21 ms·

My Time at Snap

481 points by tsm 7y ago

albatruss 7y ago
>He did tell us to use the word “epoch,” but not before explaining what the word meant and that it was not, in fact, the same word as “epic,” to a room full of native English speakers. He then proceeded to opine on what he thought the Latin roots of the word might be, which I’m convinced to this day he was making up on the spot. "epoch" actually comes from Greek :)
- fouc 7y ago
  It would've been lovely if someone had directly interrupted this "John" anytime he attempted to expound extensively after being asked a minor clarifying question. This sort of person shouldn't be tolerated, not even by employees.
  - haasted 7y ago
    Trouble is has that he seems to be in charge of their bi-annual reviews, which is actually rather solid leverage.
  - itronitron 7y ago
    Every dev team I've been on has always had one person that readily answers any minor or rhetorical question without missing a beat. I thought they were universal but maybe I have just been lucky.
alaskamiller 7y ago
Prior to the first day of boot camp they flown us to an airport in San Diego, everyone gathered at the USO lounge on the opposite end of the airport to wait for everyone else flying in. At midnight, a bus rolls in to the parking lot. Everyone was told to line up in a formation, head forward, arms straight and down to the side. The bus door opens and out pops a drill instructor with the vigor of a tasmanian devil, barking out orders. Everyone got loaded into the bus in orderly fashion and was told to to put our heads down, cradled between our legs. The bus drove around for what seemed like an hour. Later I found out the camp was next door to the airport. Upon arrival, the bus stopped, the bus driver got out and the drill instructor got out. We were left to our selves, with no instructions, no understanding for ten minutes. Then came an imposing man with a wide brimmed hat with a voice that sounds like a frog inhabited his throat. He proceeded to say in a frank manner we are now to disembark off this bus and make our way outside to find a pair of gold foot prints on the ground. We are each to line up on them and wait for further instructions. After the last person has gotten off the bus and when everyone was situated, we are then told the meaning of those foot prints. It is a tradition passed on through history, whereby someone before us had stepped on those foot prints prior to starting boot camp and there will be people after us to step on those foot prints. From there we entered the gates thus began our journey to become United States Marine Corps, an organization with a history of over 243 years. tl;dr -- Every organization has whackadoo indoctrination.
- huac 7y ago
  Imagine being dunked into a tub of water as your indoctrination. And yet - churches (and other religious organizations) have had high member retention for centuries!
- untog 7y ago
  > Every organization has whackadoo indoctrination. Nope. Just whackaddo organizations. I'd argue the Marine Corps is included in that, but at least they have the excuse of needing soldiers to be able to depend on each other for their lives. Snap... not so much.
throwaway-1436 7y ago
What genre of porn is this?
rvz 7y ago
Act I - The Offer: I knew what I was getting myself into. There were red flags, but I chose to ignore them for the sake of a huge equity offer. Act II - Council: Snap starts every employee’s onboarding off with some real hippy type of shit. The aforementioned hippy shit can continue into your regular employment if you so desire, which I did not. Act III - The First Months: For the first ~1/2 year at Snap, I was mostly isolated on a handful of projects where I became the sole maintainer, and rarely got to interact much with other engineers or my manager. Act IV - The Phantom Resident: When I worked for Snap in Venice, we occupied a beach-front condominium with a likely fictitious resident who supposedly slept in our “conference room” to meet zoning requirements. Act V - Moving to Santa Monica & ADA Semi-Compliance: The Snap Santa Monica offices were pretty standard big tech office fare. Miniature “phone booth” meeting rooms raised the ire of building inspectors over ADA compliance, and the company implicitly encouraged employees to continue using the non-compliant facilities while replacements were acquired. Act VI - The John Months: I needed to stay until at least the following February to vest the first 10% of my stock grant, but it was proving difficult to keep going. A friend on the customer ops team, Nate, offered to have me transfer over and work on their projects full time, and after receiving assurances that I would be able to travel around the holidays and work remotely I jumped on it. Act VII - The Team Change Switcharoo: I went through with the team change to customer ops, but for HR purposes I ended up technically reporting to an engineering manager on a different team. Nate, who was going to become my manager under the original plan, didn’t take this news well, but I didn’t mind. The work on the new team proved enjoyable and the stock price even started to recover as I began vesting my stock grant. Act VIII - The Beginning of the End: I got a hatchet job of a performance review from my time working for John, and Nate left the company which put me in a tricky situation. I ended up truly joining the team I was technically a member of, and began integrating more into their work alongside my own. Act XI - The End of the End: Remember the agreement I made with customer ops about working remotely around the holidays? My new team decided they weren’t going to honor it, and didn’t let me know about that until just a few months before I was planning a trip. Act X (The Finale) - Dealing With The Fallout: I couldn’t find any way around the predicament I was in, and had to leave the company. Despite some minor depression symptoms I managed to find a new job and walked away from what would have been a life-changing amount of money.
meuk 7y ago
> When I say that it was a bedroom, I don’t just mean that it would be identified as a bedroom on the condo’s floor plan, I mean that this room had a fully made up bed crammed into it next to the conference table and video conferencing unit. That's hilarious.
- joejerryronnie 7y ago
  I would make it a point to sleep for the first 30 minutes of any meeting.
  - paxys 7y ago
    Seriously, that thing would be booked 24x7 at my company. Being able to lie down while on a call would make things so much more relaxing and productive.
    - leni536 7y ago
      Too risky for falling asleep.
      - bestest 7y ago
        I believe the fact that you might fall asleep when you simply lie on a bed at work indicates that there are some timing issues in your daily lifecycle.
        whynaut 7y ago
        Normally i’d agree, but they had 2 hour sprint plannings.. for a sub-team..
person_of_color 7y ago
Life changing amount of money for dev tools and a smattering of HTML/CSS. Right.
- anoncake 7y ago
  Unlikely in a well-run company, but apparently Snap isn't one.
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  Money is more a function of algorithmic interviewing and negotiating ability than technical stack.
librish 7y ago
There seems to be a valuable lesson for OP about the cost of not playing ball here. Assuming OPs side of things is mostly true it sounds like: - OP was working for a bad director, one so bad that they eventually got fired - Instead of placating this director and pretending to take their concerns into consideration, OP fights back more than other teammates (reading between the lines of the quote "However, given that I was far from John’s favorite (we never openly came into conflict, but I didn’t put the requisite amount of enthusiasm into jumping through his hoops to really get onto his good side)" here) - The director gives him a very poor performance review, that seems to have had serious impact on OPs career, team selection possibility, and personal finances, despite the director eventually getting fired It just seems like a very high price to pay just to be able to tell yourself that you're not putting up with bullshit.
- Spearchucker 7y ago
  It's called workplace bullying in the UK. When I started my career I put up with it for the money. About 7 years in I walked out (quite literally) after the most amazing amount of verbal abuse I've seen delivered in an unjustified tantrum. One of the best memories of over 30 years in tech. "It just seems like a very high price to pay just to be able to tell yourself that you're not putting up with bullshit." That would be funny if it wasn't so sad. 'Specially given the recent events/news about Stalman.
- kgwgk 7y ago
  The philosopher Diogenes was sitting on a curbstone, eating bread and lentils for his supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, "If you would learn to be subservient to the king, you would not have to live on lentils." Said Diogenes, "Learn to live on lentils, and you will not have to cultivate the king."
  - librish 7y ago
    Right. Spend 5 minutes flattering the king, and benefit from the outsized rewards from it.
ladberg 7y ago
I applied to Snap a few months ago and was insta-rejected which was the first time (and only) that has ever happened to me. I was interning at a FAANG for the third time, going into my senior year at a top school with a good GPA, and looking for a full time job. Not sure which requirement I didn't meet.
- charlesju 7y ago
  It's probably because they were bleeding money at that moment and weren't hiring anyone outside super unicorn seniors, but they didn't want to update their job descriptions
  - dagw 7y ago
    Yea, I've worked at a place that had job ads out despite having no plans on hiring on the grounds that "someone really amazing might apply". They never did.
    - charlesju 7y ago
      There are a lot of strategic reasons to do this: 1. Internally you'll feel like you're growing still even though you aren't 2. Externally to investors same feeling 3. You will collect resumes in case you want to fire up hiring again quickly
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
dangwu 7y ago
> ...the workload we had mostly kept us working separately on our own tasks with little room for interaction. It wasn’t uncommon, for the first part of my time at Snap, to get up in the morning, drive to the office, go through the work-day in the same room as two other people but rarely speaking to each other, and then drive home... Sadly, I find this to be all too common in the industry. It’s super isolating and depressing when you work alone on projects and aren’t in an environment that fosters socialization and team-building. Forming those bonds is what makes people happy to go to work everyday and work hard. Managers should do more to prioritize interaction and teaming up on projects when it makes sense.
- huhtenberg 7y ago
  This actually sounds like a near-perfect setup to me. Get it, program, get out. If I want to socialize, I'll do it outside of work.
  - sanderdlm 7y ago
    It may sound like it but I can assure you that it's not. Humans are social animals and when you have to spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week in a setting with little to no peer interaction, it'll start to wear on you. The first month is awesome. Complete freedom & autonomy, then the depression starts kicking in.
    - emptyfile 7y ago
      What the heck are you talking about, that sounds perfect. Work colleges suck.
    - Kiro 7y ago
      I've been in the situation without any colleagues to speak with for years and still love it. We are all different.
    - huhtenberg 7y ago
