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Role clarity is a huge one in my book. I've turned down numerous offers because when I asked what the specifics of my day to day job were going to be, the answe

Role clarity is a huge one in my book. I've turned down numerous offers because when I asked what the specifics of my day to day job were going to be, the answers weren't clear. From the secret FAANG that likes to pretend what they are doing is defense contractor level top secret, and even after your hired you might not know what your actually working on, to the big companies where its clear the hiring manager only has a vague idea what to do with someone because they are simply building an empire. At least some of them are more upfront and say stupid things like "you get to define your role". Which is fine, if it comes with a grand vision, or your selling them on one, but frequently the grand vision is little more than "evolve our huge product, and justify it". Which is frequently just make work, and you won't be provided resources to actually implement a vision. And you can see this stuff in the public releases of products. Its the split personality of the windows control panel, where someone decided the current one wasn't good for a touch environment, but only had the manpower/political will to fix like the 5 most common things people want to change. So the results are garbage, and are the functional equivalent of 1/2 a wing glued to a car because someone wants an airplane but they only had a car.

shuntress 6y ago
I get that Microsoft is a huge company but the inconsistency in quality is something I find quite comical. To pile on to the Windows control panel for a minute: If you open the start menu and search updates, you bring up the settings menu for updates. Likewise for network settings or any other section of the control panel successor. But if you open network settings from the start menu while you already have updates open, the updates window is replaced by the network settings. Maybe they are working towards renaming the OS "Window".
- sjg007 6y ago
  I am amazed when I see older style windows pop up alongside the windows 10 styling.
  - vkou 6y ago
    As am I, because the older style settings windows tend to actually be able to solve my problems. What truly blows my mind is when the same settings are scattered among four different windows. See: Anything to do with sound.
    - C1sc0cat 6y ago
      Seconded - with the whole WFH explosion sound is one are where windows needs improvement. In the old days billg / Balmer would have shouted at people until this was fixed
- tasogare 6y ago
  It’s a limitation of the phone-style applications where only one instance of a program can run at the same time. I think they addressed it in later revision of the framework, but that some people considered that was an acceptable solution on desktop shows how bad Windows have fallen from the 7 era.
- TT3351 6y ago
  It seems every update that the Sound control panel is harder to get to quickly, yet that panel still has functionality I need on a day-to-day basis. I'm willing to bet that the person who created that control panel no longer works with the company...
- stack_underflow 6y ago
  I've resorted to trying to figure out the shortcut names I can just type into the win+r prompt to get to a certain submenu. e.g.: win+r: desk.cpl -> monitor resolution/refresh rate settings main.cpl -> mouse/keyboard settings mmsys.cpl -> audio device settings ms-settings: -> new Settings page (the : is required) I recall being able to access a sub-page by adding something after 'ms-settings:' but I haven't yet figured out how to discover the names of the pages.
kempbellt 6y ago
Role clarity issues during an interview feels like going on a date with someone who doesn't know if they want to be in a relationship, or would rather adopt a parakeet. They don't understand why they are talking to you, "but maybe you can, I don't know, maybe do something of value here, but we don't know what that is. So here's a bunch of money. FIX US". It's usually a sign of lack of vision by leadership in the company, so they are grasping at straws. If you want to kill your morale, look for roles like this. They are great.
- 101008 6y ago
  Oh, I am going through that. I started as a Python Sr dev a month ago, now I am handling server which is not my expertise. They are going down, deployment pipelines are not working, when I mentioned several times, my superior answer is "You are becoming a devop ;)"... I know they will be mad the day we deploy this to production and everything fails, but I honestly dont know what else to mention. (In my interview I said I had minor experience deploying to AWS, but in this company they are using Azure)
  - pnutjam 6y ago
    Just consider it getting paid to improve your resume. Whether this project is unmaintainable won't matter when you've moved on for you 20% raise at the next company. The one you're currently working for will never give it to you. - voice of experience -
    - 101008 6y ago
      Ha, thank you! Yeah, I am trying to remain positive, thinking that this is an oportunity to learn, etc. But at the same time i feel responsible if this fails :-/
      - pnutjam 6y ago
        I tend to feel responsible too, but just like, "none of us is as dumb as all of us"; teamwork ensures that your hard work can always be ruined by someone else's incompetence. You get used to it...
vlovich123 6y ago
