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HappyHippo posted:The taboo against discussing what you make benefits employers trying to underpay employees. This is in most UK contracts but I believe its one of those rules that would never stand up in a tribunal but they stick it in to try and dissuade people.
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Jun 12, 2021 09:11
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HappyHippo posted:The taboo against discussing what you make benefits employers trying to underpay employees. The market seems to have changed in the UK whereby the expected remuneration of everyone has bumped £20k. My company is happy to pay to get new hires but it's incredibly difficult to get them to even the playing field for the guys who have been here for years.
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Jun 12, 2021 09:41
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Rebus posted:The market seems to have changed in the UK whereby the expected remuneration of everyone has bumped £20k. 
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Jun 12, 2021 14:01
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lifg posted:Isn’t Basecamp strictly no-microservices? How do they scale their application? There's a pretty big space between Basecamp scale and Google/Facebook scale, for one (and based on what data is publicly available on Basecamp I believe we're fairly solidly in that space, as a consumer application with at least an order of magnitude more users). That said, I wouldn't argue that there aren't applications that can scale just fine with a monolith (and this is also why I agree that there are lots of folks going out and migrating to microservices architecture unnecessarily and making things worse). But my experience is with applications that have particular challenges with that model, and have been easier to work with by breaking certain components out into separate systems. The Basecamp example is an interesting one; it's mentioned often, presumably because folks there (DHH in particular) are pretty vocal about how monolithic applications, and Rails in particular, can scale, contrary to trendy beliefs. And I think they're right about that. But sometimes they go a bit further and seem to argue, basically, that if it works for them, it should work for anybody, which is an interesting claim for folks working on an application using a framework literally built for that application. Roadie posted:I'm not convinced that this gets you anything all that useful compared to, say, just having a monolith with multiple instances with different resource allotments and being smart about what workloads you route to which instances. The ORM aspect of Rails, and its use in some of the older systems that I've worked with, is indeed problematic. But it was far from the only reason we're moving away from a Rails monolith and have been, successfully, for quite a while. We've been through many exercises where we've hit the limits of a single database instance, and introduced read replicas, split data across multiple databases, etc. You can throw a lot more data at a SQL database (we use Aurora MySQL) than most folks think, but you still eventually hit limits. Note that we didn't do these things preemptively, we have done them when we knew they needed to be done. Roadie posted:I'm not convinced that this gets you anything all that useful compared to, say, just having a monolith with multiple instances with different resource allotments and being smart about what workloads you route to which instances. Sure, that's an interesting thought. And I think that would work if each individual operation was composed entirely of workloads of the same nature. But say you have an operation that needs to do two different things, where the right resource allocation for those two operations is different. You could have that operation routed to one application server instance that handles workload A, and then offloads workload B to the other application server. So you could have application servers running different subsets of the code base, where they communicate with each other to get all the necessary work done. And you'd have a services architecture. I'm not terribly interested in an argument over the idea that some applications benefit from breaking things down into "micro" services (I do hate the term at this point), and also would prefer not to share too many identifiable details, but if folks are honestly curious about the particulars of the challenges we've faced and decisions we've made I'm happy to share what I can. For a bit of additional context, one of the earliest systems we split off from Rails required having a large (~30 GB) graph loaded into memory on each instance; it made little sense to have every application server load this when only a small percentage of operations actually required having this data.
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Jun 12, 2021 16:51
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Rebus posted:My company is happy to pay to get new hires but it's incredibly difficult to get them to even the playing field for the guys who have been here for years. This has already been the case in the US for a long time. It's a joke but also extremely true that the easiest way for most software dev folks to get a raise here is to switch jobs every two years.
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Jun 12, 2021 20:18
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even if you have a "monolith" you probably have distributed systems problems. use a database and have more than one application server? hope you understand your applications consistency model. have a spa or mobile app that connects to your application api? hope you understand the forward/backwards compatibility of the api
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Jun 13, 2021 05:47
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lifg posted:Isn’t Basecamp strictly no-microservices? How do they scale their application? My guess is by running multiple instances of their monolith, sharded by customer. I'm waiting for DHH to explain the Basecamp solution in an arrogant tweet, and why it is the best solution, always, and all other solutions are dumb. Votlook fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Jun 13, 2021 |
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Jun 13, 2021 23:40
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Votlook posted:My guess is by running multiple instances of their monolith, sharded by customer. This approach would work for almost everything out of SV, so yes that's probably what they're doing. I unironically think it's where people should start, since time to market is generally faster, deployments are very simple, and you can identify and peel off the bottlenecks without wasting resources making something infinitely scalable that would never be a problem in the first case. Best case, you're pulling in loads of cash while migrating to microservices. Worst case you burned less cash learning no one wanted your garbage app anyway. Even if you're successful, you can probably defer migration to after you (the decision-maker/founder) make an exit whereby it's someone else's problem regardless.
