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I got an offer from Apple. The hiring manager told me "You worked at a startup before, you'll have no problem working overtime". I didn't end up taking the offe

I got an offer from Apple. The hiring manager told me "You worked at a startup before, you'll have no problem working overtime". I didn't end up taking the offer.

raverbashing 6y ago
I can only answer with LOL to such offers Yes I've worked for a startup. Yes I did long hours. Yes I learned that's not sustainable and not a good way to make things work. So, no, I won't do it again.
- geophile 6y ago
  I never understood the supposed attraction of "just like a startup, but in a big company!". That appears to mean that you will work in a small team, putting in unsustainable hours, but not receive the financial reward that a successful startup could provide. I've worked in several startups, and occasional death marches are unavoidable. They don't work month in and month out. But enduring that kind of life for just salary is nuts.
  - andrewem 6y ago
    The other notable thing about “just like a startup but in a big company” (often for startups which have been acquired) is the frequent claim that the startup will be left alone by the rest of the company. Every single process and incentive is against that remaining true. Maybe in some cases you can hope for the acquired startup to be the pet project of the acquirer’s founder/CEO?
    - geophile 6y ago
      I knew that to work out exactly once, (not a company I was at).
  - Tommah 6y ago
    > the supposed attraction of "just like a startup, but in a big company!" I think the advantage is supposed to be that you won't come in one day and hear your boss say "Guess what? We're broke."
    - mgkimsal 6y ago
      > I think the advantage is supposed to be that you won't come in one day and hear your boss say "Guess what? We're broke." Sure... but you may still come in and find "this project has been nixed". Upside is that you may still have a 'job' in the bigger company, but everything you worked on may be thrown away, you may lose whatever political power your project had, etc. Certainly there's an 'immediate safety net' issue of "you may have a paycheck next week", but doesn't address any of the emotional stuff that goes along with "we'll have a scrappy startup mentality!" I had been in something similar - not quite a 'startup in a large company' situation, but similar. And... we hit a "hey, this project is being shut down, and there's no other budget in the company for this team". So.. the company itself was still going OK - everyone else kept rolling along - but a handful of us were effectively cut adrift for a bit. Some were able to be assigned to other internal teams, some weren't.
      - p_l 6y ago
        A project at big financial company... At some point around March we learnt post-factum that the project, mostly staffed by contract workers (aka "B2B"), nearly lost pretty much all of non-managerial staff, because parent company of the group (a german corp) made decision to cancel all B2B contracts. Our project barely survived because of some fast talking, and by becoming "important enough" the fact that canceling the contracts would leave them with no "doers" on it was the main reason we didn't get "sorry, you're fired" email.
  - gedy 6y ago
    > I never understood the supposed attraction of "just like a startup, but in a big company!" Imho it's frequently used to falsely motivate junior/inexperienced into working crazy hours that they might get some financial or other rewards like a startup.
Raed667 6y ago
I got a similar line from a certain european video-game company.
- nvarsj 6y ago
  I interviewed for Blizzard many years ago. One of the first questions they asked is how many all-nighters I had done. Yeah, that was the end for me.
  - tankenmate 6y ago
    My frank response would be something along the lines of "I'm going to ask you a question, and how you respond will likely determine if I work here, 'Are you self selecting for incompetents or doormats?'" Their response to this question would probably tell you most of what you want to know about working at that company.
    - p1esk 6y ago
      Yeah, you can do this when you have several equally good offers in your pocket. Meaning you're good enough to be picky. What would be your response if you don't feel you're better than all others who applied for this position?
      - bigiain 6y ago
        There’s nothing wrong with choosing a job that you know are going to expect all-nighters, probably un compensated all-nighters - but make sure you choose it knowingly instead of pretending it’s an office hours job. It’d be a rare job in video game production that didn’t involve crunch time, and if you want to work in those roles you can, so long as you accept/embrace that. If you’re the sort of person for whom 2-3 months a year of crunch time is going to destroy your relationships/family/mental health, you should probably choose a different industry. There are lots of 9-5 ish coding jobs that involve zero or minimal outside-office-hours work. Don’t fool yourself I to pretending your “dream job” is one of those if there are obvious (or even subtle) red flags that it’s not.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
shoulderfake 6y ago
You should have just said no sir I wont have any problem working overtime and my rate is 2.5x for overtime hrs, you wont have a problem paying for that you're a rich company.
SkyPuncher 6y ago
I work at a startup right now and can count the number of times I've had to work overtime with a null-pointer - 0. Well run startups can still compete by making smart, focused decisions.
- andy_ppp 6y ago
  I completely agree, sure if you’re into a feature and on a roll in a startup keep going but if you’ve reached a good point to stop no need to cause yourself stress!
  - SkyPuncher 6y ago
    There are definitely days I work late, but that's almost always by choice. When I do work late, it means shorter days for me later in the week.
- derivagral 6y ago
  I've never had a startup that hasn't roped me into a production support on-call for a month or more in addition to regular duties. Under 10 engineers, 50 engineers, 500+ engineers: they've all done this.
  - qppo 6y ago
    I've never worked on a product where it ever made sense to be "on call." I'm an engineer, not a doctor.
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      It’s probably obvious, but I’d suggest never working on a product doctors use.
    - Philip-J-Fry 6y ago
      If something goes catastrophically wrong at 1am, caused by some unforeseen bug in the code, who fixes it? Who diagnoses that an issue flooding the logs is not an issue with your software but something else down the line? I think it makes sense to have an on-call rota. Some people do it for a week or so. Cycle it through the team. There needs to be someone knowledgeable to call in case of issues.
cmrdporcupine 6y ago
Working overtime at a startup here and there can have an emotional reward, as a small team works together with enthusiasm to bring something to market. Yes, this can be abused by bad management and planning, and often is, but .. it's an entirely different beast from demanding overtime out of employees at a large profitable company where poor planning and under-resourcing are not really excusable.

