquire new customers, to automate existing infrastructure, etc. etc. Speed…

"Maximising company value" isn't a useful end goal you can give to anyone but the CxO team. For everyone else, it's a motherhood statement. Trotting it out as though it's some kind of engineering compass isn't helpful. To this you've appended the hackneyed conflation between "speed" and "cowboy attitude". It's a common category error, but in truth, rapid iteration is one of the enablers of high quality and is a huge…

I've seen urgency used as an excuse for sloppy work so often that I can't ever imagine the speed of development being a good metric.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#222

Post by Clubber »

unabst wrote: post #196
sanderjd wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take the unpopular position of supporting a small room of a few "higher ups" making decisions. This is exactly what you want: a small number of people with a lot of skin in the game making important decisions. Good leaders gather feedback and counter-arguments beforehand, but then make a firm decision, and it's diminishingly rare for that decision to please everyone. The people who are not pleased should still f…

If anyone wants to be part of the decision making process, they really should strive to get in that room. And when they get there, they will appreciate the absence of noise from people who think their voices automatically matter. If a company doesn't have a way to gather important feedback from its workers, then that is a failure. But that does not equate to everyone needing to be in that room. When I started out, my…

Everything is replaceable, even and especially the large tech company. The constant reminder sure kills productivity though. People are more productive when they think companies actually give a shit about the hard work they put into the company.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#223

Post by Clubber »

elmar wrote: post #186
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…

Really legendary CEO's don't even give stock options to early employes. When Steve Jobs Refused To Give Early Apple Employees Stock, Steve Wozniak Offered Them $10 Million Of His http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-wozniak-gave-early-appl...

I believe in that instance, he did give stock to early employees, but left one of them out (probably because he wanted to be a dick). The rest of the early employees felt bad for the guy since he had been there since the beginning and Woz offered him some of the shares.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#224

Post by ehnto »

RodericDay wrote: post #203
ehnto wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be the idea behind a technical lead no? Having a voice for the tehcnical team. Everyone should have a voice but not everyone needs to literally be at the table. Seeing companies go from small to larger and seeing how the flat structure begins to show caveats as a team grows, I agree everyone should have a voice, but ultimately a decision needs to be made and a big group of people are never going to agree o…

Much like voting, being at the table should be opt-out. Else, as first poster said, the process is tyrannical.

Tyrannical is a bit extreme. You should still get a voice, it's just communicated through someone else who is your advocate and has your best interests in mind. Hopefully he still works along side you or at least understands your concerns.

Not every business decision requires every single persons input either, and although you may be affected that doesn't mean your input was as valuable as everyone elses. The CI team's choices might affect my branching structure. Tough, that is their responsibility. If it's extremely detrimental then you can raise concerns, talk to people, get out of your seat and work with the humans around you.

We don't need another revolutionary management fad, where a hundred employees sit around a satiricaly large table and vote by show of hands. That works amazingly at small companies and it's why I prefer to work at them. But let's get real, management at scale is hard.

Ultimately though, if you feel like you don't have a voice where you are, work to get a voice, or find a company with a structure that works for you.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#225

Post by rleigh »

quotemstr wrote: post #35

The most important lesson for people in power in big tech companies: FORMAL PROCESS IS THE ENEMY. Don't let the accumulation of gatekeepers and approvers and other capital-P Process let things become 100x harder than they need to be. Do not confuse difficulty with prudence. Your organization will become slow and ossified by default unless you take specific steps to maintain flexibility. One of these steps is to insta…

Used appropriately, a formal process provides structure to the workflows within an organisation. Everyone knows the process, and it provides a framework and expectations for everyone to work within. In organisations without any process, it can lead to difficulty in getting stuff done because there's no responsibility or accountability for who is doing what, and when. Who is reviewing my PR, which CI systems tested and deployed the prospective change, why was the work done, when does it get merged, and by whom? Etc. Basic daily routine.

You also have the situation that people invent rules and requirements in the absence of a documented process, which can change arbitrarily and are impossible to work with because it depends upon the changing whims of whoever feels they are in charge. Clairvoyancy and divination should not be a job requirement!

