7 ms·

The bigger companies I worked for in the Bay Area were more like this than the smaller. As a late 40-something who started his own marketing & technology agenc

The bigger companies I worked for in the Bay Area were more like this than the smaller. As a late 40-something who started his own marketing & technology agency to get out of the "working for others and their bad boss habits" conundrum, the one thing I can strongly recommend is that you have to interview companies as carefully as they interview you. I've directly hired more than 100 people in my career, and it was always notable to me how many people show up for an interview, answer questions, ask just a few, and then accept a position in a company without any qualifying process of their own. People take jobs that are offered to them, more or less.

samstave 8y ago
Sure, but people also take jobs because they really need the money. I don't know if you have spent any meaningful amount of time without a job/money - but this world REALLY fucking sucks when you have no income.
- ngngngng 8y ago
  A good strategy in this scenario is to take the first job you can when you need money, but keep interviewing. This way you can be more selective since your needs are already being met.
  - samstave 8y ago
    Yeah, I hear this - the problem can be in some cases that the job you get for money may have come from a contact that if you up-and-leave will negatively affect your relationship with them.
  - wheaties 8y ago
    Sorry but that's a very good way to hurt your career. The community is surprisingly small. As in, I swear it's less than 3 hops from me to most people who might cross my desk when recruiting. I can tell you we know who have done this and we shy away from them. They're a waste of time.
    - mdpopescu 8y ago
      Huh. I can't understand where you would be to have that happen - my job pool is about ten countries in Europe, a few in Africa and Asia, plus Australia. (Countries where you can expect programming jobs to allow for English-only speakers.)
      - pjmlp 8y ago
        Working on the same city? Most people don't keep jumping between countries. Even on a large city like Lisbon it is relatively easy to meet old time university friends or former colleges, because consulting companies have more or less the same costumers.
      - goldfeld 8y ago
        You really can't?
    - jcadam 8y ago
      Yep, I've been in a job for 11 months now that I knew was a bad fit by the end of the first week. I figure I need to stay at least a year -- at least then I won't have to pay the singing bonus back.
    - dj43nq 8y ago
      I've been criticised because I was only at a job for 12 months. I've also been criticised for staying 3 years. Apparently I'm a terrible employee who left too early and stayed too long. I'm so glad I'm no longer an employee - hiring is horribly broken.
    - your-nanny 8y ago
      so you prefer the type of employee who is willingly exploited and doesn't show the same level of loyalty as they can reasonably expect the company to show them?
  - dj43nq 8y ago
    Agreed. Employers don't necessarily deserve loyalty unless they earn it. They often fire people on a whim to rapidly lower costs for this quarter. Meanwhile someone has missed time with family etc to meet an arbitrary deadline that only really benefited someone in marketing anyway. Employers afraid of losing employees should be reminded that employees aren't property. Employees are often stuck with employers for multiple hard reasons and employers know this and exploit it. I've encountered many employers who actively select for employees based on their ability to be manipulated for these kinds of reasons, eg student / mortgage debt as handcuffs.
  - ahartmetz 8y ago
    An even better strategy is to always have a buffer. Under most circumstances it's not hard at all with a software engineer salary.
gallerdude 8y ago
I've always noticed this as a weird development. In an ideal capitalist scenario, people will wind up with the job that suits their preferences to the degree that they have enough career capital to be picky. But in reality, people just kind of fall into whatever job they can get and stay longer than seems rational. As a soon-to-graduate student, I hope I can hold onto the idea that the path of least resistance has a dangerous allure.
- mattmanser 8y ago
  As a soon-to-graduate student, you'll find out why. You need money when you have rent.
  - gallerdude 8y ago
    Of course - for the better or worse, money fuels life. I'm just afraid of sticking with my first company for the rest of my life because I'm half satisfied where I'm at, when I could do much more interesting things elsewhere. Maybe I'll just be happy enough with my life that I won't feel a need to take risks. Maybe I'll be courageous enough to pursue greater net happiness.
    - mdpopescu 8y ago
      It took me a LONG time to figure this out (stopping at the first job that's mostly ok is not a great idea). Once I left it (VERY well paid by local standards) I discovered that things can get much better.
    - milesvp 8y ago
      At the end of the day life happens. Interviewing can take a tremendous amount of effort, and worse, since you generally need to hide it from your current employer, it also can feel gross emotionally. And on top of all that, the best time to interview is actually when you're generally happy with your job, and are working on projects that you like and are good for tou mentally, since you'll come across much happier and more conpetent. which is to say that you may not end up interviewing as often as you should. And when you do interview, you won't look as good as you could. And life. When you have experience and some seniority at a job it can be really convenient to stay put. Have a physical injury? Lose 6 months. Get married? Lose a year to the craziness that is wedding planning. Have a kid? lose 2 years to sleep deprevation. Buy a house? Lose 3 months to dealing with open houses and closing. Have a parent die? Lose 6 months to deal with their estate. You'll be surprised about the frequency that life throws things at you where interviewing is not only low priority, but also very risky because it'll be hard to put in the time and effort in those important first 90 days. So yes, take the risks, and be courageous, just don't feel bad if you look up and realize life happened to you, and you maybe stayed at a job a little loger than you should have.
illumin8 8y ago
I'm a 44 year old senior engineer, and the one thing I've noticed is that bad managers are almost universal in technology. I've had about 20 managers in my career and I can count only 2-3 that I would consider great managers, the rest ranged from mediocre to incredibly incompetent. This, to me, is the #1 reason I gain much more satisfaction from doing consulting work on the side: I'm my own manager, and I can make decisions that are right for the customer, instead of getting told by an incompetent manager that he knows better than I do, which leads to bad outcomes for myself and the client. I'm much more selective as well, and no longer tolerate bad leadership. This is the biggest challenge with finding the right job. I've discovered that almost 90% of your job satisfaction depends on having a good manager. You can actually enjoy a job that doesn't pay as well, and doesn't have as much meaningful work, if you have a great manager, because they can actually help you to make the work meaningful in the right context.
- stephen82 8y ago
  "Why good employees leave" - I know that myself first hand! https://imgur.com/gallery/Eh4krvj https://imgur.com/gallery/Eh4krvj
  - scruffyherder 8y ago
    A picture of a post. I hope it's been faxed at some point.
    - stephen82 8y ago
      I'm sure it has been lol.
- wisam 8y ago
  Why do think is the reason that most managers in technology are bad? I tend to think of management as abstraction. A mid-level manager provides an abstraction of the work for high-level management and at the same time is provided an abstraction of the work by the low-level managers or engineers. Assuming that my understanding is right, are these abstractions leaky? is the lack of technical knowledge the reason why managers are bad?
walshemj 8y ago
well the initial interview is do I goto the interview or even let my cv go forward

