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On Leaving Facebook

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Re: On Leaving Facebook

#561

Post by randcraw »

tuyiown wrote: post #341
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a successful developer well past middle age, I find this to be nonsense. The most common complaint I hear around this is "yeah, that discriminates against people who don't have time to grind to do the preparation." Why is it weird that people should spend time preparing for ask for a new job? I mean, ask an orchestra musician how much time they put into preparing for auditions, or how much time many degreed profes…

> ask an orchestra musician how much time they put into preparing for auditions Training is basically the main work performer has to do to earn his life, and all training is valuable. You could compare with professional athlete and see how it’s absurd. > If you don't want to spend time preparing for job interviews, then fine, don't. The idea is that you have to understand the process. If you don’t see the point of ce…

Actually, the pro athlete metaphor seems pretty apt. Only rookies are assessed primarily for leetcode metrics like their 40 yard sprint or bench strength. Pros are judged entirely by their game play, both individual and ensemble. So it should be for pro SWEs. And the better employers understand this, finding ways to assess candidate facility by working with staff or the design of solutions to representative problems, where incapability does the most damage.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#562

Post by xixixao »

ipaddr wrote: post #441
underwater wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During my time there it grew massively and went public. A company with 1,000 engineers is always going to be different from one with 10,000. The scope of work narrowed a lot. There was a shift to focus on review cycles instead did shipping cool stuff and avoiding being crushed by competitors like Google. Towards the end I fell into the trap of fixating on perf reviews and came close to burning myself out after switch…

What are the attributes of a successful facebook employee or what type of person fits the culture? Is it a culture that accepts questioning of leadership?

> Is it a culture that accepts questioning of leadership?

Absolutely.

I would say successful employees find an intersection between their interests+skills and what is needed. That might seem generic but it’s important to realize and spend time focusing on.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#563

Post by hamburglar »

bschne wrote: post #360
fallmonkey wrote: post #94

"A common question I get is about work/life balance. And I view it a little different too now. At Facebook I could get by barely working a few hours a day. But the job was so unsatisfying that it spilled the frustration in the “life” part" This is the golden piece for me. I too recently left a big corp to a smaller place, expecting to sacrifice WLB and my free time - yet I ended up feeling happier and spending less t…

I once had a job where I somehow didn't get assigned much work for a long period of time right after starting — something about no projects having open staff positions, and them not being able to use me anyway because they were using up all the budget with the existing staffing already and didn't want to do "free work" for the clients. For a while, I spent my days mostly doing tutorials, reading ebooks and papers, wa…

Been there too. It felt a little paradoxical at first. It’s like a gift! But you really do start feeling really shitty about yourself because you know you’re useless.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#564

Post by granshaw »

pdimitar wrote: post #422
tippytippytango wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't work like that. You have to be "on" even if you aren't working. That means you feel like you can't commit to anything substantial since you feel like you should be working. Fucking off on the internet is a coping mechanism to numb the pain of being in this limbo where you aren't working; but, feel like you should be working because you are getting paid a lot. In retrospect it's easy to see that there's thi…

So don't admit it to anyone. Work on it by yourself or by sharing it on HN / Reddit / etc. It still reads too much as a very first world of a problem to me, admittedly. I recognize that us the people need to have a goal and a direction, otherwise we start feeling like aimless leaves on the wind -- but you can still do a ton of things at home (if you work remotely which you should) while checking your Slack and email…

You can take on a little more risk, esp if you have a spouse with employer health insurance, and be a contractor. Hitting the $300k annual ballpark is pretty doable even with giving yourself about 20 days off a year, even while working at startups and places where their employees don’t get near that

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#565

Post by devoutsalsa »

elb0w wrote: post #79

It always blows my mind how most interview in our field. When I first started in tech I was afraid to talk about not knowing leetcode to my peers. 15 years in and I now can confidently say I’ve yet to meet someone who thinks these are a valid metric. Why do we make this the gate keeper to our industry when we know (except for the very specific roles) we will rarely need leet code type problems. When we do we just goo…

This is probably a horrible strategy, but…

If I ever do an on-site interview again, I’ve given thought to just bringing in a six pack of beer. If I get any bullshit questions, I break out the beer and say “how about we pretend that I did a good job on this question and talk shop about what you really need here, because that’s what I’d like to talk about.”