      You certainly can assure me, but that won't do much. I've been doing it for 30 years, I know how I like it.
deleted 7y ago
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curiousgal 7y ago
Tangent. How is it logical to deprive people from access to a booth just because people in a wheelchair can't access it? That's like banning computer screens because blind people can't see them.
- tudorw 7y ago
  Because when asked nicely to design accessible buildings very little was done, it required legislation that seems counterintuitive at first, however, if you design for all from the outset, then this is a non-issue. The internet needs to learn this too.
  - curiousgal 7y ago
    Yes but if there's an accessible alternative then where's the issue? In this case the offices had conference rooms that were wheelchair-accessible. Sure this means able-bodied people had twice as much access to something but hasn't that always been the case? Like, if you can walk, you can take either the stairs or the ramp to get into a building.
    - paxys 7y ago
      Literally in the next line he says that the conference rooms were always booked and not really an alternative (which is pretty standard in any office)
      - curiousgal 7y ago
        That's a different issue now isn't it? Access is provided but not guaranteed. You don't see cities with bike lanes forcing those lanes to be clear.
        YawningAngel 7y ago
        I don't think it is a different issue. The object of the exercise is to allow disabled people to participate on an equal footing. A few nominal concessions that aren't sufficient to achieve this does not do that. I don't think blocked cycle lanes are a good point of comparison as they don't fulfil their intended function when blocked.
teen 7y ago
Tough break. I also spoke w/ a Snap Recruiter around the same time as you, and was offered that ridic amount of equity- they were talking about 600k for L5, or over 1m for L6. I felt like this was a huge red flag that their equity was bullshit. And that vesting schedule is an obvious scam. Reading Glassdoor is nothing but stories like this one. Sorry you went through it. None of this surprises me, Snap Leadership seems like nothing but jerks.
- jkp56 7y ago
  1M per year?
  - anonsnap 7y ago
    1m over 4 years in RSU
    - jkp56 7y ago
      So 250k per year in stocks + up to 200k in salary + 40k annual bonus. 500k total. That's a really solid result for someone with 10yoe in the big tech companies, top performer. Solid, but nothing to shout about.
- anonsnap 7y ago
  its 25/25/25/25 with no cliff and quarterly investment as of jan 2018
Waterluvian 7y ago
Regarding the attractive stock vestments: in my opinion you need to avoid like the plague, anything that makes it hard to walk away from your job at any time. You need to be in the driver's seat for your life and career. Otherwise you're just going to become miserable FAANG engineer cattle through one mechanism or another. Good on this person to walk away like that.
- TomVDB 7y ago
  Attractive stock vestments are potentially what will make it possible in the futures to walk away at any time...
Rainymood 7y ago
My thoughts after reading roughly 75% of the article, I couldn't finish it: I noticed three things: * This developer is focused around me me me, everything has to revolve around him * This developer is probably hell to work with * There was a huge cultural mismatch between him/her and Snap These were my thoughts while reading the article with some comments after every tl;dr. I wasn't able to finish the article because it felt very whiny and egocentric. >tl;dr — I knew what I was getting myself into. There were red flags, but I chose to ignore them for the sake of a huge equity offer. At least the author has a lot of self-awareness. >tl:dr — Snap starts every employee’s on-boarding off with some real hippy type of shit. The aforementioned hippy shit can continue into your regular employment if you so desire, which I did not. To me this sounds pretty great? Who doesn't want to work in a team in which there is "real" team bonding? People bond over time and shared experiences. I feel like the author is really cynical and is unable to see the benefit from this. I have worked in dysfunctional teams where it's every man for himself and I prefer the opposite by a large margin. This screams to me that there is a huge cultural mismatch between the author's ideal place to work and Snap Inc. >unfortunately the workload we had mostly kept us working separately on our own tasks with little room for interaction. It wasn’t uncommon, for the first part of my time at Snap, to get up in the morning, drive to the office, go through the work-day in the same room as two other people but rarely speaking to each other ... Then maybe ... talk to each other? The author is literally blaming the workload for being unable to socialise with this coworkers -- in the same freaking room. Take out 10 minutes of your time and have coffee, there is a reason those teambuilding activities exist. But I'm giving the author the benefit of the doubt, so let's continue. >tl;dr — For the first ~1/2 year at Snap, I was mostly isolated on a handful of projects where I became the sole maintainer, and rarely got to interact much with other engineers or my manager. I empathise with the author because I too have been in the same situation. >tl;dr — When I worked for Snap in Venice, we occupied a beach-front condominium with a likely fictitious resident who supposedly slept in our “conference room” to meet zoning requirements. OK I have to admit, that is really weird and possibly illegal? >tldr — The Snap Santa Monica offices were pretty standard big tech office fare. Miniature “phone booth” meeting rooms raised the ire of building inspectors over ADA compliance, and the company implicitly encouraged employees to continue using the non-compliant facilities while replacements were acquired. Understandable but an annoying situation. I don't fault anyone for using the booths even with an Out of order sign ... as a developer I would rather have someone use the booth than not use it, phone calls suck. >The first indications that something was amiss came from just getting introduced to the project by the other engineer already working on it. After showing me the Github repo where I could check out the code, he pointed me to an enormous design document for what was, at the end of the day, not an overly complicated project. When I asked him why he’d put so much effort writing out an extensive design document for a project whose architecture would probably change significantly by the time it wrapped up, he gave me what would become an all-too-familiar reason: John insisted. Author sounds like a hellish developer to work with. He is bouncing from "let me just stay here for 4 years and cash out" to "I know this better than anyone else". Engineering director writes big document to align everyone and this developer wants to do everything on his terms.
codeisawesome 7y ago
Wow, he stuck to his guns on not sacrificing his values over financial fear - much respect! > As someone who’s usually pretty good at chewing over a problem until I can find an acceptable solution, being trapped in a situation where there was no acceptable solution was miserable, and I still couldn’t stop chewing. Eek, uncannily familiar with this feeling.
eternalny1 7y ago
Great read ... but the one thing that stood out to me is a LOT of remote time that doesn't seem to have been agreed upon in advance, such as in the hiring contract. At first I just read that time was needed "around the holidays", then that somehow was 5 WEEKS of remote time, then there was Easter time in Florida, then there was additional "weeks" during the annual summer trip to Florida, then there was an anniversary trip ... etc Unless this is specified in the contract I can't see justifying what there alone amounts to ~11 (?) weeks of remote work. I'm only saying this as someone who has been through many on-site jobs with remote-allowed, and is currently working as a fully remote senior engineer.
- whynaut 7y ago
  It says in a few parts that this was agreed on at hiring. Should probably also be in writing, but that doesn’t excuse them from deciding not to honor one day.
  - bluesign 7y ago
    Actual it seems like, he agreed with customer ops manager about conditions, but HR didn't assign him to customer ops, but to another engineering department. So basically, such an important thing for him, he should have confirmed about the conditions with the new manager at least.
    - wastedhours 7y ago
      Once again highlighting the importance of getting anything important written down in a verified document. After a conversation with anyone about this sort of thing, send an email outlining your understanding to the decider and push for confirmation it's accurate. They might still not honour it, but at least you'll have some sort of leg to stand on.
iamsb 7y ago
Sadly we have all worked with John. In my first job, 15 years ago, I was preparing for a test for masters program. The test was on a Saturday at 8am in a town 4 hours away. My manager thought Friday night 7pm is a good time to schedule a meeting about what we are going to deliver in next 6 months. Meeting went on for 2 hours!
- zrobotics 7y ago
  Why do people do this? Every (functional) place I've worked tacitly acknowledged that Friday afternoon was essentially for low priority tasks; most employees are starting to mentally check out after lunch. Who enjoys meetings enough to want to call one @ 7pm on a Friday? That single event would be enough for me to be starting to email recruiters, it shows that the manager not only has no respect for their employees but is clueless; since it's fairly unrealistic to expect that meeting to be productive. Unless it's a political move to try to force through some unpopular change in a meeting that nobody is paying attention to, which is another deeper level of red flag.
- driverdan 7y ago
  Why would you agree to participate in a 7pm Friday meeting?
  - iamsb 7y ago
    This was when I was 22, just out of college at my first job, so did not realised at the time that you can say no to requests like these. Now a days I follow a short Friday routine, get in early (7am) and leave by 1 or 2pm as after that most people tend not to work and I would rather be home.
paxys 7y ago
We have all worked for a "John" in the industry. The big systematic problem is that after being fired from Snap (probably after already collecting massive paychecks and a hefty chunk of equity), he will go to another big tech company and impress them with his resume and bullshitting skills. They will hire him and deal with his antics for a few years, while he ruins more people's careers, then he will move on. Rinse and repeat. Also a 10/20/30/40 vesting schedule immediately stands out as a red flag for me. 25%/year vested quarterly (with a 1 year cliff) has been standard in the industry for a very long time. I would't trust a company to have my best interests at heart when it is massively beneficial for them if employees quit after 1-2 years (which is already about the average tenure at most companies of that size).
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  I’m on a 5/15/40/40 vesting schedule. I think it’s fine because it ends up being the same TC but more cash heavy. Tech stocks have been stagnant my tenure so I don’t mind that much.
  - wikibob 7y ago
    Can you elaborate? I know Amazon has this extremely unequal vesting schedule. Are they now doing yearly comp targets and bringing you up to that target with cash?
    - akhilcacharya 7y ago
