|
Guinness posted:the dirty not-so-secret secret of big tech is that most dev jobs are the same day to day keeping the lights on bullshit as any other dev job, except you get paid twice as much Shhhhhh shhhhhh ssshhhhh don't ruin this for us shhhhhh
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2020 23:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 10:43 |
|
|
To be honest, when I see someone's an ex-googler my first reaction is to wonder whether they'll be able to work outside of the Google development environment and if they'll just spend their time trying to reimplement a version of some tool Google had internally instead of whatever they'd be supposed to work on.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2020 02:11
|
|
|
Google's internal tools are the real golden handcuffs.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2020 05:26
|
|
|
Late Euro Topic Postin'Destroyenator posted:I’ve been doing the expat thing in Scandinavia for a few years now. It's worth noting as well, to be clear to Ameri-goons, that the systems are a lot more varied and less H1B-ish in nature in Scandinavia. Never looked seriously at Sweden, but Norway doesn't have a (direct) employer-sponsored-visa system: Your visa agreement is with the government, and proving you have a job is just your part of that. The government, based on whatever, will also decide whether or not your work visa is tied to a given job or simply a *type* of job - my anecdotal experience is that developers don't get tied to an employer, and are free to hop around so long as they're being developers. Those said, Denmark might be the easiest for Americans to get a visa - they've got a (relatively) simple "we don't care much so long as you make good money" visa - your employer files with the government saying they're going to pay you a lot of money, into a Danish bank account, and you're off to the races. IIRC the line on that is only like 55k USD annually, so almost any developer would qualify. Progressive JPEG posted:I've also gotten the impression that Swedish is pretty easy to learn among Scandinavian languages if you already know English, with Finnish/Estonian off in a separate group of languages entirely All of the Scandinavian languages are pretty easy to learn as an English speaker, relative to most other languages out there. If you're not already there, though, the probably most significant hurdle will just be getting actual conversation time in. redleader posted:yeah, american devs thinking about fleeing their sinking ship really need to understand and internalise how drastically higher their salaries are compared to the rest of the world. sure, americans have to pay for things (healthcare) out of pocket, but even accounting for that you earn substantially more This, even for non FAANG, non-valley folks, this. Society is a lot flatter, at least in Scandinavia. Taking into account just salary difference and bonus difference (and ignoring stock options, etc) - I took something like a 40k hit for the opportunity to emigrate. TooMuchAbstraction posted:It ain't all about money. I want to live in a functioning society. Keep in mind Americans have brainworms. It's gonna take years and years and years to deprogram, and that's with effort and focus on integrating into such a functional society.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2020 09:42
|
|
|
MononcQc posted:To be honest, when I see someone's an ex-googler my first reaction is to wonder whether they'll be able to work outside of the Google development environment and if they'll just spend their time trying to reimplement a version of some tool Google had internally instead of whatever they'd be supposed to work on. This is compensated for by the fact that the internal developer environment changes out from under you constantly so you get a lot of practice learning new tools
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2020 17:06
|
|
|
First off, thanks for the replies guys. I appreciate it.bob dobbs is dead posted:in figgieland prime, the backlash against k8s fanatics and dipshits who demand distributed systems for 5 users/hour is well underway I'm definitely not looking to get a PhD or really be a trailblazer in a field, thankfully. I would be fine with just being able to con my way in to some place that has actual needs for scaling past one big monolith for their business. Guinness posted:the dirty not-so-secret secret of big tech is that most dev jobs are the same day to day keeping the lights on bullshit as any other dev job, except you get paid twice as much I think I would be pretty happy getting a bullshit keep the lights on job for a bit if it meant a big boost for my career (and a nice fat paycheck). I spent my career up to this point thinking "heh, I don't need to be like everyone else, I don't need to move to the Bay Area or work for one of those big companies", partly out of desire and partly out of fear of making a big move like that. Now, looking back, I'm wondering if I had just sucked it up and made those moves then maybe my career would have taken off and I would have more choice and flexibility on what I want to do. I guess my current set of self-doubting fears is that before I know it I'm going to send my resume to companies and they'll say something like "oh you've been working for 10 years and this is what you have to show for it?". Am I moving fast enough to keep up? Ah who knows though, maybe I'm just unhappy with my situation at work (the engineering VP/my boss "left" the company closer to the start of the year, and now we're just a team of 5 or so engineers with no real manager). The company I'm working at kinda seems like it's about to go on a big hiring spree (raised a series A, looking for a new eng VP basically just to do hiring, revenue positive and known in this B2B industry, etc. etc.) and take off on a rocket ship of increased responsibility and resume fodder that would alleviate all my concerns, but for the last few months it has also.....just not done that yet. Might be COVID to blame, or maybe things just seem quiet but they really are about to take off, I don't know.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2020 22:33
|
|
|
piratepilates posted:the engineering VP/my boss "left" the company closer to the start of the year, and now we're just a team of 5 or so engineers with no real manager this is your actual problem you can solve by moving to figgieland prime, sure. could also move to a secondary figgieland or just yotj where you are
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2020 23:34
|
|
|
are there any figgieland companies that aren't morally abhorrent? i guess netflix? maybe microsoft?