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Jun 14, 2021 13:23
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leper khan posted:This approach would work for almost everything out of SV, so yes that's probably what they're doing. 100% agree. If you're doing automated deployments (you should be), deploying to 1 app server and 1 DB should be the same amount of effort as 10 app servers and 10 DB servers. The other possibility this covers is if a customer wants to run on 'their own instance'. Maybe it's my B2B startup experience, but it always seems like one of these situations crops up, and they're a large enough contract that you aren't going to flat out refuse.
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Jun 14, 2021 13:38
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I've been mostly destroying myself trying to prep for FAANG interviewing but I thought I should just ask where else I should look for what I basically consider a career change. My whole working life has been in a software side of QA of some form at semiconductor companies. That has generally varied between performance analysis of software running on chips to tools to find bugs with them. The environment is not very friendly towards software engineering at all and I am not too happy with what gets rewarded. During my whole career, I saw things go from basic LAMP stacks to this distributed cloud mash and I really don't get to play with any of it. I am trying to get as adjacent as I can into it to transition more fully into that kind of realm. I haven't had any luck doing that in my current job and current company. They only see me for what I am currently literally tasked to do and despite lacking experience, I actually get some consideration outside. Are there some general alternatives I should be trying to get me that kind of change? For what it is worth, I am in Austin.
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Jun 14, 2021 20:56
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leper khan posted:This approach would work for almost everything out of SV, so yes that's probably what they're doing. I agree, the sharding per customer approach is a good default, but it breaks down for plenty of use cases, even outside of SV.
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Jun 14, 2021 21:10
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I and many of my software friends have been lamenting lately how there seems like there is no real way to be less-than-fulltime at most software/tech companies. The industry just seems to not even recognize the concept as possible, let alone beneficial, to both employee and employer. As we are all reevaluating our relationship with work, onsite vs. remote, etc. post-pandemic, a recurring theme is that we would all love to be able to work 24-32 hours a week instead of 40. And we'd even gladly take the commensurate comp cut to do so. And I truly do believe that our total productive output would be very similar, especially when weighed against the effects of burnout that we are all feeling. Among my circle of senior and well-compensated engineers at big tech companies, most of whom are also FIRE-minded, it seems that the only way out is to quit. I/we don't even hate our jobs, but we feel like we can't just keep grinding away at them "full time". We'd actually love to be able to cut back hours and find a more sustainable happy medium, but it seems like such a foreign concept to companies that would rather eat the high cost of turnover and institutional knowledge loss than entertain the idea. Short of going all the way to freelance or agency contracting, which is its own world of stress and effort and uncompensated hours, has anyone had success in negotiating this sort of arrangement? Are there companies/industries where something like this might be possible? Guinness fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Jun 14, 2021 |
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Jun 14, 2021 21:50
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Does that few hours still move you into the “Healthcare? Lol no” group in the US? 3/5 the hours at 3/5 the pay does seem pretty great, otherwise. Delays retirement, but would make the journey there much more tolerable. That said, never heard of anyone actually offering anything like that outside of the rare long time employee staying on part time instead of retiring.
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Jun 14, 2021 22:17
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Capitalism will prevent this from ever being a thing outside of shoving the burden of healthcare etc on you like freelancers have to deal with, as you said in your post.
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Jun 14, 2021 22:31
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:I've been mostly destroying myself trying to prep for FAANG interviewing but I thought I should just ask where else I should look for what I basically consider a career change. Apply to anything that looks relevant. Eventually you'll get something.
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Jun 14, 2021 22:39
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:I've been mostly destroying myself trying to prep for FAANG interviewing but I thought I should just ask where else I should look for what I basically consider a career change. Indeed is a place you should look at, where you can start in software QA AND transition to a role you'd prefer. And they're based in Austin.
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Jun 14, 2021 22:42
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chglcu posted:Does that few hours still move you into the “Healthcare? Lol no” group in the US? 3/5 the hours at 3/5 the pay does seem pretty great, otherwise. Delays retirement, but would make the journey there much more tolerable. That said, never heard of anyone actually offering anything like that outside of the rare long time employee staying on part time instead of retiring. I know that in some public sector and union industries, there's usually a threshold for getting benefits. For example my spouse works for the school district and gets benefits as long as they are at least 0.6 FTE. I could even potentially pile on to her healthcare plan, at a cost, but much better than the open market. Like I'd be willing to take a pretty severe pay cut to only work something like 0.6 FTE. 50-60% of my current comp is still a lot and at this point I could live comfortably on it and be both a more engaged/effective employee and a healthier person outside of work. But that conversation seems completely off limits at any big company, unless you are extremely special. 