      Amazons “signing bonus” is just a way to equalize the total compensation over 4 years. It’s paid out monthly in the second year which doesn’t make it much of a bonus. This is as someone with 1 year of tenure. After the first two years folks get stock refreshers.
  - jkp56 7y ago
    Every year money lose value due to inflation. If we assume 10%/year returns on average, the tricky vesting schedule saves the company 10%. On top of that, a big company deals with statistics, not individual employees: if on average an employee stays for 3 years, this saves another 10%. The best comp package is when you get the entire amount upfront and can invest it into some index and bonds.
blt 7y ago
> trying to figure out how to rework my long-term financial plans around the hole Snap had just blown in my projected income made me feel ill. Maybe don't make long-term financial plans around a company that's obviously unstable?
- sct202 7y ago
  Yeah buying a house in Florida, years before he was planning to actually move there was an interesting choice.
untog 7y ago
And this is why companies offer you stock on a vesting schedule that keeps you around. The author knew it would be a shitshow before they even started. But took the job because of the stock. Started at the job, found it to be terrible. Stuck around... because of the stock. And so on. Meanwhile, your bet rests on the company, which you now know to be a badly run shitshow, beating estimates and turning a healthy profit. Surely you know that isn't going to happen. At a certain point you're making a life decision based around the hope that stock market investors are too stupid to see the obvious. Then scale that thought process up to an entire company, and you wonder why the place isn't functional. I do have sympathy for the author, no-one deserves to work in a miserable job. But that's why we have the option of quitting. Stock vesting fundamentally affects that.
duxup 7y ago
>you could walk around miles of Venice Beach streets pointing out unmarked office after unmarked office as you went along. A seemingly empty storefront here, a nondescript house there, the top level of an apartment building over that way. Is that legal in that area? I lived in a townhouse association where someone started the company out of his house. Eventually he started hiring and it didn't take long for everyone to notice his employees were taking all the parking. Fortunately the city had zoning laws and he chose to move when push came to shove.
- nikanj 7y ago
  We prefer the term "disruptive", not "illegal".
- astura 7y ago
  No, they said the company was keeping a bed in the conference room to "comply" with zoning regulations, essentially pretending the office was also someone's house.
  - duxup 7y ago
    It seems like it would be pretty easy to sort of "discover" it wasn't true. In my case the cops just parked outside and recorded people parking and going in and out for a bit (only after the dude balked and denied he was running an office). Fortunately the guy in question didn't put up a fight after that and promised to move / did.
    - astura 7y ago
      Yeah, it's such a superficially obvious "hack" that zero regulators would fall for it. Zoning regulations might just be unenforced unless someone complains. I mean, when was the last time the town just showed up at your house for a regular audit to check you're using your house for it's zoned purpose? I've never heard of that.
ranman 7y ago
One day, when the vests run out, I’ll write an article about my time at AWS... It’s not nearly this bad but there are some stories that are worth telling.
deleted 7y ago
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- duxup 7y ago
  I'm not sure it is fair to link to someone's LinkedIn profile when we have one side of the story here and even that author did not identity him and wished to remain anonymous.
  - simonhfrost 7y ago
    It also feels like a mild form of doxing. Not sure I'm ok with this.
    - duxup 7y ago
      Agreed. Looks like it was removed, good choice. It is a bit disturbing to see a new account just drop a linked in profile like that. Anonymous stores like this are great, but I really don't want to see the IRL profiles and etc for folks who don't have a voice or wish to stay anonymous.
romanovcode 7y ago
If you don't have something on paper you cannot expect it to be enforced. Next time you should make sure you have your remote weeks written and signed.
yannis7 7y ago
> keeping an eye out for John like an awkward combination of James Bond and Pac Man. instant classic
- mlvljr 7y ago
  Agreed, marking with a (hell-banned ) comment. - dang, that's handy!
DoubleGlazing 7y ago
"The problem with John was not just that he was misinformed, but that he was misinformed and highly motivated." Oh yes! This rings so true with me. One of my biggest bug-bears in IT are the leaders who have the gift of the gab and know how to BS their way through life. They have that personality that allows them to talk about any subject and people will listen assuming that they now what they are talking about. If they know how to use those skills for the betterment of a project then they are fantastic people. In other words listening to the devs and using their skills to manipulate the higher ups to get more time and resources. Usually it works the other way round though by ignoring what the devs say and forcing their own will upon them. For example by insisting on switching to Scrum 9 months in to a 12 month project that had been happily running on waterfall up to that point.
- gherkinnn 7y ago
  > One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief. Perfectly describes our friend John. The rest of the quote is quite interesting too: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord
thiscatis 7y ago
On the one hand I recognise a lot of the teams and work issues this developer had. But reading between the lines it seems like this dev wanted it all, equity without commitment, weeks of remote work without formal agreement, a quick cash out over adding value to the company...Seems very entitled to me. It looks very one-sided as well. Everything had to come from the company and its management, nothing from his side.
- 300bps 7y ago
  I agree. And his “Low Performer” review and denying the remote work request are obvious attempts to manage him out the door which worked.
  - eequah9L 7y ago
    Denying remote work is a common policy even in cases when nobody wants to manipulate you anywhere. It's really not hard to imagine that a gentlemant's agreement is not upheld when said gentleman is not around to push your agenda anymore.
    - fhbdukfrh 7y ago
      The only thing harder than working remote is managing a remote. It requires the combination of a super disciplined high performer and counter intuitive communication strategies, both of which are rare and hard to pull off.
  - purple-again 7y ago
    This is 100% what I was reading between the lines and it become more and more clear as the article went on. This WAS a low performer that the company was trying to manage out the door.
- aedron 7y ago
  This does come across as an inexperienced developer with a high opinion of his own worth, and rather clueless about how organizations work. I actually came away with a good impression of Snap from the description. Even the supposedly nightmarish engineering director could, from another angle, possibly be seen in a good light: Insisting on proper analysis and design before a project commences, taking a deep interest in the technical part of the project. The author disagreed with a bunch of points and that might have been enough for him to lose all respect for him. In the end he gets bored with his actual work and lets himself be hijacked by some line function to develop internal tools for them, outside of the purview of any manager. Unsurprisingly he ends up an organizational orphan. Which means no one goes to bat for him to squeeze in several weeks of remote work, which sounds like a pretty outlandish demand to my ears. To think that the fact that some random person once 'approved' it makes any difference just goes to show the naïvety. Obviously he didn't get it in writing from someone able to make that decision, and that's the only thing that matters.
vijucat 7y ago
Oh, John, there you are again! How do you manage to be in so many places at once? Which reminds me to ask: which firms have implemented the "No Asshole Rule" well? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule Here's a list by the author from 2012, FYI: https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/02/the_no_asshole_.html https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/02/the_no_assho...
deleted 7y ago
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paulcole 7y ago
TLDR: Rich man takes bad job to get richer. Shockingly discovers he’s unhappy. Writes 2500 word medium blog post about it.
fs111 7y ago
Can we please stop calling publicly traded companies "startups", because they are not.
somishere 7y ago
Wow, nothing like a massive whinge to start the day! Don't take a lot of pleasure in saying it, but am highly suspicious of the author's role in all this. While there's no doubt John plagued our friend's life (as are Johns' wont); how said friend played everything else, the relationship handling, the motivation (!) ... culminating in this ego-driven, embittered rant. I mean, the situation definitely sucks. But my biggest takeout was how stacked with shit hires the whole big tech scene must be. It sounds like a bureaucratic hr tetris nightmare, where all you're getting is these equity-driven, self-absorbed shapeshifters that don't stack together because its not in the job description. And then it all implodes. I don't know, maybe there was something constructive between the lines in there. I just couldn't find it.
- elbrian 7y ago
  I'm just amazed that developers have the confidence to lambaste former employers in such a public, toxic and hostile manner. If I was hiring for a developer position and Google'd Marko Tupper's name, I wouldn't even agree to meet with him based on this article alone. Why would I want someone so ego and drama-driven on my team? I won't even leave negative reviews on Yelp or Google Maps out of fear of reprisal or future employers finding them.
  - jdm2212 7y ago
    "Marko Tupper" is a pseudonym, per the Medium user's profile.
    - sct202 7y ago
      Even as a pseudonym, it's so specific that I'm sure that a lot of people at Snap and around the area probably know who it is. I mean taking months to work remotely in Florida is something I would totally hear second hand about someone, because it sounds awesome.
  - nwsm 7y ago
    "out of fear of reprisal" You say this like the reprisal is unfair immediately after admitting you would do the same.
Touche 7y ago
There are many types of "John"s out there. I worked for a John who was a highly accomplished engineer. It doesn't make it any better to have someone constantly micromanage you knowing that they are technical, it only makes it worse because you have to think to yourself "he might be right". But the thing about micromanagement is that it doesn't matter if the micromanager is right or not, it simply kills employee motivation to know that any energy and thought they put into their work is likely to be overruled based on a whim.
- vemv 7y ago
  > it only makes it worse because you have to think to yourself "he might be right" Seems a self-defeating statement. Thinking isn't wrong. Neither it is that someone else is right.
  - Touche 7y ago
    I didn't say either of those things.
nwsm 7y ago
I have not worked at a startup but I love the juxtaposition so many seem to have of very developed culture practices (council) and otherwise very undeveloped HR/facilities practices.
