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Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

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Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#381

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #193
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“What did I do for the customer today” is often in principle not answerable within megacorps. If you’re the person who fixes a new employee’s password issues, you have to do mental gymnastics like “I helped X fix their password, then X created a new Jira ticket for Y, Y helped scope and plan the ticket in Z’s sprint, Z gathered requirements and assigned it to A, A paired with B and they wrote code that removed extran…

I think you're violently agreeing with the author. In a startup it's easy to see what value you added for the user every day. In a megacorp it's impossible. In a startup having the managers ask "what did we do for the users today?" helps the whole team stay on track. In a megacorp it's a useless platitude.

No, I’m not agreeing at all. The author is asserting that you should always be in the start-up situation of not having incremental work where your ultimate impact on customers comes through long chained sequences of tiny tweaks or accumulated effects.

It’s perfectly fine (good even) to work in a large company where your value add is not immediately clarified and is just part of a large agglomerated process. Most net benefit to consumers occurs this way.

It’s also fine if you want to work in the start-up manner, but it’s not “better” or “more correct” or anything.

The author is taking it to a deeply unreasonable extreme that shows more about the author’s arrogance than about any sincere or earnest desire to help customers.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#382

Post by tinyhouse »

the_local_host wrote: post #361
tinyhouse wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misinterpreting what he's saying. I didn't get the impression that he claims that employees growth doesn't matter. He's saying that most people optimize for promotion rather than building a better product. That's indeed the wrong thing to optimize for, esp for the company. Not being able to fire people is indeed a big disadvantage. Bad employees are much worse than just not contributing. They make the peo…

But he's not strictly talking about "bad employees"; he explicitly mentions firing people for "the basic reason that you don't need this role any more". That's not invalid by itself as long as everyone knows that the game is purely transactional. But it isn't fair to expect employee "passion" when their own continued employment is contingent on whether management thinks they're still necessary.

I agree. Not sure he meant that. People are much more important than roles. If you have someone who is good but in a role that is not needed anymore, you'll find another role for them. Esp in big tech.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#383

Post by ativzzz »

whycombagator wrote: post #370

> It is practically impossible to fire someone for the basic reason that you don't need this role any more or there is a better person out there or just plain old - you are not doing a great job. This neuters managers and does not lead to great teams, driven by mission, pushing each other to do better. > I was the weirdo who wanted to push things fast and expected that some level of personal sacrifice when needed. I…

He didn't say he wanted to fire old people, "plain old - you are not doing a great job" is just a colloquialism and can be replaced with the word "standard reason" or something similar.

This is probably how he got in trouble for some of the HR things he mentioned, where he says a word and people take it like you did and report him.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#384

Post by ghaff »

eropple wrote: post #302
david38 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overtime is remembered a lot less than you think. I have family in the trades and they much prefer their union jobs to my programming one. Yes, I get paid more, but I also work more, in an area where I can’t afford a house.

You aren't constrained to live in those areas to make a living, though. I'm a senior/principal level developer living just outside of Boston (I can walk to a subway in 30 minutes or just hop on a commuter rail stop in about five) and I can very comfortably afford a 4-bed house on a single salary. And the Boston area is not cheap .

Like many cities that have expensive areas (and Boston/Cambridge certainly do), it's often fairly easy to get to suburbs--some of which have downtown areas--that aren't Midwest cheap but are fairly affordable. I live quite a bit further out but I'm still able to drive in for an evening or take commuter rail in for a day.

I think the fact that it's hard to get out of the expensive areas in the Bay Area in a reasonable amount of time gives a lot of people a false impression of the situation with other expensive cities.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#385

Post by richardwhiuk »

nx7487 wrote: post #318

People offended here are exactly the bubble of entitled morons in Silicon Valley that this guy is talking about. I totally agree with everything he said, companies where you have to work long hours and don't receive lots of weird benefits like yoga and sushi are the places I want to work. I would much prefer to have my compensation include more equity in the company, and for my performance to actually be related to t…

Feel free. Just be aware, those aren't the most profitable companies in the world, (i.e. FAANGM) and at some point, you might want to work out why that is.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#386

Post by aerosmile »

asidiali wrote: post #336
kryogen1c wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the mental overheard of a software job is not something that is easily turned off during non work hours this is very ignorant. the ability to leave work at work is a personality trait. the job, or type of job, has little to do with it. software development is not some exceptionally difficult thing that tortures and haunts developers.

