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Netflix Employees Are Happier with Their Job Than Facebook or Google Employees
- thisisit 9y agoThe article seems oddly gushy about Blind or "the anonymous employee chat app for employees" -> There must be a better way to write that. It "ask them the kinds of sensitive questions that you normally can't ask: Do you think you are paid fairly? Are you interested in leaving your job?" The sample size is 4174 people across ~40+ companies. So I am not really sure this can be trusted, looks more like a click bait article.
- Bahamut 9y agoThat Glassdoor reference on Netflix software engineer salaries is wrong/outdated from my understanding - I don’t know a single Netflixer making less than $300k. Netflix seems to have an unusually open culture in general, including topics such as salary - they put their money where their mouth is and basically egg everyone on to beat them. Gotta respect that a company is willing to do that (I don’t work for them, but I do work for one of the big public tech companies listed in those charts)
- baddox 9y agoSurely you have some selection bias in your Netflix-employed acquaintances. I would imagine their average/median salary is lower than that.
- brogrammernot 9y agoI also don’t know a single engineer whose total comp is below $300k at Netflix. They get paid well and the caliber of talent is top tier.
- baddox 9y agoI could certainly be wrong! That feels shockingly high as an average, but good on Netflix for valuing talent. Something to aspire to. ;)
- eitally 9y agoIt is shockingly high, but it's true. It's also a produce or leave environment where folks don't stick around who aren't, as the previous poster says, "top tier."
- fro0116 9y agoBy "top tier", do you also mean people who are willing to put in longer than normal hours and deal with a super-competitive culture and the office politics and drama that come with it? Or am I reading too much into the quotations? I'm honestly just interested in hearing more about what the culture at Netflix is like.
- jlesk 9y agoNetflix employee here. You can find out a lot about our culture from our culture page: https://jobs.netflix.com/culture https://jobs.netflix.com/culture It's not just marketing fluff. It really does a good job of reflecting what it's like to work there, and is taken seriously by everyone from the top down. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it's not a competitive environment, and I've experience very little politics and drama. Those things are explicitly counter to the culture. As for long hours, while the work day can be pretty intense, the office is usually empty by 5-6pm. Hope that helps.
- brailsafe 9y agoIf this is true, as someone who is unemployed and doesn't watch Netflix, I can't even wrap my head around that number. On the other hand, I'm kind of happy to see that they're making real money by charging real money (unlike others where your information is the only product) and passing that on to the people who make it good.
- dilemma 9y agoNetflix is in the red, I believe.
- mikeyouse 9y agoNah, they reliably make ~$100M per quarter in net income and have a few billion in cash reserves. They're on very stable financial footing.
- ravenstine 9y agoincome =/= profit
- dmoy 9y agoIsn't net income == net profit?
- ravenstine 9y agoA person can have an income of $300k a year but spend every penny of it on debt and necessities. That's generally not considered making a profit. EDIT: Sorry, I misunderstood something. Netflix has indeed been making a profit.
- dmoy 9y agoSure but if a corporation makes 300k a year that's called revenue, the revenue minus costs are profit, no?
- pmiller2 9y agoAren't they also an extremely cutthroat culture? Being open about that doesn't make it any more appealing to me.
- jlesk 9y agoAs a Netflix employee, I wouldn't really describe our culture as cutthroat at all. My experience in 5 years has almost entirely devoid of politics. For example, from our culture page: "We have no bell curves or rankings or quotas such as “cut the bottom 10% every year.” That would be detrimental to fostering collaboration, and is a simplistic, rules-based approach we would never support." https://jobs.netflix.com/culture https://jobs.netflix.com/culture Our culture can feel intimidating, especially if you have any degree of imposter syndrome, but with very few exceptions, my colleagues and managers have always been supportive and really great to work with.
- sramam 9y ago> Our culture can feel intimidating, especially if you have any degree of imposter syndrome Could you elaborate?