samstave 8y ago

Sure, but people also take jobs because they really need the money. I don't know if you have spent any meaningful amount of time without a job/money - but this world REALLY fucking sucks when you have no income.

ngngngng 8y ago
A good strategy in this scenario is to take the first job you can when you need money, but keep interviewing. This way you can be more selective since your needs are already being met.
- samstave 8y ago
  Yeah, I hear this - the problem can be in some cases that the job you get for money may have come from a contact that if you up-and-leave will negatively affect your relationship with them.
- wheaties 8y ago
  Sorry but that's a very good way to hurt your career. The community is surprisingly small. As in, I swear it's less than 3 hops from me to most people who might cross my desk when recruiting. I can tell you we know who have done this and we shy away from them. They're a waste of time.
  - mdpopescu 8y ago
    Huh. I can't understand where you would be to have that happen - my job pool is about ten countries in Europe, a few in Africa and Asia, plus Australia. (Countries where you can expect programming jobs to allow for English-only speakers.)
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      Working on the same city? Most people don't keep jumping between countries. Even on a large city like Lisbon it is relatively easy to meet old time university friends or former colleges, because consulting companies have more or less the same costumers.
    - goldfeld 8y ago
      You really can't?
  - jcadam 8y ago
    Yep, I've been in a job for 11 months now that I knew was a bad fit by the end of the first week. I figure I need to stay at least a year -- at least then I won't have to pay the singing bonus back.
  - dj43nq 8y ago
    I've been criticised because I was only at a job for 12 months. I've also been criticised for staying 3 years. Apparently I'm a terrible employee who left too early and stayed too long. I'm so glad I'm no longer an employee - hiring is horribly broken.
  - your-nanny 8y ago
    so you prefer the type of employee who is willingly exploited and doesn't show the same level of loyalty as they can reasonably expect the company to show them?
- dj43nq 8y ago
  Agreed. Employers don't necessarily deserve loyalty unless they earn it. They often fire people on a whim to rapidly lower costs for this quarter. Meanwhile someone has missed time with family etc to meet an arbitrary deadline that only really benefited someone in marketing anyway. Employers afraid of losing employees should be reminded that employees aren't property. Employees are often stuck with employers for multiple hard reasons and employers know this and exploit it. I've encountered many employers who actively select for employees based on their ability to be manipulated for these kinds of reasons, eg student / mortgage debt as handcuffs.
- ahartmetz 8y ago
  An even better strategy is to always have a buffer. Under most circumstances it's not hard at all with a software engineer salary.