throwaway713 7y ago
I find it interesting how split the HN comments on this story are. Half seem to think this guy is an entitled low performer chasing high compensation, and the other half relate to him and feel that he was treated unfairly by Snap. I’m not sure what that means.
- magashna 7y ago
  Seems like both can be true. Author could be entitled and annoying to manage, and the manager could be showing his worst side to this crummy employee.
- nilkn 7y ago
  I suspect this is a story of two low performers colliding and causing problems for each other. "John", the director of engineering, was fired, probably for some of the reasons the author points out. But there are also many signs here that the author wasn't performing up to standards, was difficult to manage, and had very high expectations and wanted special treatment.
- waylandsmithers 7y ago
  The author is seemingly stuck at the end between the work flexibility the stock payouts. I'm curious as to why the author didn't consider a third approach-- just go do it anyway and see if there really was a way forward to get both.
- mmmrk 7y ago
  Maybe that there's a lot of jealousy floating around that someone dared to look out for themselves. I suppose that's usually reserved for companies.
mindfulplay 7y ago
Remember, centi-medium posts often have two sides to the story.. this person describes one incident with "John" based on a biased, self-reporting and frankly not a great story either: actually seems to portray the author in a bad light even with his one-sided story.
ankit219 7y ago
Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. And a mandatory disclaimer that I have not walked in the author's shoes, and that I am considering his description as what happened. Two things that stood out for me: 1/ If a director of engineering is not able to run a sprint planning meeting or is grossly inefficient at that, what was the reaction of other devs at Snap who were part of the same meeting. More than likely, if they see that as the state of the managements, were they looking for jobs too? 2/ Is there a point in having engineering teams where there is no regular interaction with the manager?
bot1 7y ago
That was a really good read, consider writing more articles like this one, you have talent to keep things interesting even for such a long text.
privateSFacct 7y ago
‘Foundational promise’ I love these as a new mgr - new guy shows up, I know nothing of their unique ‘foundational promise’, I have no idea if they can contribute or work well with team, I put some effort in to get them going, then they start sending long (they are always WAY too long) emails about being special cased over 20 people who I’ve known longer and have worked harder for me. I check with HR and a hard pass. I’m not considered humane for failing to give someone I’m paying lots of money to lots of remote work time. And I know what remote work time is like when an employee is visiting family - even though they are “working“ it takes them hours to respond to slack. I don’t mean to be harsh, but if you look at compensation rates - your manager does get to call the shots at least a little in return for money they are throwing at you. And yes, if a top performer keeping you is pretty high up on list. 20 reports is too many though - def not a great sign in my book.
- throwaway713 7y ago
  > even though they are “working“ it takes them hours to respond to slack. Interesting, I feel the opposite. The longer it takes me to respond to someone’s messages, the more real work I am actually getting done because I’m deeply focused. The days where I quickly reply to everyone are usually the most unproductive.
  - nilkn 7y ago
    I think it depends on the team and your role. In many cases, much of your value comes from being a team member, not a lone wolf, which extends beyond your personal git commits. Sometimes being available to answer questions, remove blockers, review a proposal, etc., is simply more valuable to the team than you plugging away on a ticket for four hours in isolation. In other words, while you might feel more productive because your personal output in git is higher, your impact on the team's progress might actually be lower. Of course, this can also be taken too far to the point where you're always being distracted and can't do any substantial coding. The right balance depends on what the team is trying to accomplish.
  - privateSFacct 7y ago
    I agree - but my own experience is remote workers working at home etc -> can have very high productivity. Remote workers on vacation / traveling / visiting family -> low productivity. That said, overall situation -> totally reasonable to bail out for the employee, clearly not a good fit overall. But for the last, new manager - they may not have had a good impression of employee given employee was themselves not treated properly by company before and the expectations they brought were out of the blue for new person.
arrty88 7y ago
I’ve worked harder for less. Kids are so entitled these days.
Four8Five 7y ago
And then everybody clapped.
sj3k 7y ago
Why do engineers have such a hard time influencing or standing up to 'Johns'?
- dmitrygr 7y ago
  cause he does the performance reviews, that determine your comp. "Stand up to bullies!" is a cheerful thing to say from the safety of your chair. Not so nice when you're the one the bully will pound into the dirt for standing up
markbnj 7y ago
I've had one or two horrible work experiences like the author's. The last time it happened was bad enough that I sat down and wrote a long article very similar to this one, explaining all the things the employer had done wrong, and all the ways in which they'd made my life difficult. It made me feel much better to write it, and I read it through several times, nodding to myself at all the important points. Then I deleted it and got another job.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
musicale 7y ago
Hmm, the council thing sounds kind of cool actually - I wonder where they got it from? The Venice Beach work location sounded kind of nice too. On the other hand, I do share the frustration with being stuck doing "team-building" stuff that you hate. In most of the cases when I've had "team-building" or mandatory "fun" activities for work, I would have preferred to stay home and sleep. It's also hard to let your hair down when there are bosses around who have the power to fire you or determine your rate of pay. The biggest problem seems to be bad/micromanaging boss "John." I concur with the overall point about working remotely being great and often much more productive than working in the office.
filmgirlcw 7y ago
Although it certainly sounds like this guy had a really negative experience -- for lots of reasons that were not under his control -- I'm smacking my head at some of the stuff. First -- when it comes to stuff like remote work (especially since he was first told "no, you can't do that" when he first explored switching teams), that's all stuff that needs to be in writing. Period. I don't even think this is a hard concept or something you need to learn from experience -- it's just common sense. If you are promised something that is outside the norm or what is official company/department policy, you get that in writing. If you can't get it into your contract, it needs to be at least in email communication with the hiring manager -- but you should really get that into your contract. The second thing is the whole way he switched teams. Obviously there was something super sketchy going on there (and in retrospect, was the first sign that Snap was trying to manage him out), but that's a massive, massive red flag. For his own performance reviews/bonuses/reporting stuff, the idea that he would technically report to someone else while actually working for a totally different team just doesn't make sense. I understand needing to get away from a bad manager, but this was maybe the worst way to go about doing it, because it offers the employee little to no protection if something in that super sketchy scenario breaks down (which is exactly what happened). Third, although I'm not going to call this guy "entitled" -- I do take issue with some of the work ethic stuff. I understand the hell that is unproductive meetings, especially meetings that don't involve you or that preclude you from doing what you actually need to do to get done. I have significant experience managing requests/meetings from higher ups that impede on getting your actual work done. If you're called into a last-minute 2 hour meeting and it means you can't leave on time to avoid traffic, in my opinion (which may be unpopular), the adult thing to do is to stay late and attend the meeting -- paying only as much attention as is necessary. Yes, it sucks to have to leave the office late (and potentially hours later if you need to avoid traffic) -- but barring any sort of preset appointment or obligation, stay in the damn meeting and find a way to avoid having to be in the next one. Not to belabor the point, but the way you get a Low Performance review is to skulk out of a meeting and literally hide from your boss as you sneak out of the building. Anyway. I do hope the author has found a place that is a better fit for them.
rodrigods 7y ago
I see how the issues could be a "no deal" for the post writer. However, I have the impression that software engineers forgot that we are exchanging labor for money and it is normal to put our heads down sometimes. Let's stop with the "drama" when every single of our requests are not attended.
qzx_pierri 7y ago
I read quite a bit of the article, and a lot of it seems like ungrateful whining. It seems like the author found something negative about everything. It must be difficult living such a comfortable life.
ram_rar 7y ago
There are enough threads comparing the OP and john mentioned in the article. I'll not get into details on that. OPs experience does echo a few of my colleagues, who kinda got screwed in the end. A few things I have learnt from other peoples mishaps is that 1. Always be Coding. Keep solving interview / LeetCode problems if you want to pursue SE role. You never know, when shit hits the fan and you're asked to leave. Not being prepared to give interview in a short notice will hurt a lot in the future. 2. Spend the first 90 days understanding team dynamics, culture, execution. I rather observer the first few days and play dumb as apposed to show off my skills, even though I know I could do a hell of a better job that the other guy. 3. If I dont like things going smoothly in first 90 days you should gtfo. I was in teams before, where there were soo many gaming types folks (I personally dont play video games that much) and barely a culture of reading or discussing tech papers. I pretty much realized its not my place and I need to gtfo.
msteffen 7y ago
I wonder if some of the disagreement in this thread over whether the narrator was being reasonable is really disagreement over the productivity of remote employees. I saw the author's request for extended remote work as entirely reasonable, but I work at a company that has an extremely generous and flexible remote policy, which I love and take full advantage of (working from home several days a week). I now believe that engineers can be at least as productive remote as on-site. Thus, denying his request to work remotely felt, to me, a little petty. I've worked at companies in the past that discouraged remote work. I think back then, before I'd tried it, I would've seen his insistance on working remotely as a little lazy and entitled.

