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Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#441

Post by burnte »

Guest42 wrote: post #376
burnte wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, it's just as bad at higher levels, despite the people there generally having even FEWER of the qualifications. I'm top level IT management with a tremendous amount of actual technical knowledge, and just getting to an interview is the hardest part. I've never taken an interview that didn't result in an offer, but getting to the interview with all the demands is insanely difficult. Usually the spots get filled thr…

I’m sorry to hear that. Every now and again I see a person gets hired that seems like a bad fit and have no choice but to cross my fingers and hope their attitude and ego don’t drive people away. It also seems that many people that are really good prefer to avoid promotions in order to have more stability and focus on their strengths. I have a family member who is a technical expert with 30 years experience who often…

Yes, it's frustrating. At my previous long term job, I cut IT costs _dramatically_, increased reliability to levels management didn't think was possible (it was _REALLY_ bad before I arrived), and made IT much more responsive, proactive, and well liked by the employees. I left, and was replaced by a guy who on paper looked amazing, but in reality was a disaster. I was asked to come back 5 months later to consult to train him up a bit. he told me exactly how he got the job: he paid for LinkedIn connections (his recruiter told him over 500 is a magic number), paid for endorsements in LI, and flat out lied about his skills on the resume.

And here I am trying to work hard like a schmuck.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#442

Post by pier25 »

thu2111 wrote: post #418
pier25 wrote: post #194

Netflix seems to have the best tech, at least from a user perspective in Mexico. On my LG tv their app is the best, by far. I wish all the other services just served their content through Netflix. All new content has 4K HDR with Dolby vision/atmos and streaming is quite fast on my 200 Mbps fiber connection. HBO Go is pure garbage. The app is clunky and has way worse UX than Netflix. The streaming quality is absolute…

Apple TV device UI is pretty great as you'd expect, but the core tech is buggy - sometimes video will just stop playing for no apparent reason, or the audio system will die and you'll have to reboot the device. Apple TV app on macOS Catalina is a disaster zone. iTunes was pretty bad but the new app manages to be just as confusing, with fewer features, and worse of all it crashes immediately and reliably if you do som…

> Apple TV device UI is pretty great as you'd expect, but the core tech is buggy

I never owned an Apple TV but my 1st gen Nvidia Shield TV was super solid. I only stopped using it because it didn't support Dolby Vision and the apps I use are on my LG tv anyway.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#443

Post by notacoward »

nitwit005 wrote: post #367
nullsense wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Doing the work" meaning having to study to relearn a thing that I'll maybe use sparingly in my work means the interview process is broken, not anyone's motivation I used to think this too, but as a filter I think it's having the desired effect. From the outside looking in Life at a FAANG seems competitive in nature and they are optimizing for the people willing to push themselves that far to learn something. The ad…

You have to be careful about your assumptions. Being willing to put in the work could be a bad sign. If you already have a bunch of job offers, you aren't going to spend weeks studying to get one more job offer, unless the place might offer dramatically better benefits. And, it may be some people don't need to be any extra studying work. There are people who do programming competitions for fun, and there was prior di…

> If employees aren't motivated enough to organize and close the power gap

"If X aren't motivated enough..." usually ends up being a really horrible take for most values of X. I'm not so sure it's different for X=employees, specially when the type of interview we're talking about is more burdensome to older folks, folks with certain personality types or anxiety issues, arguably most women, etc. Why should the burden be theirs alone, while employers get a complete pass on setting up whatever arbitrary hurdles they want?

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#444

Post by mixmastamyk »

notacoward wrote: post #425
mixmastamyk wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A person from Netflix would have to respond, but if they're anything like other tech companies, they're doing a shit job of hiring. Huge salaries are one way to mitigate that, by holding on tight to the good ones.

> if they're anything like other tech companies, they're doing a shit job of hiring Facebook grew from 17K employees in 2016 to 45K in 2019. 38% annual growth, and the vast bulk of that was in engineering. "Only" 17% at Google, but it was already larger so the absolute numbers are higher. 22% at Netflix. This is hardly a "shit job of hiring" as you say. I often saw such growth numbers at startups, but never at compan…

You seem to believe hiring large numbers of bodies mean they hired the best people. I think that's hardly obvious, and more likely downright false from what we know about tech hiring.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#445

Post by fomine3 »

lazyant wrote: post #401
leptons wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix doesn't win or lose customers based on programmer performance, they win by having content that people actually want to watch. I don't care if the UI is 10% less slick, as long as they have stuff I want to watch. The only reason I've ever considered dropping Netflix is "why am I paying for this when there is nothing I want to watch". Fortunately, they have come through with some interesting content recently, a…

Just in case: Netflix is 15% of the Internet traffic world-wide and about 1/3 of the traffic in the US (these figures can be a bit obsolete). So the engineering challenges I'd imagine are not so much about UI and recommendation engine as it is about pushing bytes efficiently.

Latter should be serious problem but Netflix improves both.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#446

Post by notacoward »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #444
notacoward wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if they're anything like other tech companies, they're doing a shit job of hiring Facebook grew from 17K employees in 2016 to 45K in 2019. 38% annual growth, and the vast bulk of that was in engineering. "Only" 17% at Google, but it was already larger so the absolute numbers are higher. 22% at Netflix. This is hardly a "shit job of hiring" as you say. I often saw such growth numbers at startups, but never at compan…

You seem to believe hiring large numbers of bodies mean they hired the best people. I think that's hardly obvious, and more likely downright false from what we know about tech hiring.

> You seem to believe hiring large numbers of bodies mean they hired the best people.

Never said, implied, or believe any such thing. If anything, my last paragraph suggests the opposite. And I've been there so, unlike some, I know what I'm talking about.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#447

Post by triceratops »

leptons wrote: post #440
triceratops wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Content is King. If Netflix had crap content, it wouldn't matter how good their programmers are I don't think I ever once said "content doesn't matter". If they only had dynamite content and a shitty user experience people would simply pirate the content and not pay for it. > Yeah, I'm old. I've been around. I don't need you explaining anything to me. I try every day to not become like that.

>If they only had dynamite content and a shitty user experience people would simply pirate the content and not pay for it. Most people have no clue how to pirate anything. Out of 100 people in your life, including all your relatives, honestly, how many of them are willing and capable of pirating content? If you think it's over 25% you will have me ROFLOL. And all of those people will be just fine with a less flashy U…

> If you think it's over 25% you will have me ROFLOL.

Laugh it up then: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/17/18412159/game-of-thrones-...

Even if you're right, you're admitting a good UX gets at least 25% of the people to pay money instead of pirating.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#448

Post by leptons »

triceratops wrote: post #447
leptons wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If they only had dynamite content and a shitty user experience people would simply pirate the content and not pay for it. Most people have no clue how to pirate anything. Out of 100 people in your life, including all your relatives, honestly, how many of them are willing and capable of pirating content? If you think it's over 25% you will have me ROFLOL. And all of those people will be just fine with a less flashy U…

> If you think it's over 25% you will have me ROFLOL. Laugh it up then: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/17/18412159/game-of-thrones-... Even if you're right, you're admitting a good UX gets at least 25% of the people to pay money instead of pirating.

That link doesn't support anything you're arguing about. Why continue this when you're just flailing around making ridiculous claims. People like you are why I left reddit.
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