> the ability to leave work at work is a personality trait. the job, or type of job, has little to do with it. This is very ignorant. There are many outside factors that go into if an employee needs to focus on work after hours, such as accessibility to the working environment, cultural practices at the company, etc. Who said anything about haunting? If my manager hits me up at 11pm asking for something, sure I can i…

With two comments quoting the same example, you seem really hell-bent on driving this point home. Ok, I'll bite. How often do you get those 11pm requests that will otherwise get rerouted to someone else unless you respond before 8am? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? A few times per year?

Context matters, because believe it or not, most professionals occasionally go the extra mile no matter what industry they are in. I recently dropped off a motorcycle for a repair, and the young guy working at that shop stayed an hour late to get my business. When something breaks in my house, I have hundreds of people jumping at the bit to come to fix it at any given time, before or after work, weekday or weekend.

Nothing is ever perfect in life, but your criticism of your experience as a software engineer would come across as a lot more empathetic if you started off by acknowledging that you made an excellent career choice to start with, and that this allows you unprecedented career mobility, including the option of easily quitting your job should you have the rare misfortune of having landed at any of the few bad apples that do not reward you for your stress with oodles of money that you wouldn't be able to make anywhere else with that amount of effort and work experience.

Not to mention that if stress and money are not your thing, go and work as a software engineer at an old school Fortune 500 company. I promise to you that nobody will ever ask you to do anything at 11pm there, and you'll still get paid well.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#387

Post by notaslave »

sergiosgc wrote: post #367
notaslave wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the company is paying me for 40 hours, why would they expect me to work more? If the 'outcome of my work' is my personal responsibility, I should also be paid based on the outcome-I should also get a cut from whatever profit the company makes with my work. If the company thinks they have the right to my personal life because they pay me for 40 hours, then its slavery. Also, threatening me with firing because I ref…

I don't hire automatons that turn on at 9h and off at 17h. I don't pay by the hour for intelligent work. I pay for results, defined to be achievable on a regular schedule. I hire intelligent people, treat them as such, and expect intelligent behaviour in return. Part of the expectation is that everyone manages their own time responsibly. If they fail that management and have to work after hours, I do expect them to t…

Who defines those schedules? If it's the employees, its fine. If it's the management who sets the timelines, management should take the fall. Otherwise, its forced labor no matter how management tries to spin it. A bunch of parasites and leeches sucking other people dry. If the paycheck says 'num of hours x per hour rate", that's what the company should expect.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#388

Post by mattm »

Shaddox wrote: post #107

I'm aware that, as a founder, he's obviously very interested in the success of his product. His mentality however carried over the acquisition and past inertia. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I think his problem is that he's passionate. And I don't mean the corporate lingo 'passionate', I mean the actual passionate. I strongly advise any passionate people to not seek to turn their passion into a job. Because it…

Completely agree. My motto for work is that you want to care the right amount. It's hopefully obvious that caring too little is bad. But caring too much can also be a bad thing.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#389

Post by nicoburns »

noisy_boy wrote: post #220
dd36 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I can live in a hut in Guatemala if I feel challenged and am enjoying my work. Wealth is fun but so long as my family and I are good, it’s not a motivating factor. Solving problems is.

"so long as my family and I are good" - wealth goes a long way to ensure exactly that.

Sure, but if you're a software developer with a few years experience then pretty much any job is going to cover that.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#390

Post by mabbo »

ck425 wrote: post #173
izacus wrote: post #99

This is an amazing post - it describes exactly how bad manager looks like and what kind of expectations does he have from his employees. No emergency PTO (despite being a benefit), ability to just get rid of people who don't suit him, cursing at people, not having a proper work/life balance. It just keeps on giving. And all for what? A mapping application having features which really don't save lives 99% of the time.

I agree with all of that except the swearing part. Is swearing in work a big deal in US? I'm Scottish (even worse Glaswegian) so perhaps have a skewed view.

In the article he says that whatever language he was using, HR was involved over it.

> I began racking up my HR complaints. I used a four letter word, my analogy was not PC, my language was not PG

He's not just swearing. He's an asshole. But he wants to blame the "PC brigade" for not letting him be an asshole, which he was used to when he had power over everyone else, including HR.

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