I got an offer from Apple. The hiring manager told me "You worked at a startup before, you'll have no problem working overtime". I didn't end up taking the offer.

raverbashing 6y ago

I can only answer with LOL to such offers Yes I've worked for a startup. Yes I did long hours. Yes I learned that's not sustainable and not a good way to make things work. So, no, I won't do it again.

geophile 6y ago
I never understood the supposed attraction of "just like a startup, but in a big company!". That appears to mean that you will work in a small team, putting in unsustainable hours, but not receive the financial reward that a successful startup could provide. I've worked in several startups, and occasional death marches are unavoidable. They don't work month in and month out. But enduring that kind of life for just salary is nuts.
- andrewem 6y ago
  The other notable thing about “just like a startup but in a big company” (often for startups which have been acquired) is the frequent claim that the startup will be left alone by the rest of the company. Every single process and incentive is against that remaining true. Maybe in some cases you can hope for the acquired startup to be the pet project of the acquirer’s founder/CEO?
  - geophile 6y ago
    I knew that to work out exactly once, (not a company I was at).
- Tommah 6y ago
  > the supposed attraction of "just like a startup, but in a big company!" I think the advantage is supposed to be that you won't come in one day and hear your boss say "Guess what? We're broke."
  - mgkimsal 6y ago
    > I think the advantage is supposed to be that you won't come in one day and hear your boss say "Guess what? We're broke." Sure... but you may still come in and find "this project has been nixed". Upside is that you may still have a 'job' in the bigger company, but everything you worked on may be thrown away, you may lose whatever political power your project had, etc. Certainly there's an 'immediate safety net' issue of "you may have a paycheck next week", but doesn't address any of the emotional stuff that goes along with "we'll have a scrappy startup mentality!" I had been in something similar - not quite a 'startup in a large company' situation, but similar. And... we hit a "hey, this project is being shut down, and there's no other budget in the company for this team". So.. the company itself was still going OK - everyone else kept rolling along - but a handful of us were effectively cut adrift for a bit. Some were able to be assigned to other internal teams, some weren't.
    - p_l 6y ago
      A project at big financial company... At some point around March we learnt post-factum that the project, mostly staffed by contract workers (aka "B2B"), nearly lost pretty much all of non-managerial staff, because parent company of the group (a german corp) made decision to cancel all B2B contracts. Our project barely survived because of some fast talking, and by becoming "important enough" the fact that canceling the contracts would leave them with no "doers" on it was the main reason we didn't get "sorry, you're fired" email.
- gedy 6y ago
  > I never understood the supposed attraction of "just like a startup, but in a big company!" Imho it's frequently used to falsely motivate junior/inexperienced into working crazy hours that they might get some financial or other rewards like a startup.

