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My Time Working at Stripe

jondlm.github.io

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Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#301

Post by segmondy »

nine_zeros wrote: post #169

I think this post highlights one of the core reasons why tech jobs suck so much and why burnout is so common among such smart people. It is because a lot of these jobs are oriented towards PERFORMANCE REVIEWS that are based on BS unrelated to the actual work - such as feelings of others or sometimes # of commits. Big tech management has departed from being leaders to being raters and rankers of things they are unqual…

Nah, I think OP has reached his idea of pinnacle. When you set out to do a thing, and achieve that thing, it's all downhill unless you set out for more challenging goals or switch up. People often get depressed, after getting their dream job, getting promotions, having a successful business exit. It's normal. When you realize this is normal, it makes it easier to embrace it and figure the next step forward. It's the right balance of the struggle that keeps us feeling alive and on the edge. Too much and you become hopelessly depressed, no struggle and you feel empty and depressed too.

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#302

Post by neilv »

cipheredStones wrote: post #289
neilv wrote: post #261

The stereotypical brogrammer hazing interview at the start kinda foreshadowed everything else. When you see that a company is playing games in an interview, the questions are what other forms will the doofus/jerky culture take if you join, and how will it affect you.

This is the entirety of the post's description of the interviewer and the interview itself: > He introduced himself and we settled into the usual ritual of a phone screen. ... He gave me a coderpad link. ... It presented a simple data structure and asked me to do some filtering based on a set of constraints. ... He kindly ended the interview and asked if I had any questions. Everything else is about the author strugg…

Because traditionally good software engineers in an interview would treat each other as colleagues, not turn the meeting into a one-way hazing.

The CS101 hazing interview style was popularized by some CS students with no work experience, and then cargo-culted as religious rituals by others who also didn't have any other conception of what interviews for experienced professionals should be.

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#303

Post by dilyevsky »

neilv wrote: post #261

The stereotypical brogrammer hazing interview at the start kinda foreshadowed everything else. When you see that a company is playing games in an interview, the questions are what other forms will the doofus/jerky culture take if you join, and how will it affect you.

Oh no! They asked a coding question for an l3 eng position and used coderpad, not some private environment which would be impossible to review after the call! Such hazing

Actually one could argue if it kept being “stereotypical brogrammer” on the actual job, it would end up being much better outcome for the author

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#304

Post by kev009 »

Of course we only see one side of the story here, but as written the original manager sounds like a maniac. Letting someone complete a major and well received project and then sniping backward at how they did it with a performance review reeks of incompetent tyrant. Where the hell was the feedback and mentoring when it mattered?

If you are worth your salt as a manager your reports should know exactly where they are going into performance reviews and that process should just be a formality to make the HR department whole. Unfortunately, a lot of dipshits end up in management because once you make it here it is a lot harder (ironically) to get performance reviewed out.

The second manager also sounds pretty foolish, but at least in a more endearing and earnest way. That kind of emotional thing can and should be discussed on 1:1s once you have built up the relationship. As a manager you should be looking out for your reports and trying to set them up for long term success, and that means learning about their personal life to the extent that is mutually decided to be appropriate. Forcing emotionality out into a group setting sounds like a cringe moment in the Silicon Valley sitcom. This is a bad idea for so many reasons.. for one a lot of us are introverts and doing that is crushing anxiety.. and the innate peer pressure if others are doing it are going to lead to overshares and yet more anxiety. No.

If the depression era fell under the same manager they also missed the importance of momentum. Momentum carries you through failure, depression, hard times.. and you need to give your team easy wins if they are falling behind to rebuild momentum. Otherwise it feels like jumping back on to a moving train.

Based on this I'd wonder what's going on at Stripe. Run not walk from a situation like that, author made the right call.

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#305

Post by Tainnor »

jondlm wrote: post #279
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't and shouldn't be the typical response to such things. The boss had also become vulnerable asking you to be 10% more vulnerable. I think I would respect it more than harsh cold calculating boss. And also the chinese gospel's taking its effect here , the post above this paraphrased it differently and this has taken it to completely different level. Nobody is forcing you with a gun to tell things or else you…

My boss shared first and was very much clear about it being optional. People bring a lot of context into these conversations and make a lot of assumptions. There is a lot of nuance here and that's tough to sit with.