- PakG1 9y agoI imagine that it's like playing on a professional sports team. If you can't hack it in the NBA, NHL, NFL, etc, you'll know inside of you. Guys that make it to The Show have very little doubt in themselves as to what they're capable of doing, and even the superstars are mostly working their butts off to get even better, and that goes double for the benchwarmers. See any YouTube video on Kobe Bryant's work ethic. But even the benchwarmers know that they belong if they put in the work.
- swissarmy 9y agoYou are describing "confidence". Yes you need that to work there.
- BinaryIdiot 9y ago
- icelancer 9y agoI know an engineer making less than $300k in total comp, but it's just barely under that, so your overall point is definitely reinforced.
- cletus 9y agoYou need to make sure you're comparing apples to apples here. Netflix has high salaries but doesn't (for normal employees anyway) give equity. The other big tech companies do. And equity can be a significant part of your total compensation especially given tech stock performance. I think there's no bonus either but I'm not certain of that part. Note that some will consider paying straight salary an advantage. It's certainly more straightforward.
- chaostheory 9y agoAren’t bonuses are taxed at a much higher rate compared to salary?
- razwall 9y agoNo, bonuses are taxed at the same rate as salary. The withholding calculations are different, so you tend to have a bigger chunk taken out of your bonus check. But if that chunk is greater than your actual tax rate, you'll get the difference back in your tax refund.
- jrockway 9y agoYeah, that sounds nice. Getting paid in stock is a huge hassle. You have to deal with special brokerage accounts. You have to remember to enroll for autosale if you want to get paid during "silent periods". There is an extra hour of paperwork to do every year for your taxes. Given that stock was like half my compensation, I wasn't going to give it up to avoid the hassle. But next time, no thanks. edit: just noticed your username, hah.
- ehnto 9y agoEquity has so many complications. I would take a solid salary over a not great salary any day. Maybe you miss out on a million dollar payday when the stocks perform well, but at $300,000/year salary, you're not far from it anyway, and at least that's a guarantee.
- noir_lord 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jondubois 9y agoThat's a very high number for a full time position. I wonder what engineers actually do at Netflix? Seems like most of the work would be behind them... I feel like a lot of big tech companies these days pay engineers to sound smart rather than for doing actual work. The interview processes at these companies would certainly indicate that.
- chrisco255 9y agoBehind them? Like, Netflix is through, no need to expand it's offerings? No need to improve it's UX? Introduce new features?
- nihonde 9y agoTheir front-end apps are awful, and wildly inconsistent from platform to platform. Streaming performance is best in class, as far as I can tell, though. I guess their focus is on the latter.
- empath75 9y agoCheck out spinnaker.
- luckydude 9y agoStuff like filling a 100Gbit pipe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15367421 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15367421 I think that's some studly work, so much so that I'm sitting at the FreeBSD conference at Netflix right now. I'm retired but some people got me interested in this stuff and I asked netflix for some hardware to look at numa performance issues. I showed up and they just handed me a 2U server, 2 Haswell sockets, 14 cpus (unthreaded) per socket, 256GB, 26TB of SSD. Neat machine :) So far, from what I've seen, Netflix seems like they are close to what they describe on their culture page (that's been linked on this page) but it's early on for me. I can say that playing with the hardware, learning about the issues, talking to people about kernel work has got me pretty pumped. Fun problems, fun people.
- 1024core 9y agoThis (high Netflix salaries) has the effect of raising salaries in other companies (which do provide RSUs/options on top of that)! I know people who left $BigCo for NetFlix; stuck around for a few months, and then went right back to $BigCo, but this time with a salary matching their Netflix salary.
- bluetwo 9y agoAverage household income of 200k in Los Gatos, and average house price over a million (according to city web site). I guess I would need 300k to live there.
- marssaxman 9y agoWhen you say "making less than $300k", are you referring to actual salary or to some nebulous "total compensation" estimate?
