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Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

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Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#621

Post by eschneider »

twawaaay wrote: post #550
adam_arthur wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No heuristic is perfect, but it's fairly easy to quantify empirically from activity/records. Developers who are productive (actually write and ship large amounts of quality code) tend to be valuable and those that don't, aren't. That being said there are some intangibles, like morale etc. It's possible there are people that benefit the team while having low personal productivity. But anyway, no need to approach in th…

> No heuristic is perfect, but it's fairly easy to quantify empirically from activity/records. Developers who are productive (actually write and ship large amounts of quality code) tend to be valuable and those that don't, aren't. If you are factory line worker, yes. If you are a developer or a manager (a "knowledge worker") -- what you could be observed to be doing has usually little correlation with result for the…

One of the big value-adds for a senior engineer is being able to recognize tasks that just don't need to be done, ever, because they just won't contribute much value relative to other things. Remember, it's not how much you get done. It's how much of the right stuff you get done.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#622

Post by twawaaay »

username_my1 wrote: post #619
twawaaay wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No heuristic is perfect, but it's fairly easy to quantify empirically from activity/records. Developers who are productive (actually write and ship large amounts of quality code) tend to be valuable and those that don't, aren't. If you are factory line worker, yes. If you are a developer or a manager (a "knowledge worker") -- what you could be observed to be doing has usually little correlation with result for the…

I keep hearing this argument about "knowledge workers" yet writers produce books, designers produce design documents, developers ship code. sometimes you slow down because you're starting something new or you're blocked by other people, but in general productivity measured in code changes frequency / volume and the impact of the feature being worked on is rather straightforward (how many users use the feature, how mu…

Developers do not just ship code. If you think developers only code you are naive and unfamiliar with developers' work.

Developers solve problems and then ship implementations of those solutions.

You can ship completely technically correct implementation to a wrong problem or wrong solution of a problem and it will look perfectly fine for an untrained eye.

My O(n^3) solution that has 1000 lines of code would be 5 times more valuable than 200 lines of code of O(log(n)) solution that I was able to write because I just fucking know what I am doing. The algorithm using lines of code as proxy for productivity will say the junior jackass did 5 times more work than me in the same amount of time.

And then you get the graybeard who changes a tiny bit in the data structure and makes entire problem go away. Find heuristics for that!

Only a person that delves in and spends a moment figures out that that half million lines of code is completely unnecessary because of Y.

The problem with measuring value of a knowledge worker is that you can't enumerate all possible outcomes to be able to tell with certainty that there is a better outcome, because you don't have the knowledge -- they have it. A person with knowledge has better library of possible solutions and better chance of finding it.

The value of knowledge worker in this case is being able to find better solution (because they have the knowledge you do not). The implementation, at least in case of developers, is usually the simple part of the problem.

Imagine you are in an unfamiliar city. You order a taxi and then spend 1h driving from A to B. The taxi is comfortable and the driver is perfect gentleman. You pay your fare and hop off at B.

Only after the fact you will or will not realise that actually, B was just one block from A and the driver essentially screwed you.

In this situation a map or instructions from somebody could tell you this, but with no map or instructions you are at the mercy of the driver who may or may not be doing good job and you will be unable to tell until after some time you got some more knowledge (got familiar with the city and got the Aha! moment).

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#623

Post by eschneider »

buscoquadnary wrote: post #230

So several times I've had the opportunity to join fast growing startups that offered quite a bit more compensation, and equity as well. One of the things that I always took consideration of was the stability of the company vs where I was at. Many of these people made a bet that working for Robinhood would pay off, it didn't that is part of the risk that came with the SV salaries, and the stock. I get that it sucks, b…

Stability is a bit of an illusion, as even profitable companies will do layoffs from time-to-time for a variety of reasons. When choosing where to work, I tend to look more at: Is this a reasonable business? Does management have a plan that makes sense? Do these people seem to have their priorities in order? Do I trust these people? Those questions hardly guarantee stability, but the right answers leave me comfortable that they've got a fair shot at it.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#624

Post by twawaaay »

eschneider wrote: post #621
twawaaay wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No heuristic is perfect, but it's fairly easy to quantify empirically from activity/records. Developers who are productive (actually write and ship large amounts of quality code) tend to be valuable and those that don't, aren't. If you are factory line worker, yes. If you are a developer or a manager (a "knowledge worker") -- what you could be observed to be doing has usually little correlation with result for the…

One of the big value-adds for a senior engineer is being able to recognize tasks that just don't need to be done, ever, because they just won't contribute much value relative to other things. Remember, it's not how much you get done. It's how much of the right stuff you get done.