481 points by tsm 7y ago

>He did tell us to use the word “epoch,” but not before explaining what the word meant and that it was not, in fact, the same word as “epic,” to a room full of native English speakers. He then proceeded to opine on what he thought the Latin roots of the word might be, which I’m convinced to this day he was making up on the spot. "epoch" actually comes from Greek :)

fouc 7y ago
It would've been lovely if someone had directly interrupted this "John" anytime he attempted to expound extensively after being asked a minor clarifying question. This sort of person shouldn't be tolerated, not even by employees.
- haasted 7y ago
  Trouble is has that he seems to be in charge of their bi-annual reviews, which is actually rather solid leverage.
- itronitron 7y ago
  Every dev team I've been on has always had one person that readily answers any minor or rhetorical question without missing a beat. I thought they were universal but maybe I have just been lucky.

alaskamiller 7y ago

Prior to the first day of boot camp they flown us to an airport in San Diego, everyone gathered at the USO lounge on the opposite end of the airport to wait for everyone else flying in. At midnight, a bus rolls in to the parking lot. Everyone was told to line up in a formation, head forward, arms straight and down to the side. The bus door opens and out pops a drill instructor with the vigor of a tasmanian devil, barking out orders. Everyone got loaded into the bus in orderly fashion and was told to to put our heads down, cradled between our legs. The bus drove around for what seemed like an hour. Later I found out the camp was next door to the airport. Upon arrival, the bus stopped, the bus driver got out and the drill instructor got out. We were left to our selves, with no instructions, no understanding for ten minutes. Then came an imposing man with a wide brimmed hat with a voice that sounds like a frog inhabited his throat. He proceeded to say in a frank manner we are now to disembark off this bus and make our way outside to find a pair of gold foot prints on the ground. We are each to line up on them and wait for further instructions. After the last person has gotten off the bus and when everyone was situated, we are then told the meaning of those foot prints. It is a tradition passed on through history, whereby someone before us had stepped on those foot prints prior to starting boot camp and there will be people after us to step on those foot prints. From there we entered the gates thus began our journey to become United States Marine Corps, an organization with a history of over 243 years. tl;dr -- Every organization has whackadoo indoctrination.

huac 7y ago
Imagine being dunked into a tub of water as your indoctrination. And yet - churches (and other religious organizations) have had high member retention for centuries!
untog 7y ago
> Every organization has whackadoo indoctrination. Nope. Just whackaddo organizations. I'd argue the Marine Corps is included in that, but at least they have the excuse of needing soldiers to be able to depend on each other for their lives. Snap... not so much.

throwaway-1436 7y ago

What genre of porn is this?

rvz 7y ago

Act I - The Offer: I knew what I was getting myself into. There were red flags, but I chose to ignore them for the sake of a huge equity offer. Act II - Council: Snap starts every employee’s onboarding off with some real hippy type of shit. The aforementioned hippy shit can continue into your regular employment if you so desire, which I did not. Act III - The First Months: For the first ~1/2 year at Snap, I was mostly isolated on a handful of projects where I became the sole maintainer, and rarely got to interact much with other engineers or my manager. Act IV - The Phantom Resident: When I worked for Snap in Venice, we occupied a beach-front condominium with a likely fictitious resident who supposedly slept in our “conference room” to meet zoning requirements. Act V - Moving to Santa Monica & ADA Semi-Compliance: The Snap Santa Monica offices were pretty standard big tech office fare. Miniature “phone booth” meeting rooms raised the ire of building inspectors over ADA compliance, and the company implicitly encouraged employees to continue using the non-compliant facilities while replacements were acquired. Act VI - The John Months: I needed to stay until at least the following February to vest the first 10% of my stock grant, but it was proving difficult to keep going. A friend on the customer ops team, Nate, offered to have me transfer over and work on their projects full time, and after receiving assurances that I would be able to travel around the holidays and work remotely I jumped on it. Act VII - The Team Change Switcharoo: I went through with the team change to customer ops, but for HR purposes I ended up technically reporting to an engineering manager on a different team. Nate, who was going to become my manager under the original plan, didn’t take this news well, but I didn’t mind. The work on the new team proved enjoyable and the stock price even started to recover as I began vesting my stock grant. Act VIII - The Beginning of the End: I got a hatchet job of a performance review from my time working for John, and Nate left the company which put me in a tricky situation. I ended up truly joining the team I was technically a member of, and began integrating more into their work alongside my own. Act XI - The End of the End: Remember the agreement I made with customer ops about working remotely around the holidays? My new team decided they weren’t going to honor it, and didn’t let me know about that until just a few months before I was planning a trip. Act X (The Finale) - Dealing With The Fallout: I couldn’t find any way around the predicament I was in, and had to leave the company. Despite some minor depression symptoms I managed to find a new job and walked away from what would have been a life-changing amount of money.

meuk 7y ago

> When I say that it was a bedroom, I don’t just mean that it would be identified as a bedroom on the condo’s floor plan, I mean that this room had a fully made up bed crammed into it next to the conference table and video conferencing unit. That's hilarious.

joejerryronnie 7y ago
I would make it a point to sleep for the first 30 minutes of any meeting.
- paxys 7y ago
  Seriously, that thing would be booked 24x7 at my company. Being able to lie down while on a call would make things so much more relaxing and productive.
  - leni536 7y ago
    Too risky for falling asleep.
    - bestest 7y ago
      I believe the fact that you might fall asleep when you simply lie on a bed at work indicates that there are some timing issues in your daily lifecycle.
      - whynaut 7y ago
        Normally i’d agree, but they had 2 hour sprint plannings.. for a sub-team..

person_of_color 7y ago

Life changing amount of money for dev tools and a smattering of HTML/CSS. Right.

anoncake 7y ago
Unlikely in a well-run company, but apparently Snap isn't one.
akhilcacharya 7y ago
Money is more a function of algorithmic interviewing and negotiating ability than technical stack.

librish 7y ago

There seems to be a valuable lesson for OP about the cost of not playing ball here. Assuming OPs side of things is mostly true it sounds like: - OP was working for a bad director, one so bad that they eventually got fired - Instead of placating this director and pretending to take their concerns into consideration, OP fights back more than other teammates (reading between the lines of the quote "However, given that I was far from John’s favorite (we never openly came into conflict, but I didn’t put the requisite amount of enthusiasm into jumping through his hoops to really get onto his good side)" here) - The director gives him a very poor performance review, that seems to have had serious impact on OPs career, team selection possibility, and personal finances, despite the director eventually getting fired It just seems like a very high price to pay just to be able to tell yourself that you're not putting up with bullshit.

Spearchucker 7y ago
It's called workplace bullying in the UK. When I started my career I put up with it for the money. About 7 years in I walked out (quite literally) after the most amazing amount of verbal abuse I've seen delivered in an unjustified tantrum. One of the best memories of over 30 years in tech. "It just seems like a very high price to pay just to be able to tell yourself that you're not putting up with bullshit." That would be funny if it wasn't so sad. 'Specially given the recent events/news about Stalman.
kgwgk 7y ago
The philosopher Diogenes was sitting on a curbstone, eating bread and lentils for his supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, "If you would learn to be subservient to the king, you would not have to live on lentils." Said Diogenes, "Learn to live on lentils, and you will not have to cultivate the king."
- librish 7y ago
  Right. Spend 5 minutes flattering the king, and benefit from the outsized rewards from it.

ladberg 7y ago

I applied to Snap a few months ago and was insta-rejected which was the first time (and only) that has ever happened to me. I was interning at a FAANG for the third time, going into my senior year at a top school with a good GPA, and looking for a full time job. Not sure which requirement I didn't meet.

charlesju 7y ago
It's probably because they were bleeding money at that moment and weren't hiring anyone outside super unicorn seniors, but they didn't want to update their job descriptions
- dagw 7y ago
  Yea, I've worked at a place that had job ads out despite having no plans on hiring on the grounds that "someone really amazing might apply". They never did.
  - charlesju 7y ago
    There are a lot of strategic reasons to do this: 1. Internally you'll feel like you're growing still even though you aren't 2. Externally to investors same feeling 3. You will collect resumes in case you want to fire up hiring again quickly
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

dangwu 7y ago

> ...the workload we had mostly kept us working separately on our own tasks with little room for interaction. It wasn’t uncommon, for the first part of my time at Snap, to get up in the morning, drive to the office, go through the work-day in the same room as two other people but rarely speaking to each other, and then drive home... Sadly, I find this to be all too common in the industry. It’s super isolating and depressing when you work alone on projects and aren’t in an environment that fosters socialization and team-building. Forming those bonds is what makes people happy to go to work everyday and work hard. Managers should do more to prioritize interaction and teaming up on projects when it makes sense.