- gautamnarula 9y agoNetflix has a lower rating (3.6) than Google (4.4) and Facebook (4.6) on Glassdoor. Obviously Glassdoor isn't completely reliable since anyone can write a review, but Blind is also subject to selection bias.
- fusiongyro 9y agoWithout even looking at the article, I would guess so simply because what Netflix purports to do is what they actually do and how they make money, so there's no ethical shell game being played against starry-eyed junior developers.
- shmerl 9y ago> so there's no ethical shell game being played Netflix has some shady stuff like DRM going on, while pretending it's not their fault it was pushed into HTML standard.
- nickonline 9y agoPretty minor part of their business though
- shmerl 9y agoStill a major impact on the standard itself.
- CommentCard 9y agoIt's the reason why Netflix on Chrome and Firefox isn't in 1080p. Due to DRM support Netflix supports 1080p on Edge though.
- nickonline 9y agobut we're talking about an ethical shell game impacting mental state not the technical standards for the wider internet.
- shmerl 9y agoI'd say being hypocrites about their DRM attitude is unethical enough.
- imustbeevil 9y ago
- pfarnsworth 9y agoDuh. The ones that survive are making ~400k/yr pure cash and very very happy. I've heard they will fire very quickly though but those that fit into the culture must be extremely happy.
- brailsafe 9y agoDo they fire quickly based on culture fit or some performance measure?
- canttestthis 9y agoTheir culture is singularly focused on performance... so both.
- jlesk 9y agoNetflix employee here. We have a high performance culture, certainly, but it's not the singular focus. I have probably seen just as many people let go for their inability to work well with others as anything performance-related. From our culture page: "...there are no “brilliant jerks.” The cost to teamwork is just too high. Our view is that brilliant people are also capable of decent human interactions, and we insist upon that." https://jobs.netflix.com/culture https://jobs.netflix.com/culture
- byebyetech 9y agoWhen you say High performance culture, does it mean you have to work more than 8 hours a day? Is it butt-in-the-seat culture? if not, how do you measure performance? Would be great to know.
- brailsafe 9y agoWas about to ask the same question. Performance measures vary between companies, sector, and management structures.
- ucaetano 9y ago"When asked to rate the statement, "I'm compensated fairly," 4174 people responded, Blind says." Funny how they don't mention how many people answered the other questions. The survey, as well as the article, is bullshit clickbait.
- zackelan 9y ago> The survey, as well as the article, is bullshit clickbait. To me it reads like barely-disguised native advertising, with every single chart having both the company's logo embedded in it and a direct link to their homepage right below it. It's sad to see such content appear so prominently on HN.
- CodeWriter23 9y agoProbably has to do with Netflix being TV for people to watch, and Facebook, Google being the equivalent of Orwell’s TV that watches you.
- nodesocket 9y agoI attribute and applaud the strong leadership of Reed Hastings. Apple and Tim Cook is another example. Both companies keep their products and secrets close to their chest, and don't put-up with employees who think their political views or personal agendas are more important than the company. Leadership by committee (Google is notorious) in my view is not the answer. Large public companies should be dictatorships. The quote; and I'll be sure to get it right (oops Texans owner) "the inmates are running the asylum" holds true for Google and Facebook.
- sdee21 9y agoI have no clue how netflix can survive with the price and being able to virtually download everything they have in their library.
- romanovcode 9y agoConvenience.
- MystK 9y agoExactly. I've pirated a ton of movies in my time, but it's so much easier to sit down on the coach from a long day of work, fire up the Apple TV and scroll through and watch all the good originals that Netflix has.
- mos7 9y agopfft...pointless article Facebook and Google have 10x, 50x more engineering man power.
- snvzz 9y agoThey chose BSD (freebsd) over Linux.
- dijit 9y agoIs this relevant in any way to the article?
- lscotte 9y agoActually, both Linux and BSD are used - BSD on OpenConnect cache appliances, but Linux for the entire backend running in AWS.