gallerdude 8y ago

I've always noticed this as a weird development. In an ideal capitalist scenario, people will wind up with the job that suits their preferences to the degree that they have enough career capital to be picky. But in reality, people just kind of fall into whatever job they can get and stay longer than seems rational. As a soon-to-graduate student, I hope I can hold onto the idea that the path of least resistance has a dangerous allure.

mattmanser 8y ago
As a soon-to-graduate student, you'll find out why. You need money when you have rent.
- gallerdude 8y ago
  Of course - for the better or worse, money fuels life. I'm just afraid of sticking with my first company for the rest of my life because I'm half satisfied where I'm at, when I could do much more interesting things elsewhere. Maybe I'll just be happy enough with my life that I won't feel a need to take risks. Maybe I'll be courageous enough to pursue greater net happiness.
  - mdpopescu 8y ago
    It took me a LONG time to figure this out (stopping at the first job that's mostly ok is not a great idea). Once I left it (VERY well paid by local standards) I discovered that things can get much better.
  - milesvp 8y ago
    At the end of the day life happens. Interviewing can take a tremendous amount of effort, and worse, since you generally need to hide it from your current employer, it also can feel gross emotionally. And on top of all that, the best time to interview is actually when you're generally happy with your job, and are working on projects that you like and are good for tou mentally, since you'll come across much happier and more conpetent. which is to say that you may not end up interviewing as often as you should. And when you do interview, you won't look as good as you could. And life. When you have experience and some seniority at a job it can be really convenient to stay put. Have a physical injury? Lose 6 months. Get married? Lose a year to the craziness that is wedding planning. Have a kid? lose 2 years to sleep deprevation. Buy a house? Lose 3 months to dealing with open houses and closing. Have a parent die? Lose 6 months to deal with their estate. You'll be surprised about the frequency that life throws things at you where interviewing is not only low priority, but also very risky because it'll be hard to put in the time and effort in those important first 90 days. So yes, take the risks, and be courageous, just don't feel bad if you look up and realize life happened to you, and you maybe stayed at a job a little loger than you should have.

illumin8 8y ago

I'm a 44 year old senior engineer, and the one thing I've noticed is that bad managers are almost universal in technology. I've had about 20 managers in my career and I can count only 2-3 that I would consider great managers, the rest ranged from mediocre to incredibly incompetent. This, to me, is the #1 reason I gain much more satisfaction from doing consulting work on the side: I'm my own manager, and I can make decisions that are right for the customer, instead of getting told by an incompetent manager that he knows better than I do, which leads to bad outcomes for myself and the client. I'm much more selective as well, and no longer tolerate bad leadership. This is the biggest challenge with finding the right job. I've discovered that almost 90% of your job satisfaction depends on having a good manager. You can actually enjoy a job that doesn't pay as well, and doesn't have as much meaningful work, if you have a great manager, because they can actually help you to make the work meaningful in the right context.

stephen82 8y ago
"Why good employees leave" - I know that myself first hand! https://imgur.com/gallery/Eh4krvj https://imgur.com/gallery/Eh4krvj
- scruffyherder 8y ago
  A picture of a post. I hope it's been faxed at some point.
  - stephen82 8y ago
    I'm sure it has been lol.
wisam 8y ago
Why do think is the reason that most managers in technology are bad? I tend to think of management as abstraction. A mid-level manager provides an abstraction of the work for high-level management and at the same time is provided an abstraction of the work by the low-level managers or engineers. Assuming that my understanding is right, are these abstractions leaky? is the lack of technical knowledge the reason why managers are bad?

walshemj 8y ago

well the initial interview is do I goto the interview or even let my cv go forward