Of the big tech companies, I've worked at Facebook, Google, & Apple. I've still not quite cracked what's different about Apple culturally that they seem to be more immune to this problem. The only main difference I can spot is I don't recall ever encountering a PM at Apple. To do planning engineers would propose improvements, new features, etc. These were bubbled up. Then executives would be responsible for building a theme around those developments & how that fit larger company-wide themes for iOS. On the other hand, I don't know if that was an Apple-wide thing or iOS-specific (at the time it was hard to distinguish since the entire company was largely organized around iOS/MacOS). Another difference is that design is top-down at Apple. Any UI redesign was driven by Johnny's team which was responsible for a holistic and consistent across-the-board implementation. I don't believe you were allowed to deviate from the design language. This one I have less visibility into as I worked on technology pieces rather than things that had a user-facing component.
- mdgrech23 6y ago
  Would echo your sentiment that the role of project manager, product owner or whatever they're calling it these days needs to be rethought. In my org we literally have a squadron of these individuals which leads to bickering and an in-cohesive product experience.
  - staplers 6y ago
    Micro-management has been institutionalized in much of corporate America while romanticizing "vision" without actually developing one. So you have non-designers enforcing their personal "vision" without cross-team collaboration or user research.
  - opportune 6y ago
    My issue with the two “PM”s I interact with the most: Project managers basically do something that the devs, especially dev manager, can handle themselves. It seems like a leftover process for when software contracting was more common. There’s no reason a developer can’t just manage the Kanban board and write a quick report. Product managers can be really good but in a lot of cases they just devolve into stakeholder management with poor/no vision. Because they talk to upper management a lot they can get a lot of credit for things they didn’t have a lot to do with, because they’re the visible face for it. This can sometimes lead to the Product org getting too big because they get promoted up to Director and now need 10-100 reports for something that only needs like 3 Product managers max. Then you’re in a really bad spot because you’re going to be bothered by PMs with small scope a lot about stupid shit
noodle 6y ago
> I've turned down numerous offers because when I asked what the specifics of my day to day job were going to be, the answers weren't clear. Same, from FAANG companies. The feel that I get is more like, FAANG companies don't even know what you're going to do. They just want to hire top talent and figure out what you're working on later. They want someone "smart" who can ultimately work on any team, since whatever team you initially land on might be gone in a few months. The consequence of this made the interview process for these companies feel much more like a "drinking the kool aid" test. When I asked what I would be doing, the sales pitch I got always boiled down to "you'll be working for X" as if that was enough. That might be enough for a fresh grad, but I'm an experienced specialist. Understanding my role and impact are key to my job happiness. I don't think the intent is to be secretive, its more about - the people in the recruiting pipeline don't even know themselves, or if they do, you might get rearranged quickly, so focusing heavily on the specific work is more of a detriment. You kind of NEED to drink the kool aid since you're buying in to the company moreso than buying in to a specific team, work, etc..
- vkou 6y ago
  That's because FAANG has a hiring department, that's responsible for hiring. They also each have ~2,000 engineering teams, some of which may or may not have headcount. And once someone is accepted, teams with open headcount look at that person, and make an offer. The shortens the time that it takes to fill headcount, because there is a constant pipeline of ready candidates. This also means that you won't get yanked around at the eleventh hour of the interview process with a "Sorry, we know you did great on all your interviews, but the headcount for the one team you were interviewing for filled/canceled earlier today, don't let the door hit you on the way out." You get 1-5 different team offers if you pass the interview. You can speak to the managers of those teams, prior to saying yes. Those managers, if they are any good, should have a pretty good idea of what you'll be doing. If you don't like any of those teams (or their managers), you can tell your recruiter that (I said no to all 5 of my initial offers, and got 2 counter-offers), and they'll come back to you with different interested teams. Your recruiter gets paid if you get hired. If you don't care what team you get slotted in, they'll slot you into whatever's available first. If you've passed your interviews, but do care what team you're gong to work with, they are financially incentivised to work with you. Or you could just switch teams after 12 months, if you don't like the one you were hired into.
bjornedstrom 6y ago
