6 ms·

"Successful candidates should clearly demonstrate that their priorities are company, team, and self — in that order"...right there you are creating a selection

by gmarx 10y ago

"Successful candidates should clearly demonstrate that their priorities are company, team, and self — in that order"...right there you are creating a selection bias for exactly the kind of people you claim not to want. No-fucking-body in his right mind orders things that way. You are filtering for liars who know which lies to tell. I consider myself very not into office politics and I'm confident a would fail massively to answer most of the proposed interview questions

gaius 10y ago
Indeed. Where's the company that orders it employees, shareholders, management? Doesn't exist!
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  Technically, Costco. (Although it's "employees, customers, management, shareholders"). EDIT: Disclaimer: have friends who work at costco, have a membership, own some stock, etc.
- 867552 10y ago
  MathWorks
- Retra 10y ago
  There are a number of companies that are structured so that employees are effectively shareholders.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Any specifically in the software space? Operating at scale? I've looked into cooperative business organisations in the past. From my recollections, these typically fall into a few classifications: 1. Political parties. Often themselves strongly aligned with cooperative or anarchist principles. 2. Labour unions. In some cases. 3. A few creatives collaborations, but with pretty loose integration. Artists, performers, or writers organisations. 4. Food-based businesses, typically smaller tea or coffee houses, or co-op food stores. 5. Mondragon Corporation. Pretty much an only-one-in-class, of an industrial cooperative. Also almost everyone's default example. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation 6. Producer co-ops. Often in agriculture, though others exist. Blue Diamond Almonds, and, previously, both Visa and MasterCard (the latter have both since reorganised as for-profit joint-stock companies). I don't know of any business organisations that perform software or consulting services on a cooperative basis, though of course, the entire Free Software movement is a non-business organisation of such work. Of course, I DDG on posting and immediately find: http://www.software.coop/info/ http://www.software.coop/info/ Though I'd argue that the fact I'd never heard of this group and their size somewhat emphasises my point.
    - khuey 10y ago
      Publix is another notable one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publix
      - dredmorbius 10y ago
        That's a supermarket. I'm looking for tech examples.
Spivak 10y ago
> No-fucking-body in his right mind orders things that way Except, for example, the ACM Software Engineer's code of ethics where this is the explicitly stated order. [1] http://www.acm.org/about/se-code http://www.acm.org/about/se-code
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
  > in his right mind Which is another way to say that people who comes up with these things aren't in their right minds.
- danielweber 10y ago
  I see "team" three times and "company" zero times. Can you point to the specific portion?
  - viewer5 10y ago
    "employer" is in there 20 times. Did you even glance at the document? CLIENT AND EMPLOYER is #2 in the list, and SELF is #8. COLLEAGUES is #7.
- forgottenpass 10y ago
  Could you point to the part of the ACM code that stack ranks priorities? I must be missing it. It's a code to act ethically in conducting job functions, not how to set personal priorities around a career. In fact the code says it's all in service of the public, if there is any sense of priorities to derive, the employer is not on top. And besides, "The Code is not a simple ethical algorithm that generates ethical decisions."
- lr4444lr 10y ago
  1.03. Approve software only if they have a well-founded belief that it is safe, meets specifications, passes appropriate tests, and does not diminish quality of life, diminish privacy or harm the environment. The ultimate effect of the work should be to the public good. You think Facebook engineers can seriously go to work every day and abide by that?
- 10y ago
JoeAltmaier 10y ago
We're not talking about life and limb stuff. Your professional responsibility should be in that order. You're being paid after all.
- gaius 10y ago
  We're not talking about life and limb stuff. Kinda are, tho'. Stress, burnout, depression, carpel tunnel, strain on relationships, poor diet and lack of exercise, sleep deprivation - these are all things that many companies demand of their employees.
- lr4444lr 10y ago
  Yeah, but it gets into murky waters in jobs with no clear definition of work hours.
- Retra 10y ago
  Professional responsibility doesn't supersede social responsibility and personal responsibility. I already have to make decisions and produce value. If a company is paying me, I will choose to be more tolerant of making such decisions as part of that company's processes and with consideration to that company's needs. However, payment does not obligate me to serve those things. At least, not morally.
sverige 10y ago
I respectfully disagree that nobody orders things that way. I have generally had that attitude wherever I've been working. The times I didn't have that attitude were where I discovered that I was being lied to by my boss or by those further up the chain. Lying kills my motivation to work for anyone, and when it happens, I immediately begin planning my exit in earnest. Now, it may be a rare trait. I have no idea really whether it is or not. I've certainly known many who operate in the reverse order, but it is what I was taught by my parents growing up, and has served me well during various careers. None of this means I want to work for Facebook, but they may actually be doing this there. I have read complaints by former employees that it is a little cult-like to work there, but again, those are a few out of thousands.