- luckydude 9y agoThey are actively working on the FreeBSD kernel, see Drew's post that I linked to (they did enough work to fill 100Gbit/sec pipe with 100,000 TCP connections. Impressive stuff). FreeBSD is used because they can get their work into the kernel, Linux is harder to change. The Linux use appears to me to just be VMs in AWS, it's just a service.
- horus836 9y agoHow Netflix subscribers, who are only purchasing the right to be able to stream videos on a limited release cycle, are hurt by Netflix's use of DRM?
- 0xbear 9y agoSeems like selection bias. Netflix fires you if you’re not happy.
- underwoodley 9y agoThat's not a selection bias. It's (if true) an actual part of the cause of Netflix engineers being happy with their job. If the headline 'People who have worked at Netflix at some time in the past are happier' then yes, only asking people who are still there would be selection bias.
- lsc 9y agoReally? See, I've actually kind of been following netflix for a while, kind of excitedly. A no bullshit company that pays a lot when you are productive, and fires you when you are not. Sounds like my sort of thing. But... if they also require you to "be happy" and otherwise put yourself in the required company emotional state... that makes them a lot less attractive. Generally speaking, I lose a lot of respect for companies or people who value "culture fit" over productivity, and I generally have a hard time "singing the company anthem" as it were. (Note, some people confuse 'politeness' with culture fit. Being polite, being able to avoid spilling your bad feelings inappropriately is part of working with other people. But being part of a culture is not.)
- bborud 9y agoIs it bad that Netflix fires people who are not happy working for them?
- atulatul 9y agoI think the parent comment meant that since unhappy people are fired, remaining people are happy ones and these happy ones participated in the survey thus resulting into the survey result... selection bias. It is not about whether it is good for netflix or not.
- bborud 9y agoFair comment. But I wasn’t really thinking about what’s good for Netflix. I was actually thinking about the employees. If you are unhappy at an employer : is it bad if you are fired for not being happy?
- kevinr 9y agoThe hed is a little misleading---what is meant by happiness in the article itself is that Netflix employees more likely feel they're compensated fairly and aren't looking for other jobs. That is, however, really nice confirmation that Netflix does in fact live what I was told when I interviewed there, that Netflix prides itself on offering the best comp package in industry. (They followed that by casually offering to more than triple my salary, so I had some inkling they weren't just making that up, but it's easy to write off one data point in a high-demand field as an anomaly.) I'm most impressed that Amazon is doing as well as it is in those rankings, given how much shit they've gotten in the press over the last few years.
- azuriten 9y agoThere was an episode NPR Planet Money where they had a former hiring manager explain Netflix's work culture. I recommend giving it a listen; it's only 20 mins. npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/13/550793717/episode-647-hard-work-is-irrelevant There was a story where a woman who worked herself sick for the company and was on sick leave. Netflix essentially said don't worry, take as much time off as you want but really it was about making her post redundant and moving on without her.
- Flenser 9y agoThe graph for compensation/leaving is more revealing if you right align the red bars: https://i.imgur.com/WeJD8na.png https://i.imgur.com/WeJD8na.png note how with Lyft, Uber and Apple there's no overlap between the percentage that feel compensated fairly and the percentage that would leave (yes I realise the two aren't orthogonal, but it's still indicative). Edit: and linkedIn only overlap slightly. Looking at it another way: https://i.imgur.com/vnMtd3r.png https://i.imgur.com/vnMtd3r.png If you want to reduce the percentage of your employees that want to leave there's two ways to do it: increase compensation, or do whatever Lyft, Uber, Apple and linkedIn are doing.
- kfriede 9y agoI'd be curious to see how the data changes if the question is changed to "Do you think you are compensated enough". I personally know people who think they make too much, and may actually answer "No" to the question "Do you think you are compensated fairly?"
- romanovcode 9y agoSince Netflix fires employees who are unhappy I would like to hear the story from the other side as well, that is - from the unhappy fired employees.