huhtenberg 7y ago
This actually sounds like a near-perfect setup to me. Get it, program, get out. If I want to socialize, I'll do it outside of work.
- sanderdlm 7y ago
  It may sound like it but I can assure you that it's not. Humans are social animals and when you have to spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week in a setting with little to no peer interaction, it'll start to wear on you. The first month is awesome. Complete freedom & autonomy, then the depression starts kicking in.
  - emptyfile 7y ago
    What the heck are you talking about, that sounds perfect. Work colleges suck.
  - Kiro 7y ago
    I've been in the situation without any colleagues to speak with for years and still love it. We are all different.
  - huhtenberg 7y ago
    You certainly can assure me, but that won't do much. I've been doing it for 30 years, I know how I like it.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

curiousgal 7y ago

Tangent. How is it logical to deprive people from access to a booth just because people in a wheelchair can't access it? That's like banning computer screens because blind people can't see them.

tudorw 7y ago
Because when asked nicely to design accessible buildings very little was done, it required legislation that seems counterintuitive at first, however, if you design for all from the outset, then this is a non-issue. The internet needs to learn this too.
- curiousgal 7y ago
  Yes but if there's an accessible alternative then where's the issue? In this case the offices had conference rooms that were wheelchair-accessible. Sure this means able-bodied people had twice as much access to something but hasn't that always been the case? Like, if you can walk, you can take either the stairs or the ramp to get into a building.
  - paxys 7y ago
    Literally in the next line he says that the conference rooms were always booked and not really an alternative (which is pretty standard in any office)
    - curiousgal 7y ago
      That's a different issue now isn't it? Access is provided but not guaranteed. You don't see cities with bike lanes forcing those lanes to be clear.
      - YawningAngel 7y ago
        I don't think it is a different issue. The object of the exercise is to allow disabled people to participate on an equal footing. A few nominal concessions that aren't sufficient to achieve this does not do that. I don't think blocked cycle lanes are a good point of comparison as they don't fulfil their intended function when blocked.

teen 7y ago

Tough break. I also spoke w/ a Snap Recruiter around the same time as you, and was offered that ridic amount of equity- they were talking about 600k for L5, or over 1m for L6. I felt like this was a huge red flag that their equity was bullshit. And that vesting schedule is an obvious scam. Reading Glassdoor is nothing but stories like this one. Sorry you went through it. None of this surprises me, Snap Leadership seems like nothing but jerks.

jkp56 7y ago
1M per year?
- anonsnap 7y ago
  1m over 4 years in RSU
  - jkp56 7y ago
    So 250k per year in stocks + up to 200k in salary + 40k annual bonus. 500k total. That's a really solid result for someone with 10yoe in the big tech companies, top performer. Solid, but nothing to shout about.
anonsnap 7y ago
its 25/25/25/25 with no cliff and quarterly investment as of jan 2018

Waterluvian 7y ago

Regarding the attractive stock vestments: in my opinion you need to avoid like the plague, anything that makes it hard to walk away from your job at any time. You need to be in the driver's seat for your life and career. Otherwise you're just going to become miserable FAANG engineer cattle through one mechanism or another. Good on this person to walk away like that.

TomVDB 7y ago
Attractive stock vestments are potentially what will make it possible in the futures to walk away at any time...

Rainymood 7y ago

My thoughts after reading roughly 75% of the article, I couldn't finish it: I noticed three things: * This developer is focused around me me me, everything has to revolve around him * This developer is probably hell to work with * There was a huge cultural mismatch between him/her and Snap These were my thoughts while reading the article with some comments after every tl;dr. I wasn't able to finish the article because it felt very whiny and egocentric. >tl;dr — I knew what I was getting myself into. There were red flags, but I chose to ignore them for the sake of a huge equity offer. At least the author has a lot of self-awareness. >tl:dr — Snap starts every employee’s on-boarding off with some real hippy type of shit. The aforementioned hippy shit can continue into your regular employment if you so desire, which I did not. To me this sounds pretty great? Who doesn't want to work in a team in which there is "real" team bonding? People bond over time and shared experiences. I feel like the author is really cynical and is unable to see the benefit from this. I have worked in dysfunctional teams where it's every man for himself and I prefer the opposite by a large margin. This screams to me that there is a huge cultural mismatch between the author's ideal place to work and Snap Inc. >unfortunately the workload we had mostly kept us working separately on our own tasks with little room for interaction. It wasn’t uncommon, for the first part of my time at Snap, to get up in the morning, drive to the office, go through the work-day in the same room as two other people but rarely speaking to each other ... Then maybe ... talk to each other? The author is literally blaming the workload for being unable to socialise with this coworkers -- in the same freaking room. Take out 10 minutes of your time and have coffee, there is a reason those teambuilding activities exist. But I'm giving the author the benefit of the doubt, so let's continue. >tl;dr — For the first ~1/2 year at Snap, I was mostly isolated on a handful of projects where I became the sole maintainer, and rarely got to interact much with other engineers or my manager. I empathise with the author because I too have been in the same situation. >tl;dr — When I worked for Snap in Venice, we occupied a beach-front condominium with a likely fictitious resident who supposedly slept in our “conference room” to meet zoning requirements. OK I have to admit, that is really weird and possibly illegal? >tldr — The Snap Santa Monica offices were pretty standard big tech office fare. Miniature “phone booth” meeting rooms raised the ire of building inspectors over ADA compliance, and the company implicitly encouraged employees to continue using the non-compliant facilities while replacements were acquired. Understandable but an annoying situation. I don't fault anyone for using the booths even with an Out of order sign ... as a developer I would rather have someone use the booth than not use it, phone calls suck. >The first indications that something was amiss came from just getting introduced to the project by the other engineer already working on it. After showing me the Github repo where I could check out the code, he pointed me to an enormous design document for what was, at the end of the day, not an overly complicated project. When I asked him why he’d put so much effort writing out an extensive design document for a project whose architecture would probably change significantly by the time it wrapped up, he gave me what would become an all-too-familiar reason: John insisted. Author sounds like a hellish developer to work with. He is bouncing from "let me just stay here for 4 years and cash out" to "I know this better than anyone else". Engineering director writes big document to align everyone and this developer wants to do everything on his terms.

codeisawesome 7y ago

Wow, he stuck to his guns on not sacrificing his values over financial fear - much respect! > As someone who’s usually pretty good at chewing over a problem until I can find an acceptable solution, being trapped in a situation where there was no acceptable solution was miserable, and I still couldn’t stop chewing. Eek, uncannily familiar with this feeling.

eternalny1 7y ago

Great read ... but the one thing that stood out to me is a LOT of remote time that doesn't seem to have been agreed upon in advance, such as in the hiring contract. At first I just read that time was needed "around the holidays", then that somehow was 5 WEEKS of remote time, then there was Easter time in Florida, then there was additional "weeks" during the annual summer trip to Florida, then there was an anniversary trip ... etc Unless this is specified in the contract I can't see justifying what there alone amounts to ~11 (?) weeks of remote work. I'm only saying this as someone who has been through many on-site jobs with remote-allowed, and is currently working as a fully remote senior engineer.

whynaut 7y ago
It says in a few parts that this was agreed on at hiring. Should probably also be in writing, but that doesn’t excuse them from deciding not to honor one day.
- bluesign 7y ago
  Actual it seems like, he agreed with customer ops manager about conditions, but HR didn't assign him to customer ops, but to another engineering department. So basically, such an important thing for him, he should have confirmed about the conditions with the new manager at least.
  - wastedhours 7y ago
    Once again highlighting the importance of getting anything important written down in a verified document. After a conversation with anyone about this sort of thing, send an email outlining your understanding to the decider and push for confirmation it's accurate. They might still not honour it, but at least you'll have some sort of leg to stand on.

iamsb 7y ago

Sadly we have all worked with John. In my first job, 15 years ago, I was preparing for a test for masters program. The test was on a Saturday at 8am in a town 4 hours away. My manager thought Friday night 7pm is a good time to schedule a meeting about what we are going to deliver in next 6 months. Meeting went on for 2 hours!

zrobotics 7y ago
Why do people do this? Every (functional) place I've worked tacitly acknowledged that Friday afternoon was essentially for low priority tasks; most employees are starting to mentally check out after lunch. Who enjoys meetings enough to want to call one @ 7pm on a Friday? That single event would be enough for me to be starting to email recruiters, it shows that the manager not only has no respect for their employees but is clueless; since it's fairly unrealistic to expect that meeting to be productive. Unless it's a political move to try to force through some unpopular change in a meeting that nobody is paying attention to, which is another deeper level of red flag.
driverdan 7y ago
Why would you agree to participate in a 7pm Friday meeting?
- iamsb 7y ago
  This was when I was 22, just out of college at my first job, so did not realised at the time that you can say no to requests like these. Now a days I follow a short Friday routine, get in early (7am) and leave by 1 or 2pm as after that most people tend not to work and I would rather be home.

paxys 7y ago

We have all worked for a "John" in the industry. The big systematic problem is that after being fired from Snap (probably after already collecting massive paychecks and a hefty chunk of equity), he will go to another big tech company and impress them with his resume and bullshitting skills. They will hire him and deal with his antics for a few years, while he ruins more people's careers, then he will move on. Rinse and repeat. Also a 10/20/30/40 vesting schedule immediately stands out as a red flag for me. 25%/year vested quarterly (with a 1 year cliff) has been standard in the industry for a very long time. I would't trust a company to have my best interests at heart when it is massively beneficial for them if employees quit after 1-2 years (which is already about the average tenure at most companies of that size).