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2020 23:43
|
|
|
Blinkz0rz posted:are there any figgieland companies that aren't morally abhorrent? maybe microsoft? Not really sure how to respond to this
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2020 23:56
|
|
|
Blinkz0rz posted:are there any figgieland companies that aren't morally abhorrent? i guess netflix? maybe microsoft? the second tier public tech companies that compete for talent with the big boys but this is still america and these are still multibillion dollar businesses
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 00:10
|
|
|
Blinkz0rz posted:are there any figgieland companies that aren't morally abhorrent? i guess netflix? maybe microsoft? I'm just going to leave this here... https://onezero.medium.com/a-year-after-an-hr-crisis-microsoft-backs-away-from-releasing-a-transparency-report-c724ce636349 On to other subjects... INTERNS! Just noticed that the intern we really like is only a Sophmore. I've never had a Sophmore intern before. How do people handle that for setting expectations in the future? Do you automatically extend an offer to them to come back in their Junior year? Do you tell them that you like them and to look you up in two years but next year you're going to look at other candidates to keep that funnel as wide as possible? Spoiler: We really like this guy.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 00:15
|
|
|
every tech major is about the same size and complexity as a medieval state, and about as complicated wrt relations of suzerainty and the dipshitness of things. your mileage will vary wrt ethics real hard
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 00:28
|
|
|
Hughlander posted:I'm just going to leave this here... https://onezero.medium.com/a-year-after-an-hr-crisis-microsoft-backs-away-from-releasing-a-transparency-report-c724ce636349 Just offer the kid a job right now.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 00:42
|
|
|
bob dobbs is dead posted:this is your actual problem yotj? ye....year of the janitor? edit: The March Hare posted:Just offer the kid a job right now. yeah do this, or do what we did and only invite the interns we liked to the christmas party (after their term was up, not during it obviously)
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 02:01
|
|
|
piratepilates posted:yeah do this, or do what we did and only invite the interns we liked to the christmas party (after their term was up, not during it obviously) You realize what year we're living in right? Like there's going to be a Holiday party... I can do this but honestly from a good school they'd be insane to get a job vs finishing the degree and it's a 2022 graduation date.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 02:08
|
|
|
Blinkz0rz posted:are there any figgieland companies that aren't morally abhorrent? i guess netflix? maybe microsoft? I know a couple of people who work for Microsoft and it seems fairly normal (apart from the whole HR diversity thing that came out today). But there are apparently many other reasons to not want to work there. Personally, I'd probably hate the tech stack. And there was some article written many years ago about why the Windows Font Selector box still looked like a Win 3.11 app in Windows 7 which exposed just how difficult it was to get anything approved and changed.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 02:12
|
|
|
piratepilates posted:yotj? job year of the job 
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 02:21
|
|
|
bob dobbs is dead posted:job  that does make sense
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 03:03
|
|
|
College students like money and need something to fill the time between semesters, if you offer them another internship next year they'll probably accept. We have a bunch of people at work that did several internships before finishing their desired series of degrees and signing on for real.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 03:20
|
|
|
minato posted:Netflix are apparently pretty horrible to work for. The pay is amazing, but the expectations are very high, you have to bring your A++ game every day and they will ditch you quickly if you don't. (Source: two friends who worked for them) Microsoft is big in open source dev these days. They've got a bunch of rubyists running the github platform, typescript, a bunch of other things going on than just Windows.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 03:34
|
|
|
Hughlander posted:I'm just going to leave this here... https://onezero.medium.com/a-year-after-an-hr-crisis-microsoft-backs-away-from-releasing-a-transparency-report-c724ce636349 Tell them that you’d love to have them back next year, and then reach out again at the start of intern hiring season. Absolutely do not tell someone you want to hire to go work somewhere else first.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 03:35
|
|
|
Blinkz0rz posted:are there any figgieland companies that aren't morally abhorrent? i guess netflix? maybe microsoft? The only tech companies you can ethically work for are startups that are shoveling VC money into a furnace without ever releasing a product. Once you have revenue you’re hosed.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 03:38
|
|
|
drat i accidentally had an ethical career make sure the vc limited partners are terrible peeps too
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 03:43
|
|
|
Plorkyeran posted:The only tech companies you can ethically work for are startups that are shoveling VC money into a furnace without ever releasing a product. Once you have revenue you’re hosed. depends on if the revenue also comes from companies that are shoveling VC money into a furnace. twice as ethical in that case.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 03:46
|
|
|
bob dobbs is dead posted:make sure the vc limited partners are terrible peeps too Isn't that pretty automatic?