- luckydude 9y agoThat's not the sense I get, I believe (and I'm just going from what I've read so salt a bit) that they let go people that aren't producing at the level they want. So they could easily let go someone who was happy but not producing enough.
- WhiteSource1 9y agoProbably the free movies!
- brianzelip 9y agoThe most recent Front End Happy Hour podcast[0] featured a Netflix recruiter who described their culture a bit. I found it interesting and encouraging. [0]http://frontendhappyhour.com/episodes/getting-the-bartenders-attention/ http://frontendhappyhour.com/episodes/getting-the-bartenders....
- kelukelugames 9y agoOne thing to keep in mind it the number of employees. Netflix - 3.5k Facebook - 17k Google - 60k
- sjg007 9y agoBecause they get paid a lot!!
- trhway 9y agoamong my friends/acquaintances Netflix has higher or comparable totals (much north of $400K) with significantly, like on the order of 2x, higher base than FB/Google - makes for much happier existence :)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- heroprotagonist 9y agoIt's too bad their happiness can't translate into ultrawide video being displayed properly on an ultrawide monitor in my browser. I have tried a few times to inform them but I guess it either gets lost before it ever reaches the people who can fix it, or they just don't care to fix it. Black bars surrounding all four sides of the video (only with ultrawide content on ultrawide browser) because their app can't properly apply video dimension to the user screen dimension is kind of sad. It's a little hard to believe they don't know about it, because I'm not the only one affected. There are even some compromise-options users contribute through use of Chrome extensions like this one: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ultrawide-display-aspect/ohipjogbepngmhlggljgiibpfmmnohgc?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ultrawide-display-... Even this is not a good solution, because Chrome is limited to 720p (Edge goes to 4k). So.. users can either get a smaller video in a box centered on their screen, but with higher resolution, or they can get actual fullscreen with a poorly supported browser at penalty of a lower resolution. I know, not the best place for bug reports, but customer support, Twitter, other social media all have failed to solve this for a good year and a half.. Hopefully one of their engineers can read this and think "I feel empowered enough at my job to be able to pursue a solution to this."
- sadikkapadia1 9y agoNetflix is no different to any other company. Your happiness depends on your boss. And even single teams go through bad patches. Some background. I wrote Netflix's recommendation system. Netflix later went on to take part in fraud against USPTO which now led to Netflix with no ownership of it's "most important technology". Xavier Amatrain https://www.linkedin.com/in/xamatriain/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/xamatriain/ was my boss. Xavier went on to hire lots of staff to try and replace my system and was unable to do so. In the end he started claiming credit for systems I had written without understanding the technology. He still presents his incorrect knowledge in public conferences. The result is that for 5 years Netflix has been running my alpha system without improving the technology (various techniques that Xavier tried and k-means, LDA and deep-learning). Netflix never did push a version I had written with 40% greater "click-through" rate, 3 times greater speed and order of magnitude less memory. One example conversation I had with Xavier after he left Netflix (para-phrasing of course): Me: How is my system doing? Xavier: We don't use it anymore. We stopped using your system 1 week after you left. Me: Really what do you use? Xavier: I cannot tell you it is secret. Me: Who wrote it? Xavier: You don't know him. We hired him after you and he wrote and pushed the new algorithm. Me: So that new person, wrote a new recommendation system; pushed it into A/B test; got test results and then pushed it into production in 1 week. Xavier: Yes - he is better than you. All was this is a lie (and not out of character), because I have been in touch with other engineers post-Netflix and in fact I've talked with Justin on a number of occasions on the phone about how to keep my system running. Later Xavier invited me to work for him at Quora. He offered in his own words "an unbelievable salary". I of course refused. I met Xavier sometime later and tried to talk to him about a particular bad presentation of his. He got upset and shouted "Fuck Off, I'm not interested in listening to anything you have to say" multiple times. We were on the Facebook campus at the time. He left at that point. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Always remember https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...