Raed667 6y ago

I got a similar line from a certain european video-game company.

nvarsj 6y ago
I interviewed for Blizzard many years ago. One of the first questions they asked is how many all-nighters I had done. Yeah, that was the end for me.
- tankenmate 6y ago
  My frank response would be something along the lines of "I'm going to ask you a question, and how you respond will likely determine if I work here, 'Are you self selecting for incompetents or doormats?'" Their response to this question would probably tell you most of what you want to know about working at that company.
  - p1esk 6y ago
    Yeah, you can do this when you have several equally good offers in your pocket. Meaning you're good enough to be picky. What would be your response if you don't feel you're better than all others who applied for this position?
    - bigiain 6y ago
      There’s nothing wrong with choosing a job that you know are going to expect all-nighters, probably un compensated all-nighters - but make sure you choose it knowingly instead of pretending it’s an office hours job. It’d be a rare job in video game production that didn’t involve crunch time, and if you want to work in those roles you can, so long as you accept/embrace that. If you’re the sort of person for whom 2-3 months a year of crunch time is going to destroy your relationships/family/mental health, you should probably choose a different industry. There are lots of 9-5 ish coding jobs that involve zero or minimal outside-office-hours work. Don’t fool yourself I to pretending your “dream job” is one of those if there are obvious (or even subtle) red flags that it’s not.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

shoulderfake 6y ago

You should have just said no sir I wont have any problem working overtime and my rate is 2.5x for overtime hrs, you wont have a problem paying for that you're a rich company.

SkyPuncher 6y ago

I work at a startup right now and can count the number of times I've had to work overtime with a null-pointer - 0. Well run startups can still compete by making smart, focused decisions.

andy_ppp 6y ago
I completely agree, sure if you’re into a feature and on a roll in a startup keep going but if you’ve reached a good point to stop no need to cause yourself stress!
- SkyPuncher 6y ago
  There are definitely days I work late, but that's almost always by choice. When I do work late, it means shorter days for me later in the week.
derivagral 6y ago
I've never had a startup that hasn't roped me into a production support on-call for a month or more in addition to regular duties. Under 10 engineers, 50 engineers, 500+ engineers: they've all done this.
- qppo 6y ago
  I've never worked on a product where it ever made sense to be "on call." I'm an engineer, not a doctor.
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    It’s probably obvious, but I’d suggest never working on a product doctors use.
  - Philip-J-Fry 6y ago
    If something goes catastrophically wrong at 1am, caused by some unforeseen bug in the code, who fixes it? Who diagnoses that an issue flooding the logs is not an issue with your software but something else down the line? I think it makes sense to have an on-call rota. Some people do it for a week or so. Cycle it through the team. There needs to be someone knowledgeable to call in case of issues.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

Working overtime at a startup here and there can have an emotional reward, as a small team works together with enthusiasm to bring something to market. Yes, this can be abused by bad management and planning, and often is, but .. it's an entirely different beast from demanding overtime out of employees at a large profitable company where poor planning and under-resourcing are not really excusable.