Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#51

Post by stephencanon » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 3:54 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #29

> I drastically reduced the time developers spent repairing those failures, but there were no metrics that tracked developer time. For several jobs in a row, I've felt that helping others on a team is undervalued and under-recorded. I've been planning to implement the "assist" metric, similar to basketball, on my own team for a while. The idea would be something along the lines of everyone gets a set of assist points…

I've never tried it, but I suspect you'll run into the same issue that sports does, where "assists" don't accurately reflect the people who are making things happen on the court.

We miss the perimeter shooter who positions themselves just so to pull two defenders out of position, but give credit to the point guard who makes the now-easy pass for the "assist". It's entirely possible for the person most responsible for a play succeeding to never touch the ball. You really want something like value-above-replacement, but that's pretty hard to measure without a clear definition of what "success" is and reams of data.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#52

Post by mtlynch » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 3:56 PM UTC

xtrapolate wrote: post #35

As a business person, you're going to have to sell yourself/your services to other people. Perhaps that's not too different from pitching yourself to an "anonymous promotions committee"? Interesting and insightful read. Thanks for sharing, and good luck with your future endeavours!

>As a business person, you're going to have to sell yourself/your services to other people. Perhaps that's not too different from pitching yourself to an "anonymous promotions committee"?

That's fair.

I've wondered about that myself. Will I just end up resenting "the customer" the same way I resented "the committee?"

My hope is no because I feel like with a customer, I can learn more from failures. If I launch a product and it doesn't sell, I can try a totally new product or adjust it somehow and see how that affects things. I can talk to customers and get their feedback. With the promo committee it felt very opaque and my opportunities for feedback were so rare. Plus I felt like if I got better, I'm just getting better at working the perf system which is probably only useful within Google or other Google-like companies. If I get better at selling to customers, that should be useful in a much broader way.

>Interesting and insightful read. Thanks for sharing, and good luck with your future endeavours!

Thanks for reading!

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#53

Post by sharemywin » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 3:56 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #48

dahart wrote: post #29

> I drastically reduced the time developers spent repairing those failures, but there were no metrics that tracked developer time. For several jobs in a row, I've felt that helping others on a team is undervalued and under-recorded. I've been planning to implement the "assist" metric, similar to basketball, on my own team for a while. The idea would be something along the lines of everyone gets a set of assist points…

The idea would be something along the lines of everyone gets a set of assist points they must distribute to people who help them the most. There is a really great idea in there somewhere - create incentives for helping others - but I'm struggling to come up with a good way to implement it that doesn't just water everything down. The closest I can think of is how repo commits can be counted/graphed per user. Works eas…

What most companies do is give bullshit senior level promotions that way they can get 5 good years out of someone before they get the same realization it took him to get to in 2 years.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#54

Post by shados » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 3:57 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #29

> I drastically reduced the time developers spent repairing those failures, but there were no metrics that tracked developer time. For several jobs in a row, I've felt that helping others on a team is undervalued and under-recorded. I've been planning to implement the "assist" metric, similar to basketball, on my own team for a while. The idea would be something along the lines of everyone gets a set of assist points…

In one of my previous teams, we did away with individual metrics because they "punished" team players. If an engineer spent most of a week helping another with their issue, it made them look bad in whatever tracker we used by almost every metric. I prefered sticking to trying to optimize whole team velocity and using 1 on 1s and peer reviews to track individual performance where it was needed (eg: compensation review and promotions).

It's still not perfect: people could be spending them helping someone from another team and that would go under the radar (except the peer reviews), but it still worked a lot better.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#55

Post by utellme » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 3:57 PM UTC

jpm_sd wrote: post #7

Because you made enough money that it was an affordable risk? Yes, perf is garbage and management is chaos, but let's be honest with ourselves. Four years' worth of GSUs oughta be enough for anybody. "Devoted employee" followed by "expert at gaming the perf system" followed by "project cancelled and adrift" is, sadly, the normal progression for a Googler, from what I've seen.

Whenever anybody pays you good salary or even adds stock shares to it, doesn't mean they can wipe their feet on your personal attitude or consider your job efforts as garbage.