Just to offer a different perspective: An employer having too clear of an idea of a role can also be a red flag. The past 10 years I've often been the first employee - or one of the first - joining or building up the company's security organization. The combination of (1) having a specialist skill and (2) being around very few other people with the same skill, naturally leads to a situation where too much clarity can be a bad thing. If a non-specialist define a security role, they will probably screw it up. And that's okay. If you've worked in startups long enough you eventually get a lot of experience in how to hire people whose expertise you do not understand. As an employer and employee I enjoy the collaborative process of defining the role around the candidates strengths and weaknesses.
- fredley 6y ago
  This is a huge factor in early hiring success: can you effectively hire people whose roles you don't fully understand? Can you develop trust with the person you've hired and delegate effectively?
greyhair 6y ago
The empire building thing is the worst. "We don't actually have anything for you to do, we just have funding for three more people, and we need to hire people for those slots or we'll lose our funding. And our team size is in the second quintile for headcount, so we need to grow a little." So basically hiring bench warmers. I actually encountered that once in my so far 37 years. It was a total wtf moment for me.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  The only place I actually encountered this was at a defense contractor where if you did not have clearance, and they didn't happen to have uncleared work ready to staff, then if they wanted to hire you, they'd have to have you do nothing for 6 months while your clearance went through. All other companies I've worked at (including FAANGs) have always had 3-10X more unstaffed work than they could possibly do with their current staff and always had something for new people to onboard into. We'd be constantly giving leadership the bad news: "We'd love to do projects A-G, but only have enough people to do A, B and maybe C."
3np 6y ago
> Role clarity is a huge one in my book. While I could agree on larger tech companies, I certainly don't count this as a red flag for startups or smaller and/or younger tech departments within larger organizations. A lot of times managers know they need more resources and/or skills but don't have a clear idea of exactly roles are divided - and maybe it's an organization with fluid or not defined roles in the first place. I don't think that has to be a problem at all, on the contrary I thrive in such environments. I've been at the same company for 3 years and I'm not sure I could give you a good answer to what, precisely, the role of me or my fellow engineers are. It's a pretty flat org. I'm happy to keep it that way. Obviously there are many people that get frustrated or miserable without clear roles and responsibilities, but I think it's important that this is relative to the individual and not inherently a red flag.
GuB-42 6y ago
Is it that bad not knowing the specifics of your day job? Filling gaps can be interesting too, you get to see a lot of different things, and some companies actually try to put you on jobs you find interesting. On the opposite side, some interviewers have a model job story to tell candidates, and it may actually be your job for a month, until they shut it down and have you join the ranks of turd polishers. I'd say an even redder flag than not knowing what you will work on is getting what looks like the only interesting job in the company.
otabdeveloper4 6y ago
> Role clarity is a huge one in my book. Yes, if you want to be a cog in a machine. That said, it seems you're complaining about FAANG-type companies. These guys are hiring "top talent" only as a defensive measure, so that upstart competitors don't get them. It's not expected for "top talent" to actually contribute to something useful.
- umeshunni 6y ago
  > These guys are hiring "top talent" only as a defensive measure, so that upstart competitors don't get them. It's not expected for "top talent" to actually contribute to something useful. Citation needed
  - GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
    Anec-data: Turned down an $800k Principal ML Scientist job at a FANG. Interviewed with a director who couldn't answer what I would be doing / working on. Facebook is notorious for this, lots of friends get absolutely eye-watering salaries to sit around and provide 1% lifts on click-through-rates. Most fortunately leave after the 1-yr vest.
    - scottlamb 6y ago
      > Anec-data: Turned down an $800k Principal ML Scientist job at a FANG. Interviewed with a director who couldn't answer what I would be doing / working on. I agree that's weird. Edit: although when did this happen in the interview process? It's pretty common to first decide if you're interested in hiring someone in general and later do the match-making to a particular team/project. Maybe not at this level though... > Facebook is notorious for this, lots of friends get absolutely eye-watering salaries to sit around and provide 1% lifts on click-through-rates. It's worth it to Facebook to pay someone an absolutely eye-watering salary if they can get a 1% lift on click-through rates. This work doesn't interest me, but it's absolutely not the same as otabdeveloper4's claimed "These guys are hiring 'top talent' only as a defensive measure, so that upstart competitors don't get them." Disclaimer: I work for a FAANG. I don't work on advertising but it obviously supports my salary.
closeparen 6y ago
A recruiter drops an interview on my calendar; I go where I’m told. Most likely the role has nothing to do with me or the people/projects I know firsthand. If I knew about the project I would tell you, but I don’t.
mavelikara 6y ago
What are good answers to your question that you have heard from hiring managers?

