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Culture is an obsession at start-ups. They talk about it nearly as much as they talk about sales targets. Its a signal for: don't apply here if you're over 40.
by pcunite 8y ago
Culture is an obsession at start-ups. They talk about it nearly as much as they talk about sales targets.
Its a signal for: don't apply here if you're over 40.
- sethammons 8y agoCan you expand on that? I disagree completely, but my sample size is small. We have lots of people over 40 and we hire for culture too. We define it has folks who are happy, hungry, honest, and humble. If you fit those boxes, are enjoyable to work with, are customer focused, and interested in driving the product forward with colleagues, you will fit our culture. We guard that zealously. Edit: typo.
- jjeaff 8y agoTrue company culture can be anything. But if someone talks too much about culture, it just makes me think about all the extra non-work parties, get together a and events you'll be expected to go to. My idea of a good company culture is a place where everyone works hard during working hours and then goes home and leaves the work at work so they can relax and spend time with friends and family.
- justinhj 8y agoThis is absolutely right. A mature company should be hiring the best person for each role defined as the person that can do the job the best (of course price is another issue). Hiring people because of some preconceived idea of culture is usually code for agism or worse discriminations
- goldfeld 8y agoBut for how many decades do you expect someone to be honestly happily hungry when food turns out to continually taste like doritos?
- EliRivers 8y agoWe define it has folks who are happy, hungry, honest, and humble. Good for you. In a number of companies, "culture fit" became code for "looks like us, dresses like us, educated like us, thinks like us, is like us".
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- joeax 8y agoMy personal experience. I've worked in an out of Seattle, working for some big-name companies. Shortly after turning 40 and got laid off. No big deal, I thought, because my resume, open source contributions, customer skills, and deep experience should land me a job pretty quickly, right? Well without getting into too much detail, I was told more than once "I am not a culture fit". The whole experience caused me to rethink my career as a pure software developer, and I've since pivoted to become a cloud architect. I'm not the OP on this thread but I do agree, when I hear "culture fit" I feel in a sense it's a veiled way to discriminate in some way, age, gender, or otherwise.
- flukus 8y agoIt sounds like these ones took this up a notch and expected everyone to do all their socializing, eating, entertainment and anything not work related with the company. It's more of a "don't apply here if you have a well adjusted, balanced life at any age".
- scarejunba 8y agoBelieve whatever you want. But I'm never hiring a guy whose belief is that as a developer his job is only building whatever some person thinking about the product wants. I want to work with engineers who want influence over the product. That's a culture difference. I'm never hiring a guy who thinks it's his job to only write code in the stack I tell him to under the rules I place him under. I want to work with people who care about that and have an informed opinion about it. That's a culture difference. I'm not hiring a guy who wants to write code but not be affected by the operation of it, who believes that he should operate in isolation and everyone should merge his 30k line PRs, who believes that he should only have his code reviewed by those senior to him. That's culture. And a hundred other things are, too. Life's too short to have a net negative weighing the team down.
- forkerenok 8y agoI want to work with you! Of the 3 points you raised the 1st one strikes the highest chord with me: it really sucks to be working with someone who just likes to move stories/tickets from left to right.