[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Are there software companies with a good lif...
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Ask HN: Are there software companies with a good life/work balance?
I worked for a long time in different software engineering
positions in b2b tech companies. It looks like a majority of them
go through a very similar trajectory - more product, more
customers, raise more money, more people, rinse and repeat until
you get to IPO or acquisition. On the one hand, this approach is
understandable (it's what business is built for), and the pay is
good in such companies. But, on the other hand, life/work balance
usually sucks. First of all, there is an unsaid expectation of
long hours. A company is always on the verge of signing a new huge
business deal, preparing for the magic quadrant, and having
critical projects. And even if some reasonable hours are
negotiated/achieved, people are forced to have an insane amount of
multi-tasking (juggling numerous tasks, initiatives, planning,
replanning, strategy shifts, and so on). On the paper, life/work
balance is advertised in such companies. In reality, work at such a
company is draining way too much energy. Another unpleasant side.
As part of this rush forward, engineering usually cuts many corners
(both in tech and vetting new hires). This rush creates a mediocre
(at best) tech culture with a lot of tech debt and not following
well-established best practices. A huge part of solving/fighting
these problems falls on the top tech talent (especially on
responsible employees). I am at the stage of my life where
physical and mental health is more important than a marginal
dollar. As a result, I have started to look around, and I would
appreciate the advice. Do you know which specific companies or
preferable areas have better work/life balance and are more
committed to tech excellence?
Author : dotbob
Score : 21 points
Date : 2021-05-22 21:45 UTC (1 hours ago)
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Mine.
|
| I look after my team because they look after me.
| thethethethe wrote:
| Google has a pretty good work life balance, at least for the
| teams I've been on. I usually work for like four hours a day and
| sometimes I don't really do anything at all for a few days. I
| have consistently gotten good ratings since joining and have been
| promoted twice so its not like I have been coasting either. From
| what I gather, many of my coworkers operate this way and they all
| deliver and do fine.
|
| I am not saying the work isn't challenging or that I completely
| unplug when I am not working, its more that you aren't expected
| to take on unreasonable amounts of work, and, as long as you
| deliver, nobody really cares how you spend your time during the
| week
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Old dinosaur tech companies. IBM, Oracle, Intel, Texas
| Instruments, etc
| anilr wrote:
| I agree large companies tend to be more likely to fit the
| requirement but there are also some small companies in this
| space.
|
| The company I work for, for example, has is small (50 people) but
| as it's been revenue positive from the start it knows to focus on
| the longterm win - you don't get that by burning out employees.
| (If you're a RoR dev... www.platphormcorp.com)
|
| Here are a few tips: 1. Make sure to ask during an interview what
| office hours are like, and let the company know you're looking
| for a good balance. A company be honest about their expectations
| - in general nobody wants a bad fit when hiring.
|
| 2. It's your life, not the company's. If you told the company you
| want a good work life balance - start your day at 8 and end at
| 5pm consistently every day. Let people know those are your hours
| and that you have other commitments (i.e. a life to live). I've
| worked with a few people (in other companies) who are great at
| this - and their performance was great. If your manager knows
| asking you to work late isn't an option they'll figure something
| out - that's the manager's job. If you've done it before, they'll
| ask you to do it again.
|
| As for tech debt that's a trickier one. It never makes sense to
| get rid of all tech debt (imo). A tool that's working, that is
| not really important to the company's future, likely doesn't not
| need refactoring any time soon. Of course, if business critical
| software should be kept up-to-date.
| carabiner wrote:
| nope
| anxiostial wrote:
| well avoid startups to begin with.
| goalieca wrote:
| Larger companies (>1000 employees) seem to have a better work
| life balance.. or at least an opportunity to get lost in the
| bureaucracy. Salaries are worse and career development seems
| terrible but that may be a tradeoff you are willing to make.
| jlund-molfese wrote:
| Salaries are usually fairly comparable per hour worked, and
| career development can be fantastic. The best managers I've had
| were at a Fortune 500.
|
| But a large company is really like a group of many tiny
| companies, and it's hard to reliably be placed in a great area
| unless you know someone on the inside. Large companies
| sometimes don't even let you apply to specific teams.