shuntress 6y ago

I get that Microsoft is a huge company but the inconsistency in quality is something I find quite comical. To pile on to the Windows control panel for a minute: If you open the start menu and search updates, you bring up the settings menu for updates. Likewise for network settings or any other section of the control panel successor. But if you open network settings from the start menu while you already have updates open, the updates window is replaced by the network settings. Maybe they are working towards renaming the OS "Window".

sjg007 6y ago
I am amazed when I see older style windows pop up alongside the windows 10 styling.
- vkou 6y ago
  As am I, because the older style settings windows tend to actually be able to solve my problems. What truly blows my mind is when the same settings are scattered among four different windows. See: Anything to do with sound.
  - C1sc0cat 6y ago
    Seconded - with the whole WFH explosion sound is one are where windows needs improvement. In the old days billg / Balmer would have shouted at people until this was fixed
tasogare 6y ago
It’s a limitation of the phone-style applications where only one instance of a program can run at the same time. I think they addressed it in later revision of the framework, but that some people considered that was an acceptable solution on desktop shows how bad Windows have fallen from the 7 era.
TT3351 6y ago
It seems every update that the Sound control panel is harder to get to quickly, yet that panel still has functionality I need on a day-to-day basis. I'm willing to bet that the person who created that control panel no longer works with the company...
stack_underflow 6y ago
I've resorted to trying to figure out the shortcut names I can just type into the win+r prompt to get to a certain submenu. e.g.: win+r: desk.cpl -> monitor resolution/refresh rate settings main.cpl -> mouse/keyboard settings mmsys.cpl -> audio device settings ms-settings: -> new Settings page (the : is required) I recall being able to access a sub-page by adding something after 'ms-settings:' but I haven't yet figured out how to discover the names of the pages.

kempbellt 6y ago

Role clarity issues during an interview feels like going on a date with someone who doesn't know if they want to be in a relationship, or would rather adopt a parakeet. They don't understand why they are talking to you, "but maybe you can, I don't know, maybe do something of value here, but we don't know what that is. So here's a bunch of money. FIX US". It's usually a sign of lack of vision by leadership in the company, so they are grasping at straws. If you want to kill your morale, look for roles like this. They are great.

101008 6y ago
Oh, I am going through that. I started as a Python Sr dev a month ago, now I am handling server which is not my expertise. They are going down, deployment pipelines are not working, when I mentioned several times, my superior answer is "You are becoming a devop ;)"... I know they will be mad the day we deploy this to production and everything fails, but I honestly dont know what else to mention. (In my interview I said I had minor experience deploying to AWS, but in this company they are using Azure)
- pnutjam 6y ago
  Just consider it getting paid to improve your resume. Whether this project is unmaintainable won't matter when you've moved on for you 20% raise at the next company. The one you're currently working for will never give it to you. - voice of experience -
  - 101008 6y ago
    Ha, thank you! Yeah, I am trying to remain positive, thinking that this is an oportunity to learn, etc. But at the same time i feel responsible if this fails :-/
    - pnutjam 6y ago
      I tend to feel responsible too, but just like, "none of us is as dumb as all of us"; teamwork ensures that your hard work can always be ruined by someone else's incompetence. You get used to it...

vlovich123 6y ago

Of the big tech companies, I've worked at Facebook, Google, & Apple. I've still not quite cracked what's different about Apple culturally that they seem to be more immune to this problem. The only main difference I can spot is I don't recall ever encountering a PM at Apple. To do planning engineers would propose improvements, new features, etc. These were bubbled up. Then executives would be responsible for building a theme around those developments & how that fit larger company-wide themes for iOS. On the other hand, I don't know if that was an Apple-wide thing or iOS-specific (at the time it was hard to distinguish since the entire company was largely organized around iOS/MacOS). Another difference is that design is top-down at Apple. Any UI redesign was driven by Johnny's team which was responsible for a holistic and consistent across-the-board implementation. I don't believe you were allowed to deviate from the design language. This one I have less visibility into as I worked on technology pieces rather than things that had a user-facing component.