akhilcacharya 7y ago
I’m on a 5/15/40/40 vesting schedule. I think it’s fine because it ends up being the same TC but more cash heavy. Tech stocks have been stagnant my tenure so I don’t mind that much.
- wikibob 7y ago
  Can you elaborate? I know Amazon has this extremely unequal vesting schedule. Are they now doing yearly comp targets and bringing you up to that target with cash?
  - akhilcacharya 7y ago
    Amazons “signing bonus” is just a way to equalize the total compensation over 4 years. It’s paid out monthly in the second year which doesn’t make it much of a bonus. This is as someone with 1 year of tenure. After the first two years folks get stock refreshers.
- jkp56 7y ago
  Every year money lose value due to inflation. If we assume 10%/year returns on average, the tricky vesting schedule saves the company 10%. On top of that, a big company deals with statistics, not individual employees: if on average an employee stays for 3 years, this saves another 10%. The best comp package is when you get the entire amount upfront and can invest it into some index and bonds.

blt 7y ago

> trying to figure out how to rework my long-term financial plans around the hole Snap had just blown in my projected income made me feel ill. Maybe don't make long-term financial plans around a company that's obviously unstable?

sct202 7y ago
Yeah buying a house in Florida, years before he was planning to actually move there was an interesting choice.

untog 7y ago

And this is why companies offer you stock on a vesting schedule that keeps you around. The author knew it would be a shitshow before they even started. But took the job because of the stock. Started at the job, found it to be terrible. Stuck around... because of the stock. And so on. Meanwhile, your bet rests on the company, which you now know to be a badly run shitshow, beating estimates and turning a healthy profit. Surely you know that isn't going to happen. At a certain point you're making a life decision based around the hope that stock market investors are too stupid to see the obvious. Then scale that thought process up to an entire company, and you wonder why the place isn't functional. I do have sympathy for the author, no-one deserves to work in a miserable job. But that's why we have the option of quitting. Stock vesting fundamentally affects that.

duxup 7y ago

>you could walk around miles of Venice Beach streets pointing out unmarked office after unmarked office as you went along. A seemingly empty storefront here, a nondescript house there, the top level of an apartment building over that way. Is that legal in that area? I lived in a townhouse association where someone started the company out of his house. Eventually he started hiring and it didn't take long for everyone to notice his employees were taking all the parking. Fortunately the city had zoning laws and he chose to move when push came to shove.

nikanj 7y ago
We prefer the term "disruptive", not "illegal".
astura 7y ago
No, they said the company was keeping a bed in the conference room to "comply" with zoning regulations, essentially pretending the office was also someone's house.
- duxup 7y ago
  It seems like it would be pretty easy to sort of "discover" it wasn't true. In my case the cops just parked outside and recorded people parking and going in and out for a bit (only after the dude balked and denied he was running an office). Fortunately the guy in question didn't put up a fight after that and promised to move / did.
  - astura 7y ago
    Yeah, it's such a superficially obvious "hack" that zero regulators would fall for it. Zoning regulations might just be unenforced unless someone complains. I mean, when was the last time the town just showed up at your house for a regular audit to check you're using your house for it's zoned purpose? I've never heard of that.

ranman 7y ago

One day, when the vests run out, I’ll write an article about my time at AWS... It’s not nearly this bad but there are some stories that are worth telling.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

duxup 7y ago
I'm not sure it is fair to link to someone's LinkedIn profile when we have one side of the story here and even that author did not identity him and wished to remain anonymous.
- simonhfrost 7y ago
  It also feels like a mild form of doxing. Not sure I'm ok with this.
  - duxup 7y ago
    Agreed. Looks like it was removed, good choice. It is a bit disturbing to see a new account just drop a linked in profile like that. Anonymous stores like this are great, but I really don't want to see the IRL profiles and etc for folks who don't have a voice or wish to stay anonymous.

romanovcode 7y ago

If you don't have something on paper you cannot expect it to be enforced. Next time you should make sure you have your remote weeks written and signed.

yannis7 7y ago

> keeping an eye out for John like an awkward combination of James Bond and Pac Man. instant classic

mlvljr 7y ago
Agreed, marking with a (hell-banned ) comment. - dang, that's handy!

DoubleGlazing 7y ago

"The problem with John was not just that he was misinformed, but that he was misinformed and highly motivated." Oh yes! This rings so true with me. One of my biggest bug-bears in IT are the leaders who have the gift of the gab and know how to BS their way through life. They have that personality that allows them to talk about any subject and people will listen assuming that they now what they are talking about. If they know how to use those skills for the betterment of a project then they are fantastic people. In other words listening to the devs and using their skills to manipulate the higher ups to get more time and resources. Usually it works the other way round though by ignoring what the devs say and forcing their own will upon them. For example by insisting on switching to Scrum 9 months in to a 12 month project that had been happily running on waterfall up to that point.

gherkinnn 7y ago
> One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief. Perfectly describes our friend John. The rest of the quote is quite interesting too: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord

thiscatis 7y ago

On the one hand I recognise a lot of the teams and work issues this developer had. But reading between the lines it seems like this dev wanted it all, equity without commitment, weeks of remote work without formal agreement, a quick cash out over adding value to the company...Seems very entitled to me. It looks very one-sided as well. Everything had to come from the company and its management, nothing from his side.

300bps 7y ago
I agree. And his “Low Performer” review and denying the remote work request are obvious attempts to manage him out the door which worked.
- eequah9L 7y ago
  Denying remote work is a common policy even in cases when nobody wants to manipulate you anywhere. It's really not hard to imagine that a gentlemant's agreement is not upheld when said gentleman is not around to push your agenda anymore.
  - fhbdukfrh 7y ago
    The only thing harder than working remote is managing a remote. It requires the combination of a super disciplined high performer and counter intuitive communication strategies, both of which are rare and hard to pull off.
- purple-again 7y ago
  This is 100% what I was reading between the lines and it become more and more clear as the article went on. This WAS a low performer that the company was trying to manage out the door.
aedron 7y ago
This does come across as an inexperienced developer with a high opinion of his own worth, and rather clueless about how organizations work. I actually came away with a good impression of Snap from the description. Even the supposedly nightmarish engineering director could, from another angle, possibly be seen in a good light: Insisting on proper analysis and design before a project commences, taking a deep interest in the technical part of the project. The author disagreed with a bunch of points and that might have been enough for him to lose all respect for him. In the end he gets bored with his actual work and lets himself be hijacked by some line function to develop internal tools for them, outside of the purview of any manager. Unsurprisingly he ends up an organizational orphan. Which means no one goes to bat for him to squeeze in several weeks of remote work, which sounds like a pretty outlandish demand to my ears. To think that the fact that some random person once 'approved' it makes any difference just goes to show the naïvety. Obviously he didn't get it in writing from someone able to make that decision, and that's the only thing that matters.

vijucat 7y ago

Oh, John, there you are again! How do you manage to be in so many places at once? Which reminds me to ask: which firms have implemented the "No Asshole Rule" well? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule Here's a list by the author from 2012, FYI: https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/02/the_no_asshole_.html https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/02/the_no_assho...

deleted 7y ago

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paulcole 7y ago

TLDR: Rich man takes bad job to get richer. Shockingly discovers he’s unhappy. Writes 2500 word medium blog post about it.

fs111 7y ago

Can we please stop calling publicly traded companies "startups", because they are not.

somishere 7y ago

Wow, nothing like a massive whinge to start the day! Don't take a lot of pleasure in saying it, but am highly suspicious of the author's role in all this. While there's no doubt John plagued our friend's life (as are Johns' wont); how said friend played everything else, the relationship handling, the motivation (!) ... culminating in this ego-driven, embittered rant. I mean, the situation definitely sucks. But my biggest takeout was how stacked with shit hires the whole big tech scene must be. It sounds like a bureaucratic hr tetris nightmare, where all you're getting is these equity-driven, self-absorbed shapeshifters that don't stack together because its not in the job description. And then it all implodes. I don't know, maybe there was something constructive between the lines in there. I just couldn't find it.

elbrian 7y ago
I'm just amazed that developers have the confidence to lambaste former employers in such a public, toxic and hostile manner. If I was hiring for a developer position and Google'd Marko Tupper's name, I wouldn't even agree to meet with him based on this article alone. Why would I want someone so ego and drama-driven on my team? I won't even leave negative reviews on Yelp or Google Maps out of fear of reprisal or future employers finding them.
- jdm2212 7y ago
  "Marko Tupper" is a pseudonym, per the Medium user's profile.
  - sct202 7y ago
    Even as a pseudonym, it's so specific that I'm sure that a lot of people at Snap and around the area probably know who it is. I mean taking months to work remotely in Florida is something I would totally hear second hand about someone, because it sounds awesome.
- nwsm 7y ago
  "out of fear of reprisal" You say this like the reprisal is unfair immediately after admitting you would do the same.

