'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#961

Post by jeffbee » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 4:27 PM UTC

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #951

jeffbee wrote: post #802

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wanted to say that you've hit on a real problem: the rich-get-richer feedback cycle in which all the good projects are taken by high ranking engineers. On my teams, including at Google, we intentional counteracted that by giving the interesting work to the person just barely qualified to do it, and biasing the crud toward the senior team members.

This is why it is much better for younger engineers to work at smaller companies working on interesting ideas but if you wanna get google pay, then you gotta make those sacrifices.

Strongly disagree. Most new grads who gets offers from Google, Microsoft or another big-league software company, should absolutely take it. There are only a few very specific smaller companies working on cutting edge ideas and it's unlikely that a new entrant in the industry will be able to identify them.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#962

Post by closeparen » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 4:44 PM UTC

rubiquity wrote: post #484

fefe23 wrote: post #245

As a consultant, I come around a bit. I have seen many companies with very poor productivity, and in zero of those cases was it laziness of the employees. In fact they usually would have loved to be more productive. Nobody wants to spend their life being dead weight. But as companies grow they install more and more rules and regulations that end up making sure nothing ever gets done. It is not unusual to meet "develo…

I'm surprised to see this is the top voted comment because it is completely off the mark in this case and anyone that has spent any amount of time reading Blind (a website dedicated to... I'm not sure what exactly) knows it. While Facebook/Meta, Google, and others have always paid comparatively well, in the past 2-3 years the pay shot up even higher and the only price of admission is supreme obedience to "grinding Le…

Blind is full of people from the Bay Area, where if you are the very best in the world at wringing the corporate ladder for everything it’s worth, you might just maybe be able to buy a home for your family one day.

One thing remote work might bring us is a little more chill about compensation, as people live in regions where people not optimizing for TC can be comfortable and secure.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#963

Post by phendrenad2 » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 4:49 PM UTC

nrmitchi wrote: post #30

I thought it was a widely-known-secret that at least part of the insane hiring of engineers without clear teams, projects, etc for them to work on initially was to prevent individuals working for current-or-potential competitors. Purposely over-hiring to prevent work being done elsewhere, and then claiming there is not enough work to be done, feels like it shouldn't be surprising to anyone. Hell, Google has created ~…

Then why is their hiring geared toward brain teasers and Bigoh notation? If they want to keep people from building the next Facebook (costing them M&A money, because they'd have to acquire it), why not hire based on ability to get things done?

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#964

Post by closeparen » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 4:49 PM UTC

noirbot wrote: post #613

bcrosby95 wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't anything like how a place like Google or Facebook works. I would guess that the vast majority of developers (I daresay 100% of them) posting on HN would not like to work at a place like that.

I think it's a mix of both - I'd kill for anyone at my current job to spend more than a bare minimum of time on their acceptance criterion so I don't just feel like I'm writing code and hoping it does vaguely what the person wants. What the GP is describing feels a bit too far in the other direction, but I'd almost rather it trend towards having an over-prescriptive ticket I can push back on then playing telephone wi…

At a product company, the lead engineer(s) and the product manager, who is a direct everyday member of the engineering team, collectively own what the product is supposed to be. There’s not someone else two departments away who is a more legitimate authority on what to build.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#965

Post by wizofaus » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 6:06 PM UTC

fiveyearsinarow wrote: post #959

wizofaus wrote: post #883

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What level are they hired at though, and are you talking developers?

Mostly level 4 SWEs, a few L5s.

So these are devs on base salaries over 160k+, presumably considered to be somewhat senior, and their teams just let them get away without contributing their share? Not even showing up to stand ups or whatever regular team meetings there are? Something seems very off for that to be the case.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#966

Post by schlauerfox » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 8:26 PM UTC

This is pretty disgusting PR to try to spin what is clearly a systemic failure of business management at every level or other hidden motives of the planners of the business into blame for the worker who doesn't control the system nor what there assigned to do. It's disgusting reporters don't push back on this nonsense, but just parrot whatever press release they get.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#967

Post by schlauerfox » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 8:29 PM UTC

mberning wrote: post #76

This is not surprising to anybody that ever worked at a sufficiently large organization. Once you get a large number of employees, then layer in HR, legal, compliance, etc. considerations it creates quite a lot of opportunities for low performers to get in the door and never leave.

Convenient that they only worry about this during recessions, what purpose would management have to ignore these problems until now? It's a sleight-of-hand to shift blame come earnings time and give management something to do to 'fix the problem' (that their mismanagement created) they can point to, nothing more.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#968

Post by invig » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 8:31 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #567

fefe23 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have met a few of those people, but every single one of them needed a justification. Some told me they felt wronged by the company somehow. For example they had experienced bullying, or didn't get promoted when they felt they should have been, or they had contributed something and then it got cut from the product, something like that in most cases. Now didn't feel they owed the company anything. Yet others said the…

I am not a dead weight and I’ll never be, but I also do absolutely bare minimum to not get fired. And by bare minimum, I mean, I will always finish my work in the time it is expected to be finished. And if the expectations are higher, I’ll move on to another job. I do this as a way to get back at corporate America. Too many companies get away with sucking out their employees dry and firing them once they can’t meet t…

This framing is unhelpful.

You haven't been wronged by “corporate America”. That's not even a thing that could have wronged you.

You've worked for or with people behaving badly. Did you call them out on it? If nobody calls them out on bad behaviour how will things get better?

Some people are being so bad that you just have to leave to avoid harm. Fair enough.

It's hard to imagine that this silent retribution does anything but make the problem worse.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#969

Post by i_have_an_idea » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 9:32 PM UTC

deelowe wrote: post #860

i_have_an_idea wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me, quality of life is working hard and smart during the 8h, and keeping the rest of the day for you and your family Mate, I browsed your profile and you live in Australia. Why would you want to spend the better, sunnier part of the day inside of an office? How is that "quality of life" better than spending an hour or so to play some basketball with some friends? > Of course we still do team building activities,…

> no one likes to hang out with their boss or coworkers for "fun" after work hours. Oh, there absolutely are people who like to do this, but their intent is not at all altruistic.

True and that's a big part of the problem. I just don't want to spend my free time with people behaving like that.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#970

Post by ReflectedImage » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

tagami wrote: post #204

A haircut (10-20%?) would be good for all involved. There are great employees and there are slackers in all fields.

Well I'm in a corp style place. The haircut was done by rolling dice. And whilst my number didn't come up, I wouldn't be so sure that's it's good for any involved.