Yeah, exactly. Now explain to somebody they need to come up with a measurements for all the things I have very efficiently declined to do... saving everybody time, effort and helping the really important task get the bandwidth it needed.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#625

Post by ipython »

lmm wrote: post #588
f6v wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up to a certain stage in your life everyone in a position of power is a moron. Some people evolve past that line of thinking, some don’t.

Funny, for me it was the opposite. I used to trust the experts and assume that most people in a position of power got there on their merits.

I think for me it was more a journey of understanding the necessity of the function and not the person. As in, I would question the need for management or marketing.

As I matured and, in some cases, tried to perform those tasks myself, I had a respect for the function. The people may still suck but at least now I understand how good execution of that function is necessary for the organization as a whole.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#626

Post by 55555 »

spookthesunset wrote: post #556
rossdavidh wrote: post #7

"Last year, we staffed many of our operations functions under the assumption that the heightened retail engagement we had been seeing with the stock and crypto markets in the COVID era would persist into 2022..." We are now at the point when we will find out which of the changes to behavior (financial and otherwise) that came about with the onset of the covid-19 pandemic are going to be lasting, and which are not. I…

Next up, the remote work craze. Everybody thinks they are super productive working from home but on a larger scale I imagine it took a huge hit. Plus it is dystopian as fuck. People need to be around people outside of their immediate family to stay sane and I promise you most of these new remote workers are basically never interacting with people outside their small bubbles. It’s gonna swing back. Calling it now. A t…

COVID and lockdowns literally gave the majority of people social anxiety. They won’t give their WFH up easily.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#627

Post by papito »

donkeyd wrote: post #611
Foobar8568 wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever worked with an Indian company? I am just laughing each time I hear huge talent pool. So maybe your top 1% is incredible but they already left the country.

This is my experience too. Worked with an Indian start-up and most of them were utterly useless. They also never managed to make any of their deadlines because they'd always say yes to whatever you asked. Thank god for the one guy who always fixed everything we needed. Of course, this is a broad generalization, but so is the idea that Indian talent will take over the world.

Seems like a culture problem and not a talent problem. Us developing world folks do not easily say "no" because we grew up in a top-down, authority-driven place.

Americans are pretty uppity when it comes to taking orders if you compare to others.

There is also a difference in interviewing. Only in America do you have to proactively market and sell yourself. Most other cultures are more timid and humble.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#628

Post by papito »

pipeline_peak wrote: post #463
adam_arthur wrote: post #358

The truth is that a majority of tech companies don't need 50%+ of their employees. Google could lay off vast swathes tomorrow and be immensely more profitable without any loss in revenue. The 2010s will be remembered as the golden era for tech employment. The second we start getting industry wide layoffs, the insanely high wage inflation we've seen will kick into reverse much faster than you probably believe possible…

> The truth is that a majority of tech companies don't need 50%+ of their employees. Then why are they hired? It can’t be image alone

Growing your office plankton messages to investors that "we are growing, give us more money".

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#629

Post by mstipetic »

Foobar8568 wrote: post #524
bpodgursky wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand this as theoretical possibility, and it could lead you astray if you're trying to tell a 40% developer from a 60% developer... but in practice I have never met a superstar IC who doesn't also ship a ton of code (even while they help out others). If you fire the 10% of ICs who push the least code, to within a rounding error you're extremely unlikely to regret it.

Your best engineers are facilitators, not coding monkeys.

That’s usually what poor engineers tell themselves

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#630

Post by theknocker »

trixie_ wrote: post #432
llaolleh wrote: post #24

That's a lot of staff - it means 1/5th of your coworkers got laid off... I'm very bearish on Robinhood - I don't know if they have enough of a moat to defend themselves from other free stock trading apps. People have forgiven so many outages. The Gamestop saga was the straw that broke the camel's back for many.

I like Robinhood and I have no problem with them having technical issues when users a flash mobbed a meme stock. In the end they learned what to do next time.

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