Even if it was indeed fully optional and nobody felt the obligation to share even though they didn't want to (which I find hard to believe), you have to consider that you're also imposing on the people who are listening. They didn't sign up for group therapy either and sitting through accounts of potentially tragic events might be an unnecessary emotional stressor for them (e.g. maybe they were also recently divorced or lost someone to an illness), especially if they're expected to go back to work and be productive afterwards.

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#306

Post by fblp »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #30

These symptoms are a classic sign of burn out. One thing I notice in your writing is you’re very tied up in things having meaning and mattering in some specific way. This itself can lead to burnout because if everything must matter you must be emotionally invested in everything. But you can care without it mattering to you. You can do a good job without being totally invested in everything about it. You can love what…

I've never seen much gratitude for a HN post. Thank you!

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#308

Post by Tainnor »

christophilus wrote: post #139
DeathArrow wrote: post #31

>he asked the team, “for this meeting I’d like us to try and introduce ourselves a little differently. If you’re comfortable, I’d like us to try and be 10% more vulnerable than we normally would in a work setting.” I remember feeling a mix of anxiety and excitement rise in my chest. I sat pondering what I would share. I decided to go for more than 10%. I shared about how my marriage had almost collapsed a couple year…

Not gonna lie. When these sorts of situations have arisen in the past, I find it really tempting to troll. These prompts are such BS that they just invite a BS response. “Whoo. OK. I’ve never talked about this, but here goes. When I was 12 I used a Hello Kitty doll to kill a man. Wow. Feels great to finally get that off my chest.”

One time at a corporate retreat, we had to fill out each others' "friend books" (I'm not making this up). One question was about our personal motto. I wrote down "Hell is other people" - I think some people took the hint.

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#309

Post by kelnos »

wkjagt wrote: post #92

There's a lot of comments on the "10% more vulnerable" part of the post in here that amount to "I just owe the company work hours, and they owe me money", and a strong aversion to showing anything resembling human connection going slightly further than "how are you", "fine". One commented even called the question by the manager "abuse", and suggested the manager should be fired. But if on most days we're spending mos…

Being vulnerable can be great and helpful when forming personal relationships. A manager asking their direct reports to be (personally) vulnerable in a professional setting, in front of a group, is inappropriate.

While I agree that it wasn't forced (and I know that I would personally have no problem sticking to whatever level of sharing I was comfortable with), I bet you that at least one person on that team felt uncomfortable with it, but also felt like they could be penalized in some way (even just socially) if they didn't share. That's not ok.

If you can't forge bonds with your teammates without your boss asking people to share vulnerable moments during a team meeting, there are deeper problems that this sort of exercise is not going to address.

From my most recent job, I have quite a few strong friendships that we've maintained over the years, even though we've all left that company years ago. But most (if not all) of my so-called friendships with coworkers at other jobs faded quickly after one of us left the company. That's pretty normal, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's also nothing wrong with having a vibrant social life outside of your colleagues, and not really being interested in those colleagues beyond acquaintance level.

Re: My Time Working at Stripe

#310

Post by kelnos »

jarjoura wrote: post #270
sensanaty wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a power differential when management suggests you do something. Even if they genuinely, 100% for real would not care if you didn't share, the power balance is still at play there, which makes it dicey regardless of anything else. I actually like my manager, he's a chill guy and I've had some deep talks with him a few times (after work hours!), but if he pulled a stunt like this during work hours I'd 100% tell…

The goal with any of these icebreakers is to encourage the team to be humble and approach work related problems in a thoughtful manner. It's easy for someone to assume you are asked to open up about non-work related stories, but it's never the intention. For example, talking about how your Aunt passing away being the reason you got into software engineering, is not really going to help the team in any meaningful way.…

That's fair, but that's not how the author presented this request from their manager. Judging from the stories shared, people seemed to believe that they were being asked to share stories from their personal lives.

It doesn't really matter what the manager intended; if they were primarily looking for vulnerable professional moments, they should have said so. And if they were indeed looking for personal stories, that's inappropriate.

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