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

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

#971

Post by dyingkneepad »

wizofaus wrote: post #592
dyingkneepad wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for a company where the VPN sucks so much that we find ways to work outside it. Shadow IT is a thing here. I'd say some of our most productive and value-creating employees may go months without logging in internal systems, because things that are inside the company are able to pull their work that they do outside, so they don't have to deal with the shitty Windows-centric IT.

But are you talking software development? And if so, is that because key systems like source control/ticketing/chat/meetings etc. are all cloud-hosted and don't require logging into the domain/VPN etc.? If so, I'd still count that as "logging in", in the sense, they're online and interacting with other co-workers.

Most of our work is about interacting with entities outside the company.

Bots usually take source code that is hosted outside the company do do things internally, such as QA, and then publish the result externally or to some internal channel that is accessible from outside the usual IT systems (IT workarounds). It's complicated to tell you without going into details.

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

#972

Post by alxndr »

zmgsabst wrote: post #526
nr2x wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s actually a good thing to just have a pool of people who know how stuff actually works. Otherwise there could be very key infra that only one or two people fully understand since the code is “mature”, doesn’t need modifications, and nobody wants to work on it. In theory of course, I’m sure in reality the digital world isn’t at the mercy of <200 SWEs who gave up on promo and live in the basement.

This is an interesting question to me — do software engineers follow a Pareto distribution on their impact? That would imply that around 1,000 SDEs are delivering 38% of the impact in the field. A change in culture which drove out that 0.1% would potentially noticeably drop the UX of “tech”, across the US.

Maybe the distribution is relative to the company's Eng org?

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

#973

Post by amzn-throw »

russellbeattie wrote: post #808
amzn-throw wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's bullshit and you're gonna scare the shit out of any junior Amazonian reading this unnecessarily. Obviously nothing is TRULY anonymous - at the end of the day there is a super secured database that HR can go into if there is a need. The data is there much in the same way that every email you send is discoverable in a lawsuit. Or if you get fired and bring a USB key and copy all your data they'll get it. Nothing…

I stand corrected about the anonymity of the surveys. I wasn't a manager and I can't say I paid much attention during the meetings. But there are a lot of sub-managers who have just a couple of reports and it can't be particularly hard to figure out. Still, I shouldn't have stated it as fact. I'd edit the post if I could. You didn't confirm or deny that manager performance was tied to those connections data. Care to…

My primary HN account has a lot of other things in it that I'd rather not be associated with me being an "Amazonian", hence this one :)

Manager performance is not tied to connections data. However, manager's performance is tied to the kind of facets of team cohesion, productivity, satisfaction, and delivery that the Connections data. Does that make sense?

And it's not a terrible proxy. For example, it would be relevant if a manager was measured on their ability to hire and retain people, right? Well, if certain connections questions have a direct correlation with people leaving the team, you can imagine someone would tell the manager "Fix this connections score, or else people will leave the team."

But if they fixed the connection score, but people still left the team, they wouldn't be able to get away with that as a success. The metric is a proxy, not the target.

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

#974

Post by amzn-throw »

Invictus0 wrote: post #786
amzn-throw wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's bullshit and you're gonna scare the shit out of any junior Amazonian reading this unnecessarily. Obviously nothing is TRULY anonymous - at the end of the day there is a super secured database that HR can go into if there is a need. The data is there much in the same way that every email you send is discoverable in a lawsuit. Or if you get fired and bring a USB key and copy all your data they'll get it. Nothing…

"But that's not how it is on my team!" is the dumbest and yet most common response you hear from Amazon employees when they hear about Amazon's horrible business practices. The whole company is in fact a team. You are part of the exact same team.

My main message was that NO - that's not how it is ANYWHERE at the company. Connections data isn't available to managers de-anonymized. Period. On any team.

This post also has nothing to do with Amazon's business practices, but rather HR practices with employees.

Lastly, yes, there are some facets of what I wrote that are about my team. But this is the case anywhere. Some teams have good manager. Some have bad ones. Good ones rise. Bad ones fall. That includes using the same tools and techniques for good or for evil.

I absolutely do see Amazon as one whole team. That's why I felt the need to comment to make people working on other teams not think that this poster is revealing some secret insider information, and new SDEs be scared thinking what is happening with their 'private survey' results.

The REASONS for why there is such a variability in process and culture between AMazon teams would need a whole other blog post, but the tl;dr is: The #1 focus of Amazon development teams is delivering results and getting things done. This is done by removing road blocks and incentivizing RADICAL autonomy on the teams - way more than is available at tech giants of comparable stature (whether Apple, Google, Facebook, or Microsoft).

The upside of this is a tremendous sense of autonomy and responsibility offered to every engineer which is empowering and addictive.

The downside of this is that toxic managers can thrive temporarily and ruin good teams through misused autonomy. They do get weeded out, but it takes time. And good people can be lost along the way.

