[HN Gopher] Protecting your time from predators in large tech co...
___________________________________________________________________
Protecting your time from predators in large tech companies
Author : alexmolas
Score : 13 points
Date : 2025-01-24 19:09 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.seangoedecke.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.seangoedecke.com)
| nine_zeros wrote:
| The fact that engineers now think that helping others and working
| with others is negative value, just shows how terrible tech
| culture has become.
|
| This all comes from management wanting to assign and claim
| credit. It is this credit system that ensures that people will
| not cooperate but instead let "others" fail.
| grues-dinner wrote:
| I don't think it's universal, there are definitely teams and
| management structures where it's a group effort and people
| aren't hoarding story points or metrics or whatever.
|
| I could go off on one about how is when the leadership becomes
| so detached from the with that they need layers of managers to
| deal with it, leading to horsetrading, artificial metrics and
| political chicanery. But fundamentally, if an organisation
| allows such cancer to develop within it, it chose to. Whether
| by carelessness or on MBA infection, the result is the same.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Can you tell me one BigTech or adjacent well paying company
| where they don't optimize for this behavior?
| grues-dinner wrote:
| Not all engineering is done in big tech.
|
| If you're a salary-chaser who signs up for that kind of
| company for the pay, you know what you're walking into. You
| might as well join the army and complain about the food as
| work for, say, Google in 2025 and complain about management
| cancer.
|
| "Big" tech is almost tautologically companies that are
| long-term setting up battlements around their fiefdoms now
| they've made the land grab. But big tech isn't all tech.
|
| Of course, nothing lasts forever. One company I worked at,
| where I would have thrown myself into traffic for the team,
| got acquired and the new owner's MBAs started their
| process. Cuts, layoffs, new policies, commissars sent in to
| keep tabs, sales targets airdropped from another continent,
| endless, endless IT "harmonisation". The usual. So I left
| them to it. Life is too short to play that game if it isn't
| your thing.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The post is specifically about "large tech companies".
|
| But even in smaller companies if your entire job is "to
| close tickets" and you don't close your tickets, that's
| what you will be judged on. The only way that you can
| close the amount of tickets you should and help others
| who are not in the position to help you is by working
| overtime.
|
| The author is specifically referring to PMs from other
| teams using back channels instead of going through the
| proper channels. He isn't saying don't help either junior
| engineers who need hand holding or other team members
| after they put some effort in their question and have
| already tried some things.
|
| It's been almost a decade since my job was mostly "to
| close tickets" even as an IC and I need to build
| relationships with other teams to get my job done. But I
| would be leery of reaching into another team for help and
| would first ask a team lead or PM could they spare
| someone.
|
| On another note, I'm 50 and spent 25 of my 28 years of
| working in non Big tech companies except between the ages
| of 46-49 and have no need to chase max compensation. But
| if the compensation of BigTech had been available to me
| when I was younger and unencumbered (instead of older and
| unencumbered), you best believe I would be "grinding
| leetcode and getting into a FAANG" (tm
| r/cscareerquestions) and that's my recommendation to
| anyone who is early career.
|
| Again at 50, I would rather get a daily anal probe with a
| cactus than deal with any large company - especially
| BigTech.
| akprasad wrote:
| The author agrees with you:
|
| > Not all requests for help are predatory. It's part of your
| job to help out engineers on your team, and cross-org impact
| really does involve helping others sometimes, even if you get
| nothing in return. Predatory behavior is a _consistent pattern_
| of drawing on your time for nothing in return.
| qzum wrote:
| I can't say that these behaviors are predatory, but author
| appears like toxic person with some god syndrome.
|
| Overtime can be predatory, but please don't call kindness,
| teamwork, or simple help as prey trait
| scarface_74 wrote:
| It's not a God syndrome or toxic. If you are interested in a
| promotion at large tech companies, you optimize your behaviors
| to do that.
|
| If you aren't interested in promotion and you are less than a
| senior or whatever the terminal position is considered, you'll
| be pushed out.
|
| I couldn't deal with the politics of BigTech when I was there
| between the ages of 46-49. I didn't care about the money enough
| and I didn't have the shit tolerance or the will power to act
| like I did.
|
| You literally couldn't pay me enough to work at any large
| company at this point in my life and I've ignored opportunities
| that were basically handed to me to make six figures more than
| I make now.
| mv4 wrote:
| Most of these behaviors seem perfectly normal to me. When I
| worked at FAANG, I often had to ask people (not my direct
| reports) to do something for me. And that was often the only way
| to get things done, "influencing without authority". Of course,
| I've always helped them with something else in return, publicly
| gave them credit etc.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| And how did it affect them getting their own deliverables done?
| Did it help when it came time to fill out thier promo doc?
|
| On the other hand, the author said don't let me people waste
| your time by helping them when they go through back channels
| who can't help you in return.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-24 23:01 UTC)