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 03:49
|
|
|
sometimes its pension funds and small endowments and poo poo you wanna do the high net worth peeps ones
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 03:50
|
|
|
Hughlander posted:I'm just going to leave this here... https://onezero.medium.com/a-year-after-an-hr-crisis-microsoft-backs-away-from-releasing-a-transparency-report-c724ce636349 Direct offer of internship, prior to the end of the current one. Just lock them in so they aren't looking around too much. Not doing this means they're going to look around elsewhere. You can also see if they want to do a co-op or otherwise split time. If they're local, you can arrange part time employment during the school terms. Edit: lol it's covidland, so just offer them part time remote during school term.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 04:05
|
|
|
Hadlock posted:Not really sure how to respond to this I believe bender gif would work. Anyway, as with any big co, where you can ask someone "how is the culture in the $city branch?" and get back "we have branch in $city?" MS is very dependent on the team and subpart of the company you end up joining.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 06:29
|
|
|
you read medieval history and they draw up their armies by calling the vassals and their vassals vassals and so on a modern tech major is basically that, a medieval kingdom do you get charlesmagne the great or charles 2 of spain who shat himself and was more inbred than if his parents were siblings? who knows! bob dobbs is dead fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Jul 31, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 08:19
|
|
|
Hadlock posted:Not really sure how to respond to this Try not to be defensive. Some people care about the effects their work and the company they work for have on the world.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 13:26
|
|
|
No, I'm just trying to wrap my head around the concept that someday Microsoft would make the short list for companies that are not "morally abhorrent" Either you did not grow up in the 1990s, or your long term memory is patchy, or both Windows 8 was pretty user hostile and that got released in 2012, and although it probably scores a 2/10 on the morally abhorrent scale, it's definitely part of the long tail of their history Visual Studio Code, WSL, GitHub, .net core etc are neat but they are all in the last 4 years or so
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 13:38
|
|
|
Hadlock posted:Windows 8 was pretty user hostile and that got released in 2012, and although it probably scores a 2/10 on the morally abhorrent scale, it's definitely part of the long tail of their history I find it really funny that Windows 8 is even coming up in this context. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 13:55
|
|
|
I'm more thinking along the lines of Facebook and Google's outsized, negative impact on global politics, Amazon's insane exploitation of its own workers, and the working conditions in Apple's factories. If the worst Microsoft has is an antitrust suit for bundling a browser I'd consider that to be pretty good although the article posted earlier about no action on their promised HR reforms isn't great. e: I understand some people just care about the tech or the problem space and that's fine for them just not for me
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 14:08
|
|
|
I mean, who do you think makes Surface tablets? It's the same underpaid and overworked Chinese kids making hardware for Apple (and every other OEM too). (I actually just looked it up and technically it's a Taiwanese company, but oh hey under the Controversies section of the Wikipedia article it's exactly what you'd expect: no time off, 12-18 hour shifts, and on-site dorms for the workers)
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 14:15
|
|
|
no company over a certain size can be an ethical company, but there are some that are more ethical than others. that said, literally any company that is a cloud provider would kill for those sweet sweet DOD contracts so it’s all kind of a wash
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 14:15
|
|
|
Blinkz0rz posted:Try not to be defensive. Some people care about the effects their work and the company they work for have on the world. Read this again and see if you can tell why it makes you sound like a gaping rear end in a top hat
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 14:18
|
|
|
i honestly believe that being "ethical" and capitalism are just incompatible and just try to do my best with not working for Bezos/Musk-tier assholes
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 14:21
|
|
|
Microsoft are probably pretty tame when sat next to say Facebook or Google. But they still do enough shady stuff to justify an entire dedicated page to criticism of them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft Inacio posted:i honestly believe that being "ethical" and capitalism are just incompatible and just try to do my best with not working for Bezos/Musk-tier assholes
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 14:24
|
|
|
Sab669 posted:I mean, who do you think makes Surface tablets? That's a fair point, I forget MS made hardware. Jose Valasquez posted:Read this again and see if you can tell why it makes you sound like a gaping rear end in a top hat  if you don't care about how your employer affects the world, that's on you. If being criticized for it makes you bristle, maybe think about why rather than being defensive. Inacio posted:i honestly believe that being "ethical" and capitalism are just incompatible and just try to do my best with not working for Bezos/Musk-tier assholes This is, I think, the more relevant point and question. Which notable companies pay well and aren't the Bezos/Musk-level assholes?
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 14:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 10:43 |
|
|
So you want to work for a company who is either neutral or positive to social reform in particular? I mean Microsoft killed hundreds if not thousands of good products either through direct or indirect actions, ruined all sorts of standards, rammed through a bunch of their own bullshit standards and held back the industry in probably countless ways. They're bigger than IBM now that's not an accident, and there's a trail of dead bodies. They didn't get a bad wrap in the tech community just because they're big. If you want a pro-liberal social good company, check out gravity payments, Atlassian, and yeah probably Netflix
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2020 14:29
|
|