4 ms·

There's a LOT of survivorship bias in this article. I personally worked in small companies (30 - 200 employees total) and startups (4 employees, including mysel

by wrigby 7y ago

There's a LOT of survivorship bias in this article. I personally worked in small companies (30 - 200 employees total) and startups (4 employees, including myself) before ending up at a big tech company, and I would have preferred to do this journey in the opposite direction - that is, work a few years at a BigCorp, and then work for a startup. Getting to see what works and what doesn't work in the context of a bigcorp is really valuable, and I think this post discounts that. A lot of technical mistakes I've made could have been remedied by simply seeing industry best practices, and there was no way I would have learned these things in school.

dmix 7y ago
I just cringed at the thought of some BigCo software company project management tracking obsessive approach being pigeonholed onto a startup. Or the various other ‘processes’ that built up continually over the years at BigCo to minimize any sort of risk at the expense of speed and flexibility. The bigger benefit is working with really smart people. I think you’re over valuing the utility of a lot of the stuff that goes on at bigger firms, mostly out of necessity but also many times due to managers trying to justify their own existence in the company so they create ‘processes’. But also just merely the scale of the operation where highly automated fancy systems would be a complete waste of time for a startup with a small team and a short run way.
- seattle_spring 7y ago
  GP comment never said "processes," so I'm not sure why you're focusing on that. They said "best practices", which is totally different.
  - dmix 7y ago
    Sorry I just think I wanted to go on a rant at all the big software co "project managers" that got hired into startups I worked at and ruined everything. That wasn't a proper response to OP's comment.
- wrigby 7y ago
  Yeah, I could have been more clear - the BigCo I'm at is still pretty light on process, and teams are free to use whatever project management approach they want. As seattle_spring conjectured, I was thinking more about technical best practices. I've learned many patterns from the software I work with now, and I've been able to grow from working with really smart engineers that have enough experience to be pragmatic without compromising on quality. An (admittedly controversial) example is repos-per-service vs a monorepo: now that I've worked at a bigco with a monorepo, I would have used a monorepo at my previous company.
  - opportune 7y ago
    Personally having also worked at monorepoCo, I would only recommend it to another company with a good enough system to support it. I’ve heard of places trying to implement it with git sub folders and hellacious branching, to great lack of success
MattyMc 7y ago
Completely agree. I worked for Microsoft this year. Had an amazing experience, learned a ton, built a great network, had benefits and was well compensated. I did this all while taking almost 0 risk. The idea that working for a tech giant is "maintaining the status quo," but working for a startup is "making something new," is perhaps not accurate. Working at a startup can be great. Working at a tech giant can be great. Just don't make your decision based on one guy who turned down a personal offer from Peter Thiel (and was later employee #10).
- seph-reed 7y ago
  When you work for a giant corporation of any sort, you are inherently breaking capitalism as it is. There's no foreseeable way around this , it's irresponsible, and all the suffering you're seeing it the world is the cost of many many millions of people giving themselves a pass on this. I strongly urge you to recognize that any of the life benefits you get from working at one of these places are reaped from the lives of others. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQEO2P9j_vU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQEO2P9j_vU)
  - senordevnyc 7y ago
    So all the suffering in the world is the fault of giant corporations? How giant do they have to be to go from being the building blocks of capitalism to breaking it?
    - seph-reed 7y ago
      Obviously not all. You know how english is with these words. There's a gradient. The point at which there's no point in going up against them is definitely too far. Competition is important to a healthy capitalist economy.
      - seph-reed 7y ago
        I think... I think if it's not obvious to people why supporting companies that undermine competition is bad.. I think maybe I should stop commenting here entirely. I'm going to log out, and not log back in. I'll be happier, you guys can enjoy yourselves too. Cheers and good luck.

by wrigby 7y ago

dmix 7y ago

I just cringed at the thought of some BigCo software company project management tracking obsessive approach being pigeonholed onto a startup. Or the various other ‘processes’ that built up continually over the years at BigCo to minimize any sort of risk at the expense of speed and flexibility. The bigger benefit is working with really smart people. I think you’re over valuing the utility of a lot of the stuff that goes on at bigger firms, mostly out of necessity but also many times due to managers trying to justify their own existence in the company so they create ‘processes’. But also just merely the scale of the operation where highly automated fancy systems would be a complete waste of time for a startup with a small team and a short run way.

seattle_spring 7y ago
GP comment never said "processes," so I'm not sure why you're focusing on that. They said "best practices", which is totally different.
- dmix 7y ago
  Sorry I just think I wanted to go on a rant at all the big software co "project managers" that got hired into startups I worked at and ruined everything. That wasn't a proper response to OP's comment.
wrigby 7y ago
Yeah, I could have been more clear - the BigCo I'm at is still pretty light on process, and teams are free to use whatever project management approach they want. As seattle_spring conjectured, I was thinking more about technical best practices. I've learned many patterns from the software I work with now, and I've been able to grow from working with really smart engineers that have enough experience to be pragmatic without compromising on quality. An (admittedly controversial) example is repos-per-service vs a monorepo: now that I've worked at a bigco with a monorepo, I would have used a monorepo at my previous company.
- opportune 7y ago
  Personally having also worked at monorepoCo, I would only recommend it to another company with a good enough system to support it. I’ve heard of places trying to implement it with git sub folders and hellacious branching, to great lack of success

MattyMc 7y ago

Completely agree. I worked for Microsoft this year. Had an amazing experience, learned a ton, built a great network, had benefits and was well compensated. I did this all while taking almost 0 risk. The idea that working for a tech giant is "maintaining the status quo," but working for a startup is "making something new," is perhaps not accurate. Working at a startup can be great. Working at a tech giant can be great. Just don't make your decision based on one guy who turned down a personal offer from Peter Thiel (and was later employee #10).

seph-reed 7y ago
When you work for a giant corporation of any sort, you are inherently breaking capitalism as it is. There's no foreseeable way around this , it's irresponsible, and all the suffering you're seeing it the world is the cost of many many millions of people giving themselves a pass on this. I strongly urge you to recognize that any of the life benefits you get from working at one of these places are reaped from the lives of others. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQEO2P9j_vU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQEO2P9j_vU)
- senordevnyc 7y ago
  So all the suffering in the world is the fault of giant corporations? How giant do they have to be to go from being the building blocks of capitalism to breaking it?
  - seph-reed 7y ago
    Obviously not all. You know how english is with these words. There's a gradient. The point at which there's no point in going up against them is definitely too far. Competition is important to a healthy capitalist economy.
    - seph-reed 7y ago
      I think... I think if it's not obvious to people why supporting companies that undermine competition is bad.. I think maybe I should stop commenting here entirely. I'm going to log out, and not log back in. I'll be happier, you guys can enjoy yourselves too. Cheers and good luck.