cmsmith 10y ago
The author should have been more specific in referring to the professional 'self', rather than the general self. My takeaway was that they don't want people who value their own professional advancement at the expense of the company/product as a whole (e.g. backstabbing co-workers, hoarding resources). I don't think that the author was suggesting that the employees are expected to value the company's interest over their own personal lives. At least I hope not.
taurath 10y ago
Depends what set of priorities and how far you draw the line, in my mind. Project/work priorities? Should be company first, then team, then self. I think that goes without saying, and I think thats what they're trying to get across. Going for self glory in projects isn't good for a company. Going to team glory isn't good for a company, but its better than self glory. Financial priorities? Everyone has to take care of themselves in that sense. Every individual has to take care of the bottom of their hierarchy of needs. This might be what you're comparing here. At the same time, past a certain point self needs are fulfilled financially - holding a project hostage for a raise for example wouldn't be great. Social priorities? Self probably comes first there as well - but its not that great a scale since self improvement from working around good people is a benefit to the company as well. But if done in such a way that you stand on the bodies of your vanquished foes you've created a win/lose situation where it could be a win/win. Don't be like oracle, basically.
- trhway 10y ago
  >Going for self glory in projects isn't good for a company. Going to team glory isn't good for a company, but its better than self glory. you and FB missed the most important - going for the glory of your boss. It is good for the both - for the company (as the company did make sure that the glory of the boss is aligned with the glory of the company) as well as for the team (as the company did make sure that glory of the boss is aligned with the glory of the team). And it is obviously also good for yourself as bosses value the ones who bring them glory.
  - taurath 10y ago
    What an amazingly hierarchical type of thinking! Glory for the boss is just that, glory for the boss. Sometimes it may be good for the company, sometimes it might build up the boss in ways that aren't aligned with the companies interests. You get ivory tower syndrome and "kingdoms" really quick with that type of thinking.
m82labs 10y ago
I guess I need more detail to understand your position on this one. An employee that is working for their own personal benefit and gain only is not going to work well in most team settings and will likely not care to work on projects that move the company forward. I don't think they are saying you need to die for the company, simply that your work should be focused on the goals of the company. It's kind of what you get paid for when you go to work.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  > An employee that is working for their own personal benefit and gain only is not going to work well in most team settings Well, that wasn't what GP said (specifically your "only"). What was stated was that company > team > self is not a natural ordering. And I agree. In particular, people will generally rank team > company. This is well-known to anyone who's studied small unit leadership, and has been well-known since von Clausewitz, perhaps even since antiquity. However, having some degree of overall faith in the leadership of the company, or at least in the purpose of the company (what's typically referred to in the military literature as Esprit de Corps) is a necessary precondition for small unit cohesion. TL;DR: the relationship between self, unit and company is much too complex for a linear ranking of their priorities to be useful in anything but vacuous statements.
  - bbcbasic 10y ago
    > The relationship between self, unit and company is much too complex for a linear ranking of their priorities to be useful in anything but vacuous statements. Nicely put.
gmarx 10y ago
So many of you are so ready for your Facebook interview. And I believe none of you. Unless you have ever quit a job without having another one to jump to, because you concluded that your current employer couldn't possibly ever get value out of you greater than what they are paying for you. Then I would believe you and consider you out of your mind with misplaced loyalty. Some of you claim the question is about putting your personal glory above the success of the team. If so the author states it horribly
BurningFrog 10y ago
Depends on how you interpret that. One extreme: If I make more money than I need, I will not ask to be paid less. Other end: I will work on whatever is most important for the team/product/company. Not what I find most fun.
mikerichards 10y ago
Not sure why you're getting modded down, because your'e exactly right. They're stupid, psychological, trick questions to get people to lie. Just walk out when you get questions like this.
hrktb 10y ago
I think what you are pointing out is that those priorities shouldn't be misaligned in the first place. Asking someone to do professional suicide to help the company shouldn't be a thing. I mean, if you are are part of a team and identify something that goes against you and the team but in favor of the conpany, your team's goal should be revised and realigned, and you should get credit for that. In the end pointing out the problem and eventually offering a solution shouldn't go against your own professional interests (your "self" shouldn't get the short end of the stick for a correct behavior)

by gmarx 10y ago

gaius 10y ago

Indeed. Where's the company that orders it employees, shareholders, management? Doesn't exist!