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Jun 14, 2021 23:04
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Glad to see that I'm not the only one contemplating it. I don't want to quit my ok-paid, relatively stress-free job. But both my spouse and I work full-time, have a 1.5yo, barely any childcare, and it's grinding us down lately. Hopefully the sentiment grows to a meaningful change in our industry.
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Jun 14, 2021 23:30
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I've seen a couple of companies try it for specific employees and it hasn't worked very well. Either the employee works more than agreed to or productivity craters due to overhead taking more time. Software may not have this problem due to the very high pay, but benefits and overhead cost can make up a large fraction of pay that are relatively static and thus the paycut may be steeper than expected.
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Jun 15, 2021 00:16
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I knew one coworker who managed to wrangle an 80% schedule. They were super happy with it, and so far as I know their management was also really happy with it. But upper management also made it really clear that this was not setting any kind of precedent, and anyone else who wanted that kind of deal would have to negotiate it separately.
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Jun 15, 2021 00:21
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Guinness posted:I and many of my software friends have been lamenting lately how there seems like there is no real way to be less-than-fulltime at most software/tech companies. The industry just seems to not even recognize the concept as possible, let alone beneficial, to both employee and employer. I’ve known some people who have gone part time for different reasons, and it always happens the same way. They were at a company for a while doing good work, normally on a single product, and then had a lifestyle change. They went to their boss and said, “I’m going back to school. I can quit, or we can work something out where I only work a few days a week.” I don’t know how long they lasted like that. It seems precarious and they were likely to be first in line for layoffs. But it worked for at least a little while.
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Jun 15, 2021 00:23
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Guinness posted:I and many of my software friends have been lamenting lately how there seems like there is no real way to be less-than-fulltime at most software/tech companies. The industry just seems to not even recognize the concept as possible, let alone beneficial, to both employee and employer. I don't have a useful suggestion, but when I've thought about how I'd approach this, one thing I'm not sure how to factor in is the company's cost of employing me (e.g. the aforementioned healthcare). Making up numbers, taking a 50% pay cut to work half the hours sounds like a fair offer to the employee, but from the other side, paying 70% for half the hours might not sound so fair. Lots of potential ways to try to negotiate it I think, like arguing they're getting your best hours, or taking a larger pay cut. I haven't actually tried though. And I'm not earning big tech figgies, at some point compensation is the dominating input and other costs don't much matter. But yeah, the answer is "no, because capitalism", and your best chance of success might be to start your own company (or co-op).
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Jun 15, 2021 00:31
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Or apply to one of these: https://4dayweek.io/
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Jun 15, 2021 00:40
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Sounds like the solution is sadly what I suspected, phone it in just enough to keep collecting paychecks and vests until it's time to bounce entirely. Corporate america sure is great. Perhaps I'll probe my current managers a bit, but I don't expect much positive reception. The pandemic burnout is real and it sucks that companies won't make exceptional efforts to counteract exceptional stresses. Just going back to "normal", even if remote, isn't enough to make up for the past year+. The number of people handing in their resignations lately definitely feels like it has increased, and I think it's just going to get worse the rest of the year as we all reevaluate things. Edit: Maybe I'm just having a bad case of the Mondays today. I might be making it sound worse than it is. Guinness fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Jun 15, 2021 |
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Jun 15, 2021 01:03
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Guinness posted:Edit: Maybe I'm just having a bad case of the Mondays today. I might be making it sound worse than it is. I remember reading about a strategy for handling this kind of decision, but I don't remember the exact details. I think it was something like: every two weeks, list out the pros and cons of the big decision you're thinking about, and then also say "if I were going to make the decision right now with the information I have, which way would I go?" And then track what your thoughts are, and if you're consistently making the same decision, you're not dealing with a spur-of-the-moment problem.
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Jun 15, 2021 01:36
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Guinness posted:I and many of my software friends have been lamenting lately how there seems like there is no real way to be less-than-fulltime at most software/tech companies. The industry just seems to not even recognize the concept as possible, let alone beneficial, to both employee and employer. Google has exactly this already, you can go down to 80% time or less for a commensurate reduction in compensation. Alternatively, in SRE you get oncall compensation hours you can use as bonus vacation; if you max it out every quarter it's an extra 8 weeks of vacation a year, which you can use to implement your own 80% time without taking a compensation hit. I had a FIRE-minded teammate who did exactly that. I don't work there anymore but feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
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Jun 15, 2021 01:41
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Guinness posted:Edit: Maybe I'm just having a bad case of the Mondays today. I might be making it sound worse than it is. You aren't the only one my friend. Every single person I talked to at work (in person; remote work is "not encouraged" for my company's firmware developers!) was feeling the exact same way. Solidarity  
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Jun 15, 2021 02:31
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Work sucks but a lot of us were able to avoid acknowledging how bad it is when we had comfortable routines. Now that those have been shaken up and we're looking a hard push back to the old ways, it's all front and center. I'm not expecting many changes in the short term, but five years from now may look very different for a lot of us.