Touche 7y ago

There are many types of "John"s out there. I worked for a John who was a highly accomplished engineer. It doesn't make it any better to have someone constantly micromanage you knowing that they are technical, it only makes it worse because you have to think to yourself "he might be right". But the thing about micromanagement is that it doesn't matter if the micromanager is right or not, it simply kills employee motivation to know that any energy and thought they put into their work is likely to be overruled based on a whim.

vemv 7y ago
> it only makes it worse because you have to think to yourself "he might be right" Seems a self-defeating statement. Thinking isn't wrong. Neither it is that someone else is right.
- Touche 7y ago
  I didn't say either of those things.

nwsm 7y ago

I have not worked at a startup but I love the juxtaposition so many seem to have of very developed culture practices (council) and otherwise very undeveloped HR/facilities practices.

throwaway713 7y ago

I find it interesting how split the HN comments on this story are. Half seem to think this guy is an entitled low performer chasing high compensation, and the other half relate to him and feel that he was treated unfairly by Snap. I’m not sure what that means.

magashna 7y ago
Seems like both can be true. Author could be entitled and annoying to manage, and the manager could be showing his worst side to this crummy employee.
nilkn 7y ago
I suspect this is a story of two low performers colliding and causing problems for each other. "John", the director of engineering, was fired, probably for some of the reasons the author points out. But there are also many signs here that the author wasn't performing up to standards, was difficult to manage, and had very high expectations and wanted special treatment.
waylandsmithers 7y ago
The author is seemingly stuck at the end between the work flexibility the stock payouts. I'm curious as to why the author didn't consider a third approach-- just go do it anyway and see if there really was a way forward to get both.
mmmrk 7y ago
Maybe that there's a lot of jealousy floating around that someone dared to look out for themselves. I suppose that's usually reserved for companies.

mindfulplay 7y ago

Remember, centi-medium posts often have two sides to the story.. this person describes one incident with "John" based on a biased, self-reporting and frankly not a great story either: actually seems to portray the author in a bad light even with his one-sided story.

ankit219 7y ago

Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. And a mandatory disclaimer that I have not walked in the author's shoes, and that I am considering his description as what happened. Two things that stood out for me: 1/ If a director of engineering is not able to run a sprint planning meeting or is grossly inefficient at that, what was the reaction of other devs at Snap who were part of the same meeting. More than likely, if they see that as the state of the managements, were they looking for jobs too? 2/ Is there a point in having engineering teams where there is no regular interaction with the manager?

bot1 7y ago

That was a really good read, consider writing more articles like this one, you have talent to keep things interesting even for such a long text.

privateSFacct 7y ago

‘Foundational promise’ I love these as a new mgr - new guy shows up, I know nothing of their unique ‘foundational promise’, I have no idea if they can contribute or work well with team, I put some effort in to get them going, then they start sending long (they are always WAY too long) emails about being special cased over 20 people who I’ve known longer and have worked harder for me. I check with HR and a hard pass. I’m not considered humane for failing to give someone I’m paying lots of money to lots of remote work time. And I know what remote work time is like when an employee is visiting family - even though they are “working“ it takes them hours to respond to slack. I don’t mean to be harsh, but if you look at compensation rates - your manager does get to call the shots at least a little in return for money they are throwing at you. And yes, if a top performer keeping you is pretty high up on list. 20 reports is too many though - def not a great sign in my book.

throwaway713 7y ago
> even though they are “working“ it takes them hours to respond to slack. Interesting, I feel the opposite. The longer it takes me to respond to someone’s messages, the more real work I am actually getting done because I’m deeply focused. The days where I quickly reply to everyone are usually the most unproductive.
- nilkn 7y ago
  I think it depends on the team and your role. In many cases, much of your value comes from being a team member, not a lone wolf, which extends beyond your personal git commits. Sometimes being available to answer questions, remove blockers, review a proposal, etc., is simply more valuable to the team than you plugging away on a ticket for four hours in isolation. In other words, while you might feel more productive because your personal output in git is higher, your impact on the team's progress might actually be lower. Of course, this can also be taken too far to the point where you're always being distracted and can't do any substantial coding. The right balance depends on what the team is trying to accomplish.
- privateSFacct 7y ago
  I agree - but my own experience is remote workers working at home etc -> can have very high productivity. Remote workers on vacation / traveling / visiting family -> low productivity. That said, overall situation -> totally reasonable to bail out for the employee, clearly not a good fit overall. But for the last, new manager - they may not have had a good impression of employee given employee was themselves not treated properly by company before and the expectations they brought were out of the blue for new person.

arrty88 7y ago

I’ve worked harder for less. Kids are so entitled these days.

Four8Five 7y ago

And then everybody clapped.

sj3k 7y ago

Why do engineers have such a hard time influencing or standing up to 'Johns'?

dmitrygr 7y ago
cause he does the performance reviews, that determine your comp. "Stand up to bullies!" is a cheerful thing to say from the safety of your chair. Not so nice when you're the one the bully will pound into the dirt for standing up

markbnj 7y ago

I've had one or two horrible work experiences like the author's. The last time it happened was bad enough that I sat down and wrote a long article very similar to this one, explaining all the things the employer had done wrong, and all the ways in which they'd made my life difficult. It made me feel much better to write it, and I read it through several times, nodding to myself at all the important points. Then I deleted it and got another job.

deleted 7y ago

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musicale 7y ago

Hmm, the council thing sounds kind of cool actually - I wonder where they got it from? The Venice Beach work location sounded kind of nice too. On the other hand, I do share the frustration with being stuck doing "team-building" stuff that you hate. In most of the cases when I've had "team-building" or mandatory "fun" activities for work, I would have preferred to stay home and sleep. It's also hard to let your hair down when there are bosses around who have the power to fire you or determine your rate of pay. The biggest problem seems to be bad/micromanaging boss "John." I concur with the overall point about working remotely being great and often much more productive than working in the office.

filmgirlcw 7y ago

Although it certainly sounds like this guy had a really negative experience -- for lots of reasons that were not under his control -- I'm smacking my head at some of the stuff. First -- when it comes to stuff like remote work (especially since he was first told "no, you can't do that" when he first explored switching teams), that's all stuff that needs to be in writing. Period. I don't even think this is a hard concept or something you need to learn from experience -- it's just common sense. If you are promised something that is outside the norm or what is official company/department policy, you get that in writing. If you can't get it into your contract, it needs to be at least in email communication with the hiring manager -- but you should really get that into your contract. The second thing is the whole way he switched teams. Obviously there was something super sketchy going on there (and in retrospect, was the first sign that Snap was trying to manage him out), but that's a massive, massive red flag. For his own performance reviews/bonuses/reporting stuff, the idea that he would technically report to someone else while actually working for a totally different team just doesn't make sense. I understand needing to get away from a bad manager, but this was maybe the worst way to go about doing it, because it offers the employee little to no protection if something in that super sketchy scenario breaks down (which is exactly what happened). Third, although I'm not going to call this guy "entitled" -- I do take issue with some of the work ethic stuff. I understand the hell that is unproductive meetings, especially meetings that don't involve you or that preclude you from doing what you actually need to do to get done. I have significant experience managing requests/meetings from higher ups that impede on getting your actual work done. If you're called into a last-minute 2 hour meeting and it means you can't leave on time to avoid traffic, in my opinion (which may be unpopular), the adult thing to do is to stay late and attend the meeting -- paying only as much attention as is necessary. Yes, it sucks to have to leave the office late (and potentially hours later if you need to avoid traffic) -- but barring any sort of preset appointment or obligation, stay in the damn meeting and find a way to avoid having to be in the next one. Not to belabor the point, but the way you get a Low Performance review is to skulk out of a meeting and literally hide from your boss as you sneak out of the building. Anyway. I do hope the author has found a place that is a better fit for them.

rodrigods 7y ago

I see how the issues could be a "no deal" for the post writer. However, I have the impression that software engineers forgot that we are exchanging labor for money and it is normal to put our heads down sometimes. Let's stop with the "drama" when every single of our requests are not attended.

qzx_pierri 7y ago

I read quite a bit of the article, and a lot of it seems like ungrateful whining. It seems like the author found something negative about everything. It must be difficult living such a comfortable life.

ram_rar 7y ago

There are enough threads comparing the OP and john mentioned in the article. I'll not get into details on that. OPs experience does echo a few of my colleagues, who kinda got screwed in the end. A few things I have learnt from other peoples mishaps is that 1. Always be Coding. Keep solving interview / LeetCode problems if you want to pursue SE role. You never know, when shit hits the fan and you're asked to leave. Not being prepared to give interview in a short notice will hurt a lot in the future. 2. Spend the first 90 days understanding team dynamics, culture, execution. I rather observer the first few days and play dumb as apposed to show off my skills, even though I know I could do a hell of a better job that the other guy. 3. If I dont like things going smoothly in first 90 days you should gtfo. I was in teams before, where there were soo many gaming types folks (I personally dont play video games that much) and barely a culture of reading or discussing tech papers. I pretty much realized its not my place and I need to gtfo.

msteffen 7y ago

I wonder if some of the disagreement in this thread over whether the narrator was being reasonable is really disagreement over the productivity of remote employees. I saw the author's request for extended remote work as entirely reasonable, but I work at a company that has an extremely generous and flexible remote policy, which I love and take full advantage of (working from home several days a week). I now believe that engineers can be at least as productive remote as on-site. Thus, denying his request to work remotely felt, to me, a little petty. I've worked at companies in the past that discouraged remote work. I think back then, before I'd tried it, I would've seen his insistance on working remotely as a little lazy and entitled.