toomuchtodo 10y ago
Technically, Costco. (Although it's "employees, customers, management, shareholders"). EDIT: Disclaimer: have friends who work at costco, have a membership, own some stock, etc.
867552 10y ago
MathWorks
Retra 10y ago
There are a number of companies that are structured so that employees are effectively shareholders.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Any specifically in the software space? Operating at scale? I've looked into cooperative business organisations in the past. From my recollections, these typically fall into a few classifications: 1. Political parties. Often themselves strongly aligned with cooperative or anarchist principles. 2. Labour unions. In some cases. 3. A few creatives collaborations, but with pretty loose integration. Artists, performers, or writers organisations. 4. Food-based businesses, typically smaller tea or coffee houses, or co-op food stores. 5. Mondragon Corporation. Pretty much an only-one-in-class, of an industrial cooperative. Also almost everyone's default example. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation 6. Producer co-ops. Often in agriculture, though others exist. Blue Diamond Almonds, and, previously, both Visa and MasterCard (the latter have both since reorganised as for-profit joint-stock companies). I don't know of any business organisations that perform software or consulting services on a cooperative basis, though of course, the entire Free Software movement is a non-business organisation of such work. Of course, I DDG on posting and immediately find: http://www.software.coop/info/ http://www.software.coop/info/ Though I'd argue that the fact I'd never heard of this group and their size somewhat emphasises my point.
  - khuey 10y ago
    Publix is another notable one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publix
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      That's a supermarket. I'm looking for tech examples.

Spivak 10y ago

> No-fucking-body in his right mind orders things that way Except, for example, the ACM Software Engineer's code of ethics where this is the explicitly stated order. [1] http://www.acm.org/about/se-code http://www.acm.org/about/se-code

0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
> in his right mind Which is another way to say that people who comes up with these things aren't in their right minds.
danielweber 10y ago
I see "team" three times and "company" zero times. Can you point to the specific portion?
- viewer5 10y ago
  "employer" is in there 20 times. Did you even glance at the document? CLIENT AND EMPLOYER is #2 in the list, and SELF is #8. COLLEAGUES is #7.
forgottenpass 10y ago
Could you point to the part of the ACM code that stack ranks priorities? I must be missing it. It's a code to act ethically in conducting job functions, not how to set personal priorities around a career. In fact the code says it's all in service of the public, if there is any sense of priorities to derive, the employer is not on top. And besides, "The Code is not a simple ethical algorithm that generates ethical decisions."
lr4444lr 10y ago
1.03. Approve software only if they have a well-founded belief that it is safe, meets specifications, passes appropriate tests, and does not diminish quality of life, diminish privacy or harm the environment. The ultimate effect of the work should be to the public good. You think Facebook engineers can seriously go to work every day and abide by that?
10y ago

JoeAltmaier 10y ago

We're not talking about life and limb stuff. Your professional responsibility should be in that order. You're being paid after all.

gaius 10y ago
We're not talking about life and limb stuff. Kinda are, tho'. Stress, burnout, depression, carpel tunnel, strain on relationships, poor diet and lack of exercise, sleep deprivation - these are all things that many companies demand of their employees.
lr4444lr 10y ago
Yeah, but it gets into murky waters in jobs with no clear definition of work hours.
Retra 10y ago
Professional responsibility doesn't supersede social responsibility and personal responsibility. I already have to make decisions and produce value. If a company is paying me, I will choose to be more tolerant of making such decisions as part of that company's processes and with consideration to that company's needs. However, payment does not obligate me to serve those things. At least, not morally.

sverige 10y ago

I respectfully disagree that nobody orders things that way. I have generally had that attitude wherever I've been working. The times I didn't have that attitude were where I discovered that I was being lied to by my boss or by those further up the chain. Lying kills my motivation to work for anyone, and when it happens, I immediately begin planning my exit in earnest. Now, it may be a rare trait. I have no idea really whether it is or not. I've certainly known many who operate in the reverse order, but it is what I was taught by my parents growing up, and has served me well during various careers. None of this means I want to work for Facebook, but they may actually be doing this there. I have read complaints by former employees that it is a little cult-like to work there, but again, those are a few out of thousands.