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#566

Post by moonshinefe »

wanderer_ wrote: post #528
moonshinefe wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually why the blog post bothered me, despite everyone heaping praise on it here. "Then there’s the Prestige. Facebook gets a lot of blame in media lately, but in everyday life it’s still very prestigious place to be working at. Getting a mortgage or a car loan is easy, saying you work for Facebook gets you on the fast line." That's the money quote, this person is only thinking about themself and really doesn'…

Yeah, I find this view to be pretty unfair to the author. He was not directly responsible for things like data policy or anything at Fb. As he said multiple times, he found fulfillment from working on projects with a small group, and from distancing himself from the higher corporate debacles. I don't think he is morally at any fault. Here's another way of looking at it: Fb is so damn big, there's no reason them looki…

This person was helping Facebook make money while the news was filled with stories about them manipulating democracy, enabling genocide and ruining people's mental health. That's cool they were working on tools that weren't directly related on a small team, but the money all funnels to the top and enables this stuff. They knew full well from all the news unless they were completely burying their head in the sand.

So no ethical responsibility? I strongly disagree. They could've quit at any time and found dozens of jobs elsewhere with a resume like that. Judging by the post they did after nearly a decade, and only because purely selfish reasons. I was maybe a bit harsh, but come on..

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#567

Post by RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u »

Aeolun wrote: post #401
RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] having real work be tossed in the garbage is [...] demoralizing [...] This happened to me a few years ago. I got assigned to work on a small greenfield project solo. I had virtually full creative control, and it would solve a real imminent problem for the team. Sounds like a dream project, right? And it was for the ~1 month or so I worked on it, got positive feedback from the team, etc. However, with a stroke…

> getting dinged for "being unproductive for a month" during performance review I don’t think I could have lived with that if that was done to me. I’d either resign on the spot or shortly after.

Without divulging specifics, around the same time something happened in my personal life. I needed, and family members who depended on me needed, the money and stability.

A bruised ego is a small price to pay for the safety of my family and dependents, so I will learn to live with it. Because I can live with it. I can live with it. dang, erase that GP.[0]

[0] With apologies to _In The Pale Moonlight_

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#568

Post by vanusa »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #355
vanusa wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it's a combination of factors, based on: (1) Most chiefly, the egregiously unethical behavior of nearly all of the "big" players (the rest being merely moderately unethical) (2) Reports from close friends of the day-to-day grind at these places (literally none have anything more than superficially positive to say about it; some have suffered significant health problems, include one full-scale nervous breakdow…

> they just aren't as immediately obvious to find as FAANG Sounds like you'd need to spend some time to find these :) To your other points, I get feeling revulsion to Google or Facebook, but I feel there are other companies like Netflix or Stripe that are ethically fine . The idea that the employees are generally overworked doesn't mesh with my lived experience the bay area, I have a fairly wide social circle and I d…

I'm glad you understand the gut revulsion aspect, at least (which in my view applies to the 'A' companies as well, but that's a side topic).

Meanwhile your data points on 'N' and 'S' are appreciated and I will add them to my (mental) notes.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#569

Post by heurist »

anothernewdude wrote: post #261
tippytippytango wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't work like that. You have to be "on" even if you aren't working. That means you feel like you can't commit to anything substantial since you feel like you should be working. Fucking off on the internet is a coping mechanism to numb the pain of being in this limbo where you aren't working; but, feel like you should be working because you are getting paid a lot. In retrospect it's easy to see that there's thi…

I just got a second job. Keeps me busy rather than just spending time waiting all day.

Side gig/project is the answer here. If you're not doing 6-8 hours of active work per workday and no one is complaining you might as well use the rest for yourself. Make sure it's something where you can exercise creativity and/or learn.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#570

Post by cmrdporcupine »

davemp wrote: post #500
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These BigCorps are hiring like mad and paying big $$ to fill seats more for the purpose of starving their competition of brains than actually using the brains they hire. The work is primarily organizational/drudgery and moves at a slow pace because of all the red tape and walls they've built around their projects in order to manage all the people. Endless incremental code reviews for small changes that get pondered f…

Very well put, your comment resonates with my frustrations at a BigCorp. > These BigCorps are hiring like mad and paying big $$ to fill seats more for the purpose of starving their competition of brains than actually using the brains they hire. I used to apply Hanlon’s Razor to these types of hypothesis. After spending more time with the decision making class, the amount of psychopathic behavior and analysis I’ve see…

I don't think it's psychopathic or malevolent beyond what's normal for capitalism. It's how you win at making money. In any market you're either disrupting or at risk of being disrupted. There's multiple strategies you could take for the latter. And it certainly helps if you have a firehose of money (ads revenue).

Not speaking from any inside knowledge, BTW. Just my philosophizing.

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