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Some things other than salary to consider: open-space offices, unpaid overtime, increase in managerial oversight (pointless standups etc.), erosion of work time

Some things other than salary to consider: open-space offices, unpaid overtime, increase in managerial oversight (pointless standups etc.), erosion of work time/free time boundary, onerous non-compete/intellectual property clauses in employment contracts. Everybody is constantly bitching about those things but despite the claimed shortage of software engineers they seem to only get worse with time. I don't claim that unions are the solution but these problems don't seem to magically resolve themselves either.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
You say "increase in managerial oversight", but then mention standups. That's about the least onerous oversight possible. I understand not liking standups, but... that's not at the level of excessive management oversight. Excessive management oversight is a whole different level. (And yes, I know, standups can be part of that whole different level. That's the one you specifically mentioned, though. If that's the excessive management that most grates on you, you don't have excessive management.)
- dunkelheit 7y ago
  So, do you agree that managerial oversight is increasing or not? Of course standups can be helpful and unobtrusive, but they also often degrade into shamefests with the sole purpose of forcing everybody to conjure up reasons why they are not done yet. And of course I agree that they are not the most annoying thing possible. Let's wait a few more years until something like DingTalk (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17678571 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17678571) becomes popular in Western companies.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Managerial oversight is increasing as a general trend? I have no data one way or the other. Standups increase managerial oversight compared to not having them? True... as far as it goes. The thing is, management is going to make decisions based on something. Having them make decisions with no data leads to bad outcomes, so they've got to get the data somehow. If you've got a way for them to get the data that's less intrusive to workers' time than standups, I'd like to hear what it is. (Seriously. I've got standups now, and if you've got a better way, I'm not above copying it.)

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

You say "increase in managerial oversight", but then mention standups. That's about the least onerous oversight possible. I understand not liking standups, but... that's not at the level of excessive management oversight. Excessive management oversight is a whole different level. (And yes, I know, standups can be part of that whole different level. That's the one you specifically mentioned, though. If that's the excessive management that most grates on you, you don't have excessive management.)

dunkelheit 7y ago
So, do you agree that managerial oversight is increasing or not? Of course standups can be helpful and unobtrusive, but they also often degrade into shamefests with the sole purpose of forcing everybody to conjure up reasons why they are not done yet. And of course I agree that they are not the most annoying thing possible. Let's wait a few more years until something like DingTalk (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17678571 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17678571) becomes popular in Western companies.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Managerial oversight is increasing as a general trend? I have no data one way or the other. Standups increase managerial oversight compared to not having them? True... as far as it goes. The thing is, management is going to make decisions based on something. Having them make decisions with no data leads to bad outcomes, so they've got to get the data somehow. If you've got a way for them to get the data that's less intrusive to workers' time than standups, I'd like to hear what it is. (Seriously. I've got standups now, and if you've got a better way, I'm not above copying it.)