cmsmith 10y ago

The author should have been more specific in referring to the professional 'self', rather than the general self. My takeaway was that they don't want people who value their own professional advancement at the expense of the company/product as a whole (e.g. backstabbing co-workers, hoarding resources). I don't think that the author was suggesting that the employees are expected to value the company's interest over their own personal lives. At least I hope not.

taurath 10y ago

Depends what set of priorities and how far you draw the line, in my mind. Project/work priorities? Should be company first, then team, then self. I think that goes without saying, and I think thats what they're trying to get across. Going for self glory in projects isn't good for a company. Going to team glory isn't good for a company, but its better than self glory. Financial priorities? Everyone has to take care of themselves in that sense. Every individual has to take care of the bottom of their hierarchy of needs. This might be what you're comparing here. At the same time, past a certain point self needs are fulfilled financially - holding a project hostage for a raise for example wouldn't be great. Social priorities? Self probably comes first there as well - but its not that great a scale since self improvement from working around good people is a benefit to the company as well. But if done in such a way that you stand on the bodies of your vanquished foes you've created a win/lose situation where it could be a win/win. Don't be like oracle, basically.

trhway 10y ago
>Going for self glory in projects isn't good for a company. Going to team glory isn't good for a company, but its better than self glory. you and FB missed the most important - going for the glory of your boss. It is good for the both - for the company (as the company did make sure that the glory of the boss is aligned with the glory of the company) as well as for the team (as the company did make sure that glory of the boss is aligned with the glory of the team). And it is obviously also good for yourself as bosses value the ones who bring them glory.
- taurath 10y ago
  What an amazingly hierarchical type of thinking! Glory for the boss is just that, glory for the boss. Sometimes it may be good for the company, sometimes it might build up the boss in ways that aren't aligned with the companies interests. You get ivory tower syndrome and "kingdoms" really quick with that type of thinking.

m82labs 10y ago

I guess I need more detail to understand your position on this one. An employee that is working for their own personal benefit and gain only is not going to work well in most team settings and will likely not care to work on projects that move the company forward. I don't think they are saying you need to die for the company, simply that your work should be focused on the goals of the company. It's kind of what you get paid for when you go to work.

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
> An employee that is working for their own personal benefit and gain only is not going to work well in most team settings Well, that wasn't what GP said (specifically your "only"). What was stated was that company > team > self is not a natural ordering. And I agree. In particular, people will generally rank team > company. This is well-known to anyone who's studied small unit leadership, and has been well-known since von Clausewitz, perhaps even since antiquity. However, having some degree of overall faith in the leadership of the company, or at least in the purpose of the company (what's typically referred to in the military literature as Esprit de Corps) is a necessary precondition for small unit cohesion. TL;DR: the relationship between self, unit and company is much too complex for a linear ranking of their priorities to be useful in anything but vacuous statements.
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  > The relationship between self, unit and company is much too complex for a linear ranking of their priorities to be useful in anything but vacuous statements. Nicely put.

gmarx 10y ago

So many of you are so ready for your Facebook interview. And I believe none of you. Unless you have ever quit a job without having another one to jump to, because you concluded that your current employer couldn't possibly ever get value out of you greater than what they are paying for you. Then I would believe you and consider you out of your mind with misplaced loyalty. Some of you claim the question is about putting your personal glory above the success of the team. If so the author states it horribly

BurningFrog 10y ago

Depends on how you interpret that. One extreme: If I make more money than I need, I will not ask to be paid less. Other end: I will work on whatever is most important for the team/product/company. Not what I find most fun.

mikerichards 10y ago

Not sure why you're getting modded down, because your'e exactly right. They're stupid, psychological, trick questions to get people to lie. Just walk out when you get questions like this.

hrktb 10y ago

I think what you are pointing out is that those priorities shouldn't be misaligned in the first place. Asking someone to do professional suicide to help the company shouldn't be a thing. I mean, if you are are part of a team and identify something that goes against you and the team but in favor of the conpany, your team's goal should be revised and realigned, and you should get credit for that. In the end pointing out the problem and eventually offering a solution shouldn't go against your own professional interests (your "self" shouldn't get the short end of the stick for a correct behavior)