mdgrech23 6y ago
Would echo your sentiment that the role of project manager, product owner or whatever they're calling it these days needs to be rethought. In my org we literally have a squadron of these individuals which leads to bickering and an in-cohesive product experience.
- staplers 6y ago
  Micro-management has been institutionalized in much of corporate America while romanticizing "vision" without actually developing one. So you have non-designers enforcing their personal "vision" without cross-team collaboration or user research.
- opportune 6y ago
  My issue with the two “PM”s I interact with the most: Project managers basically do something that the devs, especially dev manager, can handle themselves. It seems like a leftover process for when software contracting was more common. There’s no reason a developer can’t just manage the Kanban board and write a quick report. Product managers can be really good but in a lot of cases they just devolve into stakeholder management with poor/no vision. Because they talk to upper management a lot they can get a lot of credit for things they didn’t have a lot to do with, because they’re the visible face for it. This can sometimes lead to the Product org getting too big because they get promoted up to Director and now need 10-100 reports for something that only needs like 3 Product managers max. Then you’re in a really bad spot because you’re going to be bothered by PMs with small scope a lot about stupid shit

noodle 6y ago

> I've turned down numerous offers because when I asked what the specifics of my day to day job were going to be, the answers weren't clear. Same, from FAANG companies. The feel that I get is more like, FAANG companies don't even know what you're going to do. They just want to hire top talent and figure out what you're working on later. They want someone "smart" who can ultimately work on any team, since whatever team you initially land on might be gone in a few months. The consequence of this made the interview process for these companies feel much more like a "drinking the kool aid" test. When I asked what I would be doing, the sales pitch I got always boiled down to "you'll be working for X" as if that was enough. That might be enough for a fresh grad, but I'm an experienced specialist. Understanding my role and impact are key to my job happiness. I don't think the intent is to be secretive, its more about - the people in the recruiting pipeline don't even know themselves, or if they do, you might get rearranged quickly, so focusing heavily on the specific work is more of a detriment. You kind of NEED to drink the kool aid since you're buying in to the company moreso than buying in to a specific team, work, etc..

vkou 6y ago
That's because FAANG has a hiring department, that's responsible for hiring. They also each have ~2,000 engineering teams, some of which may or may not have headcount. And once someone is accepted, teams with open headcount look at that person, and make an offer. The shortens the time that it takes to fill headcount, because there is a constant pipeline of ready candidates. This also means that you won't get yanked around at the eleventh hour of the interview process with a "Sorry, we know you did great on all your interviews, but the headcount for the one team you were interviewing for filled/canceled earlier today, don't let the door hit you on the way out." You get 1-5 different team offers if you pass the interview. You can speak to the managers of those teams, prior to saying yes. Those managers, if they are any good, should have a pretty good idea of what you'll be doing. If you don't like any of those teams (or their managers), you can tell your recruiter that (I said no to all 5 of my initial offers, and got 2 counter-offers), and they'll come back to you with different interested teams. Your recruiter gets paid if you get hired. If you don't care what team you get slotted in, they'll slot you into whatever's available first. If you've passed your interviews, but do care what team you're gong to work with, they are financially incentivised to work with you. Or you could just switch teams after 12 months, if you don't like the one you were hired into.

bjornedstrom 6y ago

Just to offer a different perspective: An employer having too clear of an idea of a role can also be a red flag. The past 10 years I've often been the first employee - or one of the first - joining or building up the company's security organization. The combination of (1) having a specialist skill and (2) being around very few other people with the same skill, naturally leads to a situation where too much clarity can be a bad thing. If a non-specialist define a security role, they will probably screw it up. And that's okay. If you've worked in startups long enough you eventually get a lot of experience in how to hire people whose expertise you do not understand. As an employer and employee I enjoy the collaborative process of defining the role around the candidates strengths and weaknesses.

