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That's the problem though. From the outside, there's no way to know if you're going to end up in the "good" part of the company or not. Sure, you can do your be

That's the problem though. From the outside, there's no way to know if you're going to end up in the "good" part of the company or not. Sure, you can do your best to screen the company, but it's not too hard in the short interview process to mask a lot of the warts. You could say this is true at any company, but it feels like more of a problem when comparing a company with lots of really good reviews/testimonials to one with very few good ones. I think I'd have to have a close friend, or someone who I trust internally, to convince me of the quality of a particular team at this point, and I haven't got that. Also, I've moved off the career path, I think, that would be of value at Mozilla.

Bartweiss 8y ago
> From the outside, there's no way to know if you're going to end up in the "good" part of the company or not. I think this is a serious problem in all sorts of fields, and I've never heard of a good answer. Sometimes Glassdoor is enough to get impressions like "healthy devops team, unhealthy frontend and sales teams", but with companies where the same job title appears on many teams it's even harder to sort out. I suspect you're right that it's a significant reason for word-of-mouth job searches; they're a candidate's best form of diligence. It definitely cuts both ways, too - no matter what the prevailing culture a large company is likely to have teams out of sync with it. Places like Uber and Riot Games that make the news for bad culture have teams who aren't exposed to that stuff, and on the other side we've all heard stories of localized tyranny and incompetence within otherwise-great companies.
- codezero 8y ago
  Yeah, personally, when I am trying to find this out if I'm speaking with a current employee who is on the team I would be working for, I try to drill down to see if problems are related to poor middle management (a single bad manager can destroy an entire team and any team that is connected to it), or whether it's endemic in the culture, which is harder to suss out, but is usually something you can infer when asking about over-arching company strategy and how plans get executed from the top down.
techslave 8y ago
But why is this a problem? You don't go to work there and then you are stuck for 20 years. You can learn in 3 months if it is viable and if not, assuming you are well credentialed and easily employable, move on. It's worth the chance if you've drunk the kool-aid otherwise. You're just giving yourself reasons to fail. Give yourself a reason to succeed.
- codezero 8y ago
  The time and emotional effort of changing companies is a huge fixed cost, and I personally don't want to do it twice in three months ever, but you are right, it's always an option.

Bartweiss 8y ago

> From the outside, there's no way to know if you're going to end up in the "good" part of the company or not. I think this is a serious problem in all sorts of fields, and I've never heard of a good answer. Sometimes Glassdoor is enough to get impressions like "healthy devops team, unhealthy frontend and sales teams", but with companies where the same job title appears on many teams it's even harder to sort out. I suspect you're right that it's a significant reason for word-of-mouth job searches; they're a candidate's best form of diligence. It definitely cuts both ways, too - no matter what the prevailing culture a large company is likely to have teams out of sync with it. Places like Uber and Riot Games that make the news for bad culture have teams who aren't exposed to that stuff, and on the other side we've all heard stories of localized tyranny and incompetence within otherwise-great companies.

codezero 8y ago
Yeah, personally, when I am trying to find this out if I'm speaking with a current employee who is on the team I would be working for, I try to drill down to see if problems are related to poor middle management (a single bad manager can destroy an entire team and any team that is connected to it), or whether it's endemic in the culture, which is harder to suss out, but is usually something you can infer when asking about over-arching company strategy and how plans get executed from the top down.

techslave 8y ago

But why is this a problem? You don't go to work there and then you are stuck for 20 years. You can learn in 3 months if it is viable and if not, assuming you are well credentialed and easily employable, move on. It's worth the chance if you've drunk the kool-aid otherwise. You're just giving yourself reasons to fail. Give yourself a reason to succeed.

codezero 8y ago
The time and emotional effort of changing companies is a huge fixed cost, and I personally don't want to do it twice in three months ever, but you are right, it's always an option.