| humanrebar wrote:
| I was basically about to post this as well.
|
| You want to find a decently large company that has its
| business model figured out so you don't have to stress about
| where your salary will be coming from. You probably won't be
| able to pick a low-stress team unless you already have
| connections or inside info there.
|
| But you can generally network around the company _after_
| getting hired: technology interest groups, non-technology
| interest groups, recruiting trips, internal chatrooms, folks
| working on the same open source tech, etc. If you start out
| in a mediocre-to-bad team, you can often figure out how to
| get transferred to a better situation within a couple years.
| stuart78 wrote:
| I work for such a firm (10k employees) and we try hard to be
| competitive with startups on salary - we have to in order to
| keep hiring. It is definitely not the same pace as a startup (I
| joined via acquisition), but good big projects at scale and an
| open-ness to work from just about anywhere. It is a trade off
| for sure, but RSUs in a mature market are a more sure bet than
| many startups.
| dijit wrote:
| Answering the last paragraph purely;
|
| I have it on trusted authority that SAP is a good company to work
| for as they care a lot about making a good environment for their
| developers. The cynic in me believes this is because their
| problem space is inherently unsexy.
|
| There does seem to be a correlation with unsexy stuff having
| better work life balance and sexy stuff being terrible (video
| games being the inverse of tax software).
|
| But "tech excellence" does not come into it. I'm not sure if you
| can do both. Usually established companies have something legacy
| that needs to be maintained.
|
| And new companies are.. undefined. It's hard to have clear work
| life balance when everything is undefined.
| givankin wrote:
| I've been working for Genesys for 8+ years, and this was
| definitely one of the reasons. Even though the company is a tech
| b2b with the exact cycles you mention, long hours are almost
| never an expectation here, and family always comes first.
| Furthermore, we have additional "take care of yourself" timeoff:
| e.g. in August all Fridays are off, and the last week of each
| year too. Check us out at https://www.genesys.com/company/careers
| collaborative wrote:
| In my experience it's a bit of a hit or miss. Even within the
| same company, your work life balance can greatly differ from
| working in one team or another
|
| Keep looking for that place and when you've found it, don't leave
| it!
|
| It also helps if you can make yourself indispensable in one way
| or another. Look for ways the business can do better the
| "important stuff" (usually means save money or avoid legal
| conflict) and do it. The entire responsibility of keeping the new
| stuff alive will fall on your shoulders. And you will get a pass
| at leaving the office early, or perhaps filling out your overtime
| form will no longer be considered a crime
| dathinab wrote:
| Yes there are, at least in some countries.
|
| This is also not always related to the company size, but avoid
| small just starting startups. Through some start-ups which
| already have initial success can be good (as long as they don't
| go into the "we are failing" phase).
|
| I had some good experiences myself, but I don't know how far they
| are exceptions and how much it might differ in other companies.
|
| Through it also depends on you a bit, I had worked at a company
| which generally neither expected long hours or other aspects of
| overworks BUT some people got so invested that they where doing a
| lot of long hours by themself, to a degree that one of them was
| multiple times asked by the CEO to please go home and take a
| (payed, non holiday) day off for their health...
|
| Also on think which you will probably not avoid is that corners
| are cuts and tech dept is accumulated. Through it can largely
| differ what and how much corners are cute and tech dept is
| accumulated.
|
| Wrt. hiring I have increasingly realized that there is no good
| way to fully vet people when hiring, there are basics you can
| somewhat check and you can check if the person seem to fit into
| the team, but it's all very limited. In the end what seems to
| work well is to go through a initial interview followed up by a
| tech interview (maybe mini task too) and a team/social interview.
| And do the rest of vetting during the first month of employment.
| edumucelli wrote:
| I am working at Canonical and based solely on my experience it is
| being really great in this aspect. Although I am working full
| time from home, which could open more possibility for abuses,
| management is really careful about the end of your day, time off,
| etc.
| johnboiles wrote:
| Twitter was a great org for work life balance. I worked there 4.5
| years.
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(page generated 2021-05-22 23:01 UTC)