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The thing about the top tech companies, particularly Intel and other chip companies where postgraduate degrees are more or less required to do anything interest

The thing about the top tech companies, particularly Intel and other chip companies where postgraduate degrees are more or less required to do anything interesting, is that people there have literally gone though over a decade of intense competition in the educational system to qualify to get their foot in the door. And then, to stay there and rise through the ranks is another decade or more of intense competition, both technical and political, against similar elites. Needless to say, this can have some pretty corrosive effects without proper supervision.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> people there have literally gone though over a decade of intense competition in the educational system to qualify to get their foot in the door. And then, to stay there and rise through the ranks is another decade or more of intense competition Two decades of requisite grunt work will also encourage your best junior talent to seek out start-up opportunities.
- gabereiser 6y ago
  Bingo! After a few tries one will always look inward (healthily or not) and seek out other opportunities.
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  > "Two decades of requisite grunt work will also encourage your best junior talent to seek out start-up opportunities." For silicon and hardware in general, the job market is much, much smaller, making that decision significantly more difficult.
gabereiser 6y ago
Recipe for a toxic work culture from day one. Your team should never be your competition. Your company should never be your competition. Meritocracy works only in certain markets. Knowledge-based work isn’t one of them. I really feel for people who are in these companies. Who put in 6+ years of university/higher education and think that “if I could only fight my peers for the top spot” when “top” is relative. To someone else’s point, I totally acknowledge that there are certain industries that you have to have a degree to do anything meaningful. I also know there’s tons of companies out there that need bright minds to create the next big thing. I used to think that I was in competition with my coworkers for that promotion, for that top spot, to basically prove to myself that I could and prove to others I should. I stopped wasting time trying to prove what I already know and now focus on what I don’t. Office politics sucks and I refuse to play the game. If I get passed up for promotion or if I’m unhappy I leverage my rights under my states at-will work laws and go find somewhere else to work. The best places I’ve worked where this wasn’t a thing (the elite competition for who’s right) were places that acknowledged your contributions, explained why you did/didn’t get the promotion, laid out plans for you to achieve that (or have you on that list for when it opens up) and then actually honors that promise.
- WJW 6y ago
  Any competition with sufficient rewards attracts this kind of toxicity eventually and that is why larger companies are usually the worst. Getting a promotion at a small company in the EU or in the midwest USA means you get maybe 10k/year extra. Getting to the next rung in FAANG (or Intel, apparently) can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years, so it's not surprising people are a lot more willing to backstab their peers in those places.
  - gabereiser 6y ago
    Yeah, I’m not anti competition. I’m anti in-fighting. I also blame companies that structure their pay so radically that this fighting for next rung because it’s hundreds of thousands more is a thing. It shouldn’t be. Maybe a 10% bump, but higher up the latter should mean more responsibility and more importantly, accountability. If that justifies the extra pay then so be it but getting a promotion shouldn’t mean the difference between hundreds of thousands of dollars.
- intricatedetail 6y ago
  Requirement to be a graduate of a "good" university is not a meritocracy. It's just preferring people who have a diploma, but that doesn't mean the person hired will have other qualities necessary to be effective. Edit: I know some people with diploma who "gamed" the system, e.g. memorized queries for exam without having any understanding of SQL and passed.
  - gabereiser 6y ago
    >Requirement to be a graduate of a "good" university is not a meritocracy. I didn't say it was. Meritocracy in this case was in reference to the company's internal competition (organic or not) for top spots at the company. I completely understand there are certain jobs where you need a degree. Bar even. A lot of software engineering doesn't fit that mold. I'm 100% behind requiring an advanced degree if you're writing software that controls: lives/property/money in any meaningful way. Money in this case being large capital investments, not consumer payments. I'm a big proponent of hiring people who need a second chance, who maybe are down on their luck, or otherwise have a different path than suburban white America or the H1B visa mills they created (caveat, I'm white). I think there are plenty of opportunities for software engineers without degrees to build web apps, mobile apps, services, integrations, automation, etc.
masklinn 6y ago
> Needless to say, this can have some pretty corrosive effects without proper supervision. And half the time the supervision is the exact opposite. Concepts like stack ranking are a sure-fire way of making the workplace more contentious, politicised, and publicised. Because that's the thing about > intense competition 95% of the time it's about visibility, the technical excellence only matters if it's visible and publicised to decision-makers, which means self-aggrandisement and a mastery of office politics not only can compensate for lacking technical skills, but will usually edge out technical skill entirely.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> people there have literally gone though over a decade of intense competition in the educational system to qualify to get their foot in the door. And then, to stay there and rise through the ranks is another decade or more of intense competition Two decades of requisite grunt work will also encourage your best junior talent to seek out start-up opportunities.