This is not an excuse, this is an explanation.

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

#975

Post by titanomachy »

bskap wrote: post #725
jedberg wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pre-pandemic, Google stopped serving breakfast at 8 and started dinner at 7. A lot of the younger folks were there for 11 hours every day so they could get all three meals. If you're there that long, you need to take breaks once in a while, which they of course provided plenty of options. They even had laundry machines on site so that you could do laundry between meetings.

Breakfast stopped at 10, not 8. Dinner started at 6, but most people didn't stay for it.

Yeah, you could roll up at 10 and grab breakfast, start working at 10:30, then finish at 4:30, work out, shower, then grab dinner and head home. Pretty fucking idyllic.

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

#976

Post by austinjp »

sershe wrote: post #949
austinjp wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depresses me no end that someone can see poor performance, laziness etc only as a trait others possess, and not as a reaction to circumstance that they themselves might experience one day. I guarantee that anyone -- anyone -- can find themselves viewed as substandard. It's truly disturbing when Zuckerberg says something so dystopian, and people 'in the trenches' call for more.

Sub-standard is relative to a standard. If someone finds themselves to be sub-standard, maybe they should find a place with lower standards? That's exactly what Zuck is saying. On one hand, I've worked with a guy once who, as far as I could tell, did about an hour of work per day (if that) and played fantasy baseball in his office most of the time, waiting to be PIPed and managed out for a really long time... I inher…

> Sub-standard is relative to a standard. If someone finds themselves to be sub-standard, maybe they should find a place with lower standards? That's exactly what Zuck is saying.

Sure, and maybe Zuck should just keep shifting the goal-posts, without limit? Where's the harm?

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

#977

Post by austinjp »

seizethecheese wrote: post #734
austinjp wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depresses me no end that someone can see poor performance, laziness etc only as a trait others possess, and not as a reaction to circumstance that they themselves might experience one day. I guarantee that anyone -- anyone -- can find themselves viewed as substandard. It's truly disturbing when Zuckerberg says something so dystopian, and people 'in the trenches' call for more.

Okay, so you think it’s all circumstantial? What’s the mix? Are there no people that just like to skate by?

Nope. Don't know. Nope.

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

#978

Post by austinjp »

austinjp wrote: post #636
twblalock wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been at places where I would love to hear the CEO say that. Being forced to work with poor performers, lazy people, and people who deliver poor quality results is frustrating and demoralizing. Those kinds of people can stick around for years, especially in good times when the company is making so much money that leadership doesn't need to care. Netflix is one of the few large companies that has a culture of cull…

It depresses me no end that someone can see poor performance, laziness etc only as a trait others possess, and not as a reaction to circumstance that they themselves might experience one day. I guarantee that anyone -- anyone -- can find themselves viewed as substandard. It's truly disturbing when Zuckerberg says something so dystopian, and people 'in the trenches' call for more.

Rather than continue replying to individuals, my final thoughts:

The responses here seem short-sighted.

A company is openly increasing pressure on staff to force people to leave.

This does not protect or benefit you, despite what you may think about how great things will be once your idiotic, lazy co-workers amicably depart with zero collateral impact.

This is aggressively targeted at you. Not today's you (or so you believe) but tomorrow's you.

Just because you imagine you'll benefit from this shifting of boundaries, doesn't mean you'll continue to benefit next time it happens.

And for the variations on the theme "so you think everyone should be allowed to slack off", nope, and I didn't say that.

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

#979

Post by mecha_ghidorah »

groffee wrote: post #647
darth_avocado wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I am not a dead weight and I’ll never be, but I also do absolutely bare minimum to not get fired. That's the literal definition of dead weight.

Is it? I'd interpret dead weight as being... well a dead weight, say an anchor holding back progress. Or being generous at least not contributing anything even they aren't actively holding things back. Doing "the bare minimum" isn't dead weight though, they are still contributing

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

#980

Post by antipaul »

potatolicious wrote: post #111

It's frustrating that this thread seems to be focused so heavily on people sitting around resting and vesting. Having been inside Google (and multiple other FAANGs) this is generally untrue, and focusing on this element of the problem misses a much larger productivity problem: Most engineers at Google aren't "sitting around doing nothing", they are very busy shipping projects that do not matter. Their days are filled…

Your mention of “upper management” engagement in decisions seems counter to what I hear all the time, about an (upper) management philosophy of “getting out of the way” to “empower” “people close to the ground” and “delegate decision making”

And yet, I am with you: shouldn’t the top (smartest?) people be closely involved “in the weeds”? It seems like “design dictators” [from another comment] and such could actually make the org’s products a lot better. Which seems to be the philosophy at Apple: “experts leading experts” – as a reply here says, and the article in [1].

Thoughts anyone?

[1] https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovatio...

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