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“This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

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Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#61

Post by reledi »

anonymous592053 wrote: post #35
anonymous592053 wrote: post #34

> This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook. My > experience here has been incredibly transformative: I joined > Facebook after dropping out of college having never faced the > challenges that I've seen during my time here. At this point, I've > worked through these challenges for longer than 4/5 of the people at > the company and thought I would share some of my insights in hopes > that other engineer…

[Continuing because of HN's length restrictions] > In the code base that you live in, you quickly develop an > understanding of how the components fit together. Use this > knowledge: instead of only fixing a bug you're assigned, consider > how you can prevent that class of bug from ever happening > again. Instead of implementing a new feature, consider how you can > create a common abstraction between the new and old…

> Instead of telling another team member that he was wrong, I shared an experiment and results to demonstrate so, in order to minimize argumentation. [...] my overall performance was deemed poor.

That's interesting, because you often hear that "code wins arguments" at FB.

>> This might take more effort now but gives vastly greater results in the long run.

I'm also surprised by this. There seems to be a lot of importance placed on moving fast. Some of FB's mantras are "DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT", "MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS", and "STAY FOCUSED AND KEEP SHIPPING".

> * Actually, I am glad to say that I am now happily employed.

Your first comment starting by saying you were unemployed. Did someone just hire you since your comment?

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#63

Post by smegel »

anonfbemp wrote: post #40
anonymous592053 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Continuing because of HN's length restrictions] > In the code base that you live in, you quickly develop an > understanding of how the components fit together. Use this > knowledge: instead of only fixing a bug you're assigned, consider > how you can prevent that class of bug from ever happening > again. Instead of implementing a new feature, consider how you can > create a common abstraction between the new and old…

I can confirm the same experience as a non-engineer. I worked in a group that was not engineering, and had the same schizophrenic experience with respect to what I was told was the culture, what was expected and what the reality was. The culture of facebook is that of a pretentious enclave of people who think that simply their being at facebook is validation of their any actions or motivations. While the benefits of…

Wow, quite a few similar stories. I wonder how indicative they are of fb as a whole, or just particular teams. Does anyone have any positive experiences to relay?

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#65

Post by masklinn »

nilkn wrote: post #54
anon12345678 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was also fired from an engineering role at Facebook. However, I look at the experience very differently. They seek candidates with strong engineering skills, and only do a little culture fit at interview time (this was my experience at least). The real culture fit test happens during bootcamp, where they try for 6 weeks to break any misfit. Now that isn't going to work for everyone, but their strategy is to go all-…

Are you suggesting they effectively treat the first six weeks of employment as little more than an "extended interview" and fire anybody who doesn't make their cultural fit in that time frame?

That seems acceptable though it's really shitty if you end up not making the cut.

FWIW most european countries allow 1-6 months probation periods (for non-temp jobs, temp jobs have either no probation or much shorter ones). During probation, either side can terminate the contract without most of the restrictive clauses applying, it's essentially a short period of "at-will" to check fit between the company and the new employee.

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#66

Post by nglevin »

[deleted] wrote: post #64

[deleted]

Good job, and I regret to hear that it seems you were given some bad advice from authority.

There's a lesson I learned at around 12 or so, good to learn sooner than later. Don't trust the experts, for the sake of being experts.

I probably have a few good burn out stories to share, but since this is a public forum and you're anonymous, let's just say that it's part of the experience. Learn, live, move on, towards something better.

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#67

Post by officemonkey »

masklinn wrote: post #65
nilkn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting they effectively treat the first six weeks of employment as little more than an "extended interview" and fire anybody who doesn't make their cultural fit in that time frame?

That seems acceptable though it's really shitty if you end up not making the cut. FWIW most european countries allow 1-6 months probation periods (for non-temp jobs, temp jobs have either no probation or much shorter ones). During probation, either side can terminate the contract without most of the restrictive clauses applying, it's essentially a short period of "at-will" to check fit between the company and the new…

New federal government employees also have to serve a 1-year "probation" where they can be let go for pretty much no reason. I've seen agencies exercise that right rarely, but it does happen.

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#68

Post by dasil003 »

anonymous592053 wrote: post #35
anonymous592053 wrote: post #34

> This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook. My > experience here has been incredibly transformative: I joined > Facebook after dropping out of college having never faced the > challenges that I've seen during my time here. At this point, I've > worked through these challenges for longer than 4/5 of the people at > the company and thought I would share some of my insights in hopes > that other engineer…

[Continuing because of HN's length restrictions] > In the code base that you live in, you quickly develop an > understanding of how the components fit together. Use this > knowledge: instead of only fixing a bug you're assigned, consider > how you can prevent that class of bug from ever happening > again. Instead of implementing a new feature, consider how you can > create a common abstraction between the new and old…

The thing about this story that strikes me is that it's impossible to know if this rejection was because of any objective quality that would have prevented you from being a good Facebook employee, or whether it was just politics. Even for the players themselves I don't think anyone can say for sure.

Even though Facebook has a reputation for a strong, engineer-driven culture, the fact is that at a certain size the politics are complicated. It's not a question of whether you have to play politics or not, but rather what do the politics look like? This is why I like working for startups, there just isn't any room for politics, and you can sink or swim based on highly visible contributions. Even though Facebook makes the claim that as an engineer you are responsible for the experiences of X million users, in practice that's not how it works.

Good luck in your new job.

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#69

Post by eyeareque »

anonymous592053 wrote: post #34

> This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook. My > experience here has been incredibly transformative: I joined > Facebook after dropping out of college having never faced the > challenges that I've seen during my time here. At this point, I've > worked through these challenges for longer than 4/5 of the people at > the company and thought I would share some of my insights in hopes > that other engineer…

I disabled my Facebook account over a month ago. It was tough to do at first, but as time went by I felt much happier about being disconnected. I've enjoyed having less distractions and false reassurances. I no longer need to keep up with everyday posts from people I don't know that well or rarely see. In this time away from the site I've realized that real friends will still be your friends even if you don't have a Facebook account.

Facebook will be surpassed by another site sooner or later. Just like how Friendster, MySpace, and others were. It is just a matter of time.

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#70

Post by dave_sid »

It's funny how people are so interested in the development practices of Facebook as if that's how it should be done.

It's a bit like the halo effect, where if the company does one thing right (get lucky and dominate the market by being first), then everything else they do must be right too.

If you ask me, they could take what ever approach to development, hiring, training and firing they like and they'd just be as successful.

But, none of that stuff is what made them successful. Therefore, I'm actually not that interested.

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