Process becomes problematic when the process grows and ossifies and becomes the end itself, rather than the means to an end. You end up with it being impossible to get work done because the process is so burdensome. When your bosses care more about the process being followed to the letter rather than the actual completion of the work which the process should be enabling, that's IMO the point where it needs a rethink. Unfortunately, organisations have a tendency to accrete the stuff; I've in the past argued for less to the amazement and incredulity of my bosses. It's also a factor that process is used as a blunt instrument to wield power over others, and I think that's certainly a driver as well. But often organisations favour accountability and rules over creativity and efficiency, even if you spend 95% of your time with process, and 5% actually doing productive stuff...

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#226

Post by microtherion »

johan_larson wrote: post #179
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…

> 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. In this field, we can in fact move, so "love it or leave it" is not a hollow demand. People in some other fields are far more stuck. A military officer's career is over if he says no to the hierarchy he is part of. He may find work after the army or nav…

Of course, now and then, military officers DO go to work for the competition, but in that field, that's kind of frowned upon.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#227

Post by sanderjd »

sitharus wrote: post #121
sanderjd wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take the unpopular position of supporting a small room of a few "higher ups" making decisions. This is exactly what you want: a small number of people with a lot of skin in the game making important decisions. Good leaders gather feedback and counter-arguments beforehand, but then make a firm decision, and it's diminishingly rare for that decision to please everyone. The people who are not pleased should still f…

It's the feedback and counter arguments that are often lacking, and being unwilling to admit the decision was wrong. I've been in this situation a few times and it's very hard to push back on a decision that's been 'made' even if it's not appropriate for the team you're on.

There's a good reason it's hard to un-make a decision that has already been made: the thrash is usually more damaging than the decision. A sub-optimal strategy is better than a series of changes in the strategy.

It's like in chess, when people talk about making "principled" moves. It means playing the move that best fits the plan you have been pursuing, rather than a tactically more tempting move that is less consistent with your overall strategy.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#228

Post by isaacremuant »

supergeek133 wrote: post #112

Ugh. So much this. Story time. Doing work with a 3rd party firm on some simple dev work (integration into a few partner APIs). We're a big Azure customer, 3rd party knows this. Gives us ARM templates for resources needed to deploy. Get on the phone with the IT folks internally, state we need these ARM templates deployed and monitored. Queue two week (plus) process, 100 questions, and department to department costs (a…

It won't be the first or the last time someone uses their own resources to jump start something while the bureaucracy does its thing.

Problem is that, without that bureaucracy sometimes ,'defectors' as Bruce Schneier would call them, will take advantage of those systems and use them for their own personal gain. The "this is why we can't have nice things" rings true for a lot of things related to purchase, money, benefits, etc.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#229

Post by supergeek133 »

isaacremuant wrote: post #228
supergeek133 wrote: post #112

Ugh. So much this. Story time. Doing work with a 3rd party firm on some simple dev work (integration into a few partner APIs). We're a big Azure customer, 3rd party knows this. Gives us ARM templates for resources needed to deploy. Get on the phone with the IT folks internally, state we need these ARM templates deployed and monitored. Queue two week (plus) process, 100 questions, and department to department costs (a…

It won't be the first or the last time someone uses their own resources to jump start something while the bureaucracy does its thing. Problem is that, without that bureaucracy sometimes ,'defectors' as Bruce Schneier would call them, will take advantage of those systems and use them for their own personal gain. The "this is why we can't have nice things" rings true for a lot of things related to purchase, money, bene…

Very true, but on paper everything relies on everyone not "being an asshole".

Same is true for many of these processes that are put in place. Everyone just needs to remember once in awhile that we all work for the same place, and all want to make money.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#230

Post by supergeek133 »

pmontra wrote: post #208
supergeek133 wrote: post #112

Ugh. So much this. Story time. Doing work with a 3rd party firm on some simple dev work (integration into a few partner APIs). We're a big Azure customer, 3rd party knows this. Gives us ARM templates for resources needed to deploy. Get on the phone with the IT folks internally, state we need these ARM templates deployed and monitored. Queue two week (plus) process, 100 questions, and department to department costs (a…

This is probably the right thing to do but... Do you realize how many people you're going to piss off because with reduced work and costs they don't get their share of the cake? Some of them might be in the management above you. I wish you good luck.

Haven't been fired yet. :-)

Thankfully I work for someone who thinks making money is more important than self-imposed rules that in most cases just slow us down.

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