If author wanted to express this opinion I completely agree.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#56

Post by bob_theslob646 » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 3:57 PM UTC

stephencanon wrote: post #51

dahart wrote: post #29

> I drastically reduced the time developers spent repairing those failures, but there were no metrics that tracked developer time. For several jobs in a row, I've felt that helping others on a team is undervalued and under-recorded. I've been planning to implement the "assist" metric, similar to basketball, on my own team for a while. The idea would be something along the lines of everyone gets a set of assist points…

I've never tried it, but I suspect you'll run into the same issue that sports does, where "assists" don't accurately reflect the people who are making things happen on the court. We miss the perimeter shooter who positions themselves just so to pull two defenders out of position, but give credit to the point guard who makes the now-easy pass for the "assist". It's entirely possible for the person most responsible for…

You're forgetting that you could also track secondhand assist as well.

I can't speak for programming but in soccer this is well-known. It's just very hard to Value just like an employer would in terms of having that person on board for morale. Fortunately the better people get it and understand that that person should be value even if they weren't directly involved in making the change but they were definitely a part of it.

This is what plagues me with most corporate companies in the United States. It should be about teamwork not about what this person did or I did, rather what the team did.

Sure you can value people individually, but teams trump individuals all day long in the long run.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#57

Post by durgiston » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 3:58 PM UTC

stephencanon wrote: post #51

dahart wrote: post #29

> I drastically reduced the time developers spent repairing those failures, but there were no metrics that tracked developer time. For several jobs in a row, I've felt that helping others on a team is undervalued and under-recorded. I've been planning to implement the "assist" metric, similar to basketball, on my own team for a while. The idea would be something along the lines of everyone gets a set of assist points…

I've never tried it, but I suspect you'll run into the same issue that sports does, where "assists" don't accurately reflect the people who are making things happen on the court. We miss the perimeter shooter who positions themselves just so to pull two defenders out of position, but give credit to the point guard who makes the now-easy pass for the "assist". It's entirely possible for the person most responsible for…

This is what +/- and its variants are for. Especially useful for sports like hockey where scoring is rare. Of course, in a work environment this is even harder to try and measure, if for no other reason than that people are almost never 'off the court' and if they are there are many confounding factors.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#58

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 3:59 PM UTC

kristianc wrote: post #5

This covers a lot of the same ground as Brendan Reid's "Stealing the Corner Office"[1], which gives a playbook for helping stuff like this work in your favour, rather than against you. You fit the profile of what Reid calls the "Smart but Stationary Manager" - a guy who is a lot smarter than a lot of the people who do get promoted, but who doesn't optimize for the right factors. Reid's point is that a lot of these gu…

[deleted]

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#59

Post by cmrdporcupine » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 3:59 PM UTC

Frankly there are far more toxic and awful large companies to work for. I think with the perf/promo process being what it is Google was intentionally trying to avoid the really bad nepotistic and political parts of some other large (or not large) corps. But they introduced other problems, which the article writer alludes to.

For myself, the bullshit with perf and the awful corporate culture stuff became apparent within 6 months of landing here at Google as a result of acquisition. After working at a startup or small company (aka "get your shit done and fix all the things or we'll go out of business!") and getting drafted to work here (and ahem, eat the free food and take all the money they give you...) it's very apparent.

But I've stayed and slogged it through, and just stopped caring and just keep my head down and try to do the work I think is useful. Luckily Google has stopped promulgating the line that one _has_ to get promoted to Level X after Y years, or get ejected. There's a recognition now that people can just contribute at a certain level and be good employees and not play the promo game.

I know very few people who are believers in this culture internally. Anybody who has been through promo is cynical about it. Which is I guess why there's been some incremental changes to the process recently. We'll see how it shakes out.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#60

Post by ocdtrekkie » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 3:59 PM UTC

Quarrelsome wrote: post #40

This is why its healthier to always run with the premise that you're leaving at some point and its the employer's responsibility to keep you there and give you interesting and rewarding work. If you're asking them to promote you then its the wrong way round, they should be asking on you about whether you're staying there. That's how the market is today.

I doubt Google cares if the majority of it's people stay or not. Beyond the rock star employees who they absolutely know they need/depend on, they have an unending pipe of software engineers who want to put Google on their resume, in part due to the value of having the resume item and in part due to all of the perks.

Assuming the free food and massages will keep a lot of talent there, why would they bother incentivizing the average individual employee with interesting work and promotions? If you leave, they'll replace you, likely without shedding a tear.