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Jun 15, 2021 03:55
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I am never going back to the office. I am much more productive working from home. I am much happier and healthier without wasting hours commuting every day.
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Jun 15, 2021 04:55
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asur posted:I've seen a couple of companies try it for specific employees and it hasn't worked very well. Either the employee works more than agreed to or productivity craters due to overhead taking more time. That's weird. In my current company, and frankly in my country in general, part-time work is extremely common. It's considered a win-win, I've never heard of a company complaining about the overhead...
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Jun 15, 2021 10:36
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My wife is a Loud Phone Talker, I'm looking forward to having somewhere else to go when she's on the phone. We share a home office. She's also semi-permanent WFH.
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Jun 15, 2021 11:00
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There’s a very easy solution to working less than 40 hours a day  Votlook posted:I agree, the sharding per customer approach is a good default, but it breaks down for plenty of use cases, even outside of SV. For example, when making a decision about one customer depends on the state of another customer. That will require you to push that logic outside of the database and into application logic, possibly into an independent service or something, and opening yourself up to bugs, maybe. I dunno, I’m stupid. Who knows if this is a legit concern.
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Jun 15, 2021 13:36
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Pollyanna posted:There’s a very easy solution to working less than 40 hours a day It's a bit late for me to move into the "being born rich" career path
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Jun 15, 2021 14:03
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Pollyanna posted:There’s a very easy solution to working less than 40 hours a day Obeying the laws of physics?
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Jun 15, 2021 15:06
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Walh Hara posted:That's weird. In my current company, and frankly in my country in general, part-time work is extremely common. It's considered a win-win, I've never heard of a company complaining about the overhead... This is just speculation, but I would guess that there's two reasons why companies don't like doing this kind of thing in the US. The first is straightforward: if you work more than a certain number of hours per week, you're a full-time employee and are entitled to benefits. That's a large fixed cost that the employer pays regardless of how many hours the employee works, so (under the idiot assumption that more hours worked = more profit for the company) anyone who works at least that many hours should be worked as hard as possible. The second is more speculative: I suspect that most companies do not want to do anything that they perceive as weakening their position of strength in the employer-employee relationship. If an employee asks for something and the employer gives it to them when it is not blatantly obviously in the employer's best interests to do so, then employees might be emboldened into asking for other things. Worse, they might start talking to each other and finding out how badly they're being treated on the whole. They might (gasp) form a union! Best to never give anything to an employee ever unless it's essential for that employee to do their job. Keep them depressed and overworked and they won't have the energy to try to make things better for themselves and their coworkers.
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Jun 15, 2021 15:12
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ultrafilter posted:Obeying the laws of physics? fuk 
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Jun 15, 2021 15:28
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Walh Hara posted:That's weird. In my current company, and frankly in my country in general, part-time work is extremely common. It's considered a win-win, I've never heard of a company complaining about the overhead... The biggest obstacle to that in the good ole USA is that the "benefits" are tied to your hours. No FTE means no company health insurance, and if hourly, it means no vacation, bonuses, etc... It's far easier to implement in a country with universal healthcare, but that is just my assumption of your situation (and the fact that, statistically, if you're not in the USA, you probably have universal healthcare).
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Jun 15, 2021 15:41
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Edly posted:Google has exactly this already, you can go down to 80% time or less for a commensurate reduction in compensation. Really? My wife has been at Google for a while now and this is the first I've heard of it.
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Jun 15, 2021 16:58
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whenever youre playin in faangland youre playing crusader kings 4: tech company. you're in the wrong vassal's demesne, the liege is fuckin w the overlord, fuckin karlings are everywhere, nothing is uniform in the realm and the borders look like a pile of puke. entire ostensibly companywide policies that never get implemented, brutally specific to one department policies that some tosser thinks is entirely companywide, etc etc etc one day im going to make a ck3 mod about tech majors bob dobbs is dead fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Jun 15, 2021 |
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Jun 15, 2021 17:53
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dantheman650 posted:Really? My wife has been at Google for a while now and this is the first I've heard of it. I listened to people give talks on how to succeed at 60% time or whatever so yeah it's a thing. Now the question is, what else isn't your wife telling you about Google company policy.
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Jun 15, 2021 20:49
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