gabereiser 6y ago
Bingo! After a few tries one will always look inward (healthily or not) and seek out other opportunities.
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
> "Two decades of requisite grunt work will also encourage your best junior talent to seek out start-up opportunities." For silicon and hardware in general, the job market is much, much smaller, making that decision significantly more difficult.

gabereiser 6y ago

Recipe for a toxic work culture from day one. Your team should never be your competition. Your company should never be your competition. Meritocracy works only in certain markets. Knowledge-based work isn’t one of them. I really feel for people who are in these companies. Who put in 6+ years of university/higher education and think that “if I could only fight my peers for the top spot” when “top” is relative. To someone else’s point, I totally acknowledge that there are certain industries that you have to have a degree to do anything meaningful. I also know there’s tons of companies out there that need bright minds to create the next big thing. I used to think that I was in competition with my coworkers for that promotion, for that top spot, to basically prove to myself that I could and prove to others I should. I stopped wasting time trying to prove what I already know and now focus on what I don’t. Office politics sucks and I refuse to play the game. If I get passed up for promotion or if I’m unhappy I leverage my rights under my states at-will work laws and go find somewhere else to work. The best places I’ve worked where this wasn’t a thing (the elite competition for who’s right) were places that acknowledged your contributions, explained why you did/didn’t get the promotion, laid out plans for you to achieve that (or have you on that list for when it opens up) and then actually honors that promise.

WJW 6y ago
Any competition with sufficient rewards attracts this kind of toxicity eventually and that is why larger companies are usually the worst. Getting a promotion at a small company in the EU or in the midwest USA means you get maybe 10k/year extra. Getting to the next rung in FAANG (or Intel, apparently) can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years, so it's not surprising people are a lot more willing to backstab their peers in those places.
- gabereiser 6y ago
  Yeah, I’m not anti competition. I’m anti in-fighting. I also blame companies that structure their pay so radically that this fighting for next rung because it’s hundreds of thousands more is a thing. It shouldn’t be. Maybe a 10% bump, but higher up the latter should mean more responsibility and more importantly, accountability. If that justifies the extra pay then so be it but getting a promotion shouldn’t mean the difference between hundreds of thousands of dollars.
intricatedetail 6y ago
Requirement to be a graduate of a "good" university is not a meritocracy. It's just preferring people who have a diploma, but that doesn't mean the person hired will have other qualities necessary to be effective. Edit: I know some people with diploma who "gamed" the system, e.g. memorized queries for exam without having any understanding of SQL and passed.
- gabereiser 6y ago
  >Requirement to be a graduate of a "good" university is not a meritocracy. I didn't say it was. Meritocracy in this case was in reference to the company's internal competition (organic or not) for top spots at the company. I completely understand there are certain jobs where you need a degree. Bar even. A lot of software engineering doesn't fit that mold. I'm 100% behind requiring an advanced degree if you're writing software that controls: lives/property/money in any meaningful way. Money in this case being large capital investments, not consumer payments. I'm a big proponent of hiring people who need a second chance, who maybe are down on their luck, or otherwise have a different path than suburban white America or the H1B visa mills they created (caveat, I'm white). I think there are plenty of opportunities for software engineers without degrees to build web apps, mobile apps, services, integrations, automation, etc.

masklinn 6y ago

> Needless to say, this can have some pretty corrosive effects without proper supervision. And half the time the supervision is the exact opposite. Concepts like stack ranking are a sure-fire way of making the workplace more contentious, politicised, and publicised. Because that's the thing about > intense competition 95% of the time it's about visibility, the technical excellence only matters if it's visible and publicised to decision-makers, which means self-aggrandisement and a mastery of office politics not only can compensate for lacking technical skills, but will usually edge out technical skill entirely.