271–280 of 354 posts
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20609978
Of course everyone's ability to leave might differ, depending on personal circumstances and job market. But at least it's good to know what you do and don't like about your job, and what you want to try to improve, if leadership is amenable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s the unemployment rate for software developers? Still basically zero. It’s never moved, but for some reason people seem to think it has. That’s weird.
WSJ reported a few days ago that IT job growth is down year-over-year from 279,000 to 700. It's not contraction yet, but it is effectively the end of a long run of rapid growth. https://www.wsj.com/articles/it-employment-grew-by-just-700-...
Edited: typo “IS” to “US”.
Signs that I've seen before leaving: * There are more VPs than there are restrooms. * The free coffee and soda is no more. * Engineers are co-opted as salespeople ("... and why is the project late?").
There's nothing wrong with occasionally pulling in engineers to help salespeople with writing proposals or participating in sales calls. Smaller companies can't afford to have sales engineers as dedicated specialist positions.
After all, it's us devs who are left with the burden when it's discovered a few days before go-live that sales has sold something we don't have because they missed some nuances in what the customer said or similar.
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It's pre-2023 thinking and early-career thinking. Without job title growth, eventually everyone plateaus. There's only so much any company is willing to pay a non-manager individual contributor worker bee. Early in your career you can go from say $45K to $60K to $100K like it's nothing, but the more you job hop, it'll start looking more like $110K -> $120K -> $125K -> $128K and so on, asymptotically approaching your…
A lot of tech companies have figured out pushing ICs into management is counter-productive and have IC tracks with very high ceilings. Until you're a principal/fellow pulling down $500k+ you haven't hit the IC asymptote yet. And yes this exists outside of just FAANG. The corollary is that you often will have to stick around more than a year or two to get promoted into the senior+ ranks due to the scope of work and ac…
I have worked primarily from home for most of the last 25 years at several companies. I joined Apple during the pandemic and worked from home for the first 18 months but left Apple about 15 months ago for Amazon, in part, because of the increasing RTO pressure at Apple. The Apple RTO policy has only gotten stupider since I left. Unfortunately about a year after I joined Amazon chose to adopt an RTO policy as well. It…
Definitely feeling this at another FAANG I think there’s something about post-pandemic work in software that just isn’t working. I don’t think it’s just interest rates or a hiring downturn, nor immediate causes like founders leaving (because I see this sickness at most big tech companies these days). Personally, I believe that hybrid work is not going well. Fully remote teams are good, fully onsite teams are good. Wi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you misread my comment, or perhaps our definition of high volumes of code is different. Perhaps junior means something different. I also suspect what I consider "good communication" you consider "micromanagement". I like reading and talking about what my colleagues are doing every day. I'm interested. I learn new things, and sometimes I teach others a trick or two. Sometimes I tell them I don't like something…
Make more granular tasks with clear acceptance criteria. If the developer doesn't understand the task, suggest writing a design document. Build trust so that developers reach out to you as they get blocked. Try to make people explain their approach in clear terms and discourage trial and error.
Definitely feeling this at another FAANG I think there’s something about post-pandemic work in software that just isn’t working. I don’t think it’s just interest rates or a hiring downturn, nor immediate causes like founders leaving (because I see this sickness at most big tech companies these days). Personally, I believe that hybrid work is not going well. Fully remote teams are good, fully onsite teams are good. Wi…
> I feel like I never know how to contact someone and can never expect a quick reply MS Teams and similar products have a color-coding scheme (green - active, yellow - inactive, probably afk, red - busy, white - offline) that solves that quite effectively (maybe even too much). Have you tried it, and if so, in what sense did you find it lacking? Also, if instant gratification is what you're craving, then I'm not sure…
A long time ago when everyone was in office, a cultural norm was that if someone was wearing headphones, regardless of whether they were listening to anything, they do not welcome interruptions. That cultural norm was gradually eroded during the pandemic.
I have worked primarily from home for most of the last 25 years at several companies. I joined Apple during the pandemic and worked from home for the first 18 months but left Apple about 15 months ago for Amazon, in part, because of the increasing RTO pressure at Apple. The Apple RTO policy has only gotten stupider since I left. Unfortunately about a year after I joined Amazon chose to adopt an RTO policy as well. It…
If you're able to share, I'm curious what you mean by "Apple RTO policy has only gotten stupider"? Isn't it still 3 days in-office (or 4 days for some teams)?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other downside: way more coffee breaks and private discussions.
That’s not a downside. That’s part of building and being a team. We’re human, not machines. If you hire the right people, they’ll know when to have a laugh and when to work their ass off.