fredley 6y ago
This is a huge factor in early hiring success: can you effectively hire people whose roles you don't fully understand? Can you develop trust with the person you've hired and delegate effectively?

greyhair 6y ago

The empire building thing is the worst. "We don't actually have anything for you to do, we just have funding for three more people, and we need to hire people for those slots or we'll lose our funding. And our team size is in the second quintile for headcount, so we need to grow a little." So basically hiring bench warmers. I actually encountered that once in my so far 37 years. It was a total wtf moment for me.

ryandrake 6y ago
The only place I actually encountered this was at a defense contractor where if you did not have clearance, and they didn't happen to have uncleared work ready to staff, then if they wanted to hire you, they'd have to have you do nothing for 6 months while your clearance went through. All other companies I've worked at (including FAANGs) have always had 3-10X more unstaffed work than they could possibly do with their current staff and always had something for new people to onboard into. We'd be constantly giving leadership the bad news: "We'd love to do projects A-G, but only have enough people to do A, B and maybe C."

3np 6y ago

> Role clarity is a huge one in my book. While I could agree on larger tech companies, I certainly don't count this as a red flag for startups or smaller and/or younger tech departments within larger organizations. A lot of times managers know they need more resources and/or skills but don't have a clear idea of exactly roles are divided - and maybe it's an organization with fluid or not defined roles in the first place. I don't think that has to be a problem at all, on the contrary I thrive in such environments. I've been at the same company for 3 years and I'm not sure I could give you a good answer to what, precisely, the role of me or my fellow engineers are. It's a pretty flat org. I'm happy to keep it that way. Obviously there are many people that get frustrated or miserable without clear roles and responsibilities, but I think it's important that this is relative to the individual and not inherently a red flag.

GuB-42 6y ago

Is it that bad not knowing the specifics of your day job? Filling gaps can be interesting too, you get to see a lot of different things, and some companies actually try to put you on jobs you find interesting. On the opposite side, some interviewers have a model job story to tell candidates, and it may actually be your job for a month, until they shut it down and have you join the ranks of turd polishers. I'd say an even redder flag than not knowing what you will work on is getting what looks like the only interesting job in the company.

otabdeveloper4 6y ago

> Role clarity is a huge one in my book. Yes, if you want to be a cog in a machine. That said, it seems you're complaining about FAANG-type companies. These guys are hiring "top talent" only as a defensive measure, so that upstart competitors don't get them. It's not expected for "top talent" to actually contribute to something useful.

umeshunni 6y ago
> These guys are hiring "top talent" only as a defensive measure, so that upstart competitors don't get them. It's not expected for "top talent" to actually contribute to something useful. Citation needed
- GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
  Anec-data: Turned down an $800k Principal ML Scientist job at a FANG. Interviewed with a director who couldn't answer what I would be doing / working on. Facebook is notorious for this, lots of friends get absolutely eye-watering salaries to sit around and provide 1% lifts on click-through-rates. Most fortunately leave after the 1-yr vest.
  - scottlamb 6y ago
    > Anec-data: Turned down an $800k Principal ML Scientist job at a FANG. Interviewed with a director who couldn't answer what I would be doing / working on. I agree that's weird. Edit: although when did this happen in the interview process? It's pretty common to first decide if you're interested in hiring someone in general and later do the match-making to a particular team/project. Maybe not at this level though... > Facebook is notorious for this, lots of friends get absolutely eye-watering salaries to sit around and provide 1% lifts on click-through-rates. It's worth it to Facebook to pay someone an absolutely eye-watering salary if they can get a 1% lift on click-through rates. This work doesn't interest me, but it's absolutely not the same as otabdeveloper4's claimed "These guys are hiring 'top talent' only as a defensive measure, so that upstart competitors don't get them." Disclaimer: I work for a FAANG. I don't work on advertising but it obviously supports my salary.

closeparen 6y ago

A recruiter drops an interview on my calendar; I go where I’m told. Most likely the role has nothing to do with me or the people/projects I know firsthand. If I knew about the project I would tell you, but I don’t.

mavelikara 6y ago

What are good answers to your question that you have heard from hiring managers?