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Googler... ex-Googler

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Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#821

Post by entropicdrifter »

PaulHoule wrote: post #789
dsr_ wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Amazon? Yes, very likely.

I remember a few years back when it seemed anyone who (1) had a pulse and (2) had rumors circulating that they might be a software developer got a contact from an AMZN recruiter about once a month if not sooner. It was frequent to have somebody complain on HN about how they could not get an interview with FAANG and I'd say "you really haven't gotten interviews with AMZN" and of course they were getting interviews wit…

I once wrote a reply email to an Amazon recruiter saying effectively, "If Amazon were the last software company left on earth, I would rather become a carpenter than work there. Please never ask me to interview there again."

Anyhow a couple years later I got called by a recruiter from Amazon asking me if I'd be willing to relocate to work there.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#822

Post by xdavidliu »

gedy wrote: post #732
mont_tag wrote: post #623

ISTM software engineers have been living in a privileged and elite world. They are then utterly shocked to be treated like employees are treated elsewhere. Pretty much anywhere if you are let go, your email access and physical access are cut off immediately. Start-ups do this all the time as funding gets tight or there is a need to pivot. I get that this sucks (and have been on the both the dishing out side of this a…

> ISTM software engineers Probably not the International Society of Travel Medicine, what's the abbreviation?

https://bulletin.gwu.edu/courses/istm/

Information Systems and Technology Management

I've also never heard anyone say this though, but I'm guessing that's what they meant.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#823

Post by ein0p »

goldchainposse wrote: post #97
ein0p wrote: post #53

As an ex-Googler I say: blessing in disguise. When working at a $MEGACORP it's easy to think there's barren wasteland out there beyond the walls, so it's scary. But that is very much not so. I get that opportunities to work on browsers are relatively few and far between, but if you can do something else, try working for a smaller company which treats you more like a human being, and less like a replaceable cog. Not m…

I want to get enough time at $MEGACORP to have FU money. After that, my fear is a lot of smaller companies are working on thing even more boring, but with less scale. Gluing a domain-specific API to a few LLMs sounds boring. I got into tech because I liked learning it, but a lot of it is getting repetitive.

No such thing as FU money. As you get more you want more, or if you don't then your spouse does. There is such a thing as "I can tolerate a 3-6 month job search no problem and not jump at the first opportunity" money. It makes 90% of the difference, especially in the long run.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#824

Post by gedy »

xdavidliu wrote: post #822
gedy wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ISTM software engineers Probably not the International Society of Travel Medicine, what's the abbreviation?

https://bulletin.gwu.edu/courses/istm/ Information Systems and Technology Management I've also never heard anyone say this though, but I'm guessing that's what they meant.

Other reply pointed out "It Seems To Me" which seems reasonable.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#825

Post by pb7 »

AndyKelley wrote: post #131

> I really was just a fuckin cog in a mega corp. Yes, you were. Next time, please choose a company that contributes to society rather than shoving ads in everyone's faces.

He did, he worked at Google. What is your contribution to society? Some language reinventing the wheel for the 500th time? Google created a dozen of those alone and they don't even make the footnote of the contributions list.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#826

Post by chucksmash »

ein0p wrote: post #823
goldchainposse wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to get enough time at $MEGACORP to have FU money. After that, my fear is a lot of smaller companies are working on thing even more boring, but with less scale. Gluing a domain-specific API to a few LLMs sounds boring. I got into tech because I liked learning it, but a lot of it is getting repetitive.

No such thing as FU money. As you get more you want more, or if you don't then your spouse does. There is such a thing as "I can tolerate a 3-6 month job search no problem and not jump at the first opportunity" money. It makes 90% of the difference, especially in the long run.

Of course there is such a thing.

Lifestyle inflation is a known phenomenon which you (and your spouse) can choose to avoid if you prioritize it, not some immutable rule of nature.

If the treadmill of accumulation that lets someone believe "there's no such thing as enough" ever stops, I think they would be shocked at how quickly they realize what enough actually means.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#827

Post by holsta »

SteveNuts wrote: post #659
_huayra_ wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how they're bad at this from start to end. Most of these comments talk about the "end" part, but don't forget: Google has a notoriously laggy hiring process with extreme delays and an unacceptably high level of silence on important issues from recruiters. I have been ghosted so heavily from recruiters TWICE at Google when I was literally telling them "Hey I have offers from $x and $y and I need to decide in 2 w…

Totally unrelated, but I was once contacted by an Amazon recruiter and sent him my resume. He called me to discuss my experience, one of which mentioned that I worked in an environment where my team managed "30,000+ servers". He took the opportunity to say something along the lines of "that's irrelevant, that's smaller than one datacenter in one of our regions". I honestly have no idea why the recruiters from these p…

> I honestly have no idea why the recruiters from these places have such a superiority complex that they need to belittle people like that.

Many, many years ago I sat next to HR in an open plan office while on a freelance gig.

They treated almost all candidates like subhumans, both when talking about the candidates within the team and when speaking on the phone to candidates.

They handled everyone from factory worker and janitorial roles, to specialists to director level. I very clearly got the impression that they only treated candidates well if those candidates could turn into people who had any power over them within the org.

I've carried that with me since and I often recognize it in HR staff I interact with now.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#828

Post by Viliam1234 »

eadmund wrote: post #818
spacemadness wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American companies play mental games and gaslight everyone by calling it “a hard decision” and try to place the empathy back on the executives who get paid 10-100x the employees they just fired without warning. It’s sociopathic behavior.

I don’t think that’s really fair. It can certainly be a hard but necessary decision. And what does it matter that a CEO makes more than his employees? Even if he makes 50 times what they make, that means even if he gave up all of his salary he could only save the jobs of 50 employees.

Could he get a bonus if he fires 50 more?

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#829

Post by rurp »

wiether wrote: post #366
azangru wrote: post #324

I've skimmed through the comments; and seen that most people have commented on the cog in the machine thing, or on layoffs in general and how they suck. To me, the shock from this blog post was about seeing a Chrome developer relations engineer whom I have grown to admire and who has been doing a stellar job educating web developers on new html and css features, get the sack. He was one of the best remaining speakers…

> for me personally, this is also a huge disillusionment in Google This feels like "I installed Chrome before Google went evil". https://fortune.com/2025/03/19/tesla-owners-elon-crazy-bumpe...

I can't wait for everyone to be shocked, shocked, in five years when the biggest genAI companies get caught engaging in a bunch of sleazy behavior.

Re: Googler... ex-Googler

#830

Post by khedoros1 »

entropicdrifter wrote: post #821
PaulHoule wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a few years back when it seemed anyone who (1) had a pulse and (2) had rumors circulating that they might be a software developer got a contact from an AMZN recruiter about once a month if not sooner. It was frequent to have somebody complain on HN about how they could not get an interview with FAANG and I'd say "you really haven't gotten interviews with AMZN" and of course they were getting interviews wit…

I once wrote a reply email to an Amazon recruiter saying effectively, "If Amazon were the last software company left on earth, I would rather become a carpenter than work there. Please never ask me to interview there again." Anyhow a couple years later I got called by a recruiter from Amazon asking me if I'd be willing to relocate to work there.

I think I wrote an email along those lines, at some point, although it was as much annoyance with the persistence of a particular recruiter as it was a desire not to work at Amazon.
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