4 ms·

Easy to identify? What are the signs, save for things you could only be told by a friend on the inside?

bradleyjg 5y ago
High turnover, especially if there’s a big peak at 2-3 years of experience. For mid-career professionals, you should be able to tell this from your second or third degree network on LinkedIn or similar. For students, you should be suspicious of any company that’s hiring a lot of fresh grads unless they are gigantic (in which case, consult the alumni whisper network).
- zikduruqe 5y ago
  Cerner in KC is like that. Grab all the college grads, burn them to death for 3 to 4 years, cull the herd. https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/cerner-layoffs-part-of-reorganization-spokesperson-says https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/cerner-layoffs-part-of-... Here is example of the culture: https://www.bizcominthenews.com/files/cerner-1.pdf https://www.bizcominthenews.com/files/cerner-1.pdf
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    that would be from then-CEO Neal Patterson, from Wikipedia : Patterson is infamous for an email[7] scolding managers for not coming to work before 8 am and leaving before 5 pm, now a prominent example used when discussing email netiquette. On the day that the email was posted to Yahoo!, the company's market cap fell by over 22%[8] from a high of US$1.5 billion.[9] [7] "BBC News - AMERICAS - Boss's e-mail bites back". BBC. Archived from the original on February 8, 2009. [8] .. [9] Flynn, Nancy; Kahn, Randolph (2003). E-mail Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-mail and Digital Communication. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. p. 45. ISBN 9780814471883. netiquette. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Patterson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Patterson
- xf1cf 5y ago
  This is highly sector dependent. I've worked at startups for almost my entire career and a big peak of leaving engineers at 2-3 years wouldn't even cause me any concern. In the 10 years in industry I've worked I'd argue the average engineer leaves around the 5 year mark. This typically coincides with a failed seed round or reaching a terminal title (senior, staff, etc) and not being able to go further. The fresh grads case is a good point. The one company I left fairly quickly was almost entirely powered by intern/junior labor. Seniors left quickly due to a combination of bad management, low advancement opportunities, and constantly having to re-train people. This, I think, is worth looking out for.
- hinkley 5y ago
  If they are specifically recruiting people from out of town, they are most likely doing so to get away from the existing whisper network. That is one thing we are going to be writing extensively about regarding remote jobs in the coming years.
  - oceanghost 5y ago
    This. And when they burn you out and you have no support network or family and programming jobs in the area are all full of programmers who got fired from X, because you moved there. Lucasfilm tried to recruit me once-- which would have been my dream job-- but couldn't match what I was being paid in Orange County. The recruiter actually tried to convince me my housing costs would be less in the bay area. I had family in the bay area and they all confirmed that Lucas was a notorious abusive employer. I had a similar thing with Dreamworks-- they best offer they could make was 25k less than I was making at the time.
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  Hiring loads and loads of fresh grads and then making your campus feel just like college so your amenities can trick them into working 60-hour weeks.
scrose 5y ago
For small companies, I feel like checking out how many people used to work there(and when they left) on LinkedIn vs. how old the company is works as a really great metric. If you’re looking at a 100 person company that appears to have more former engineers than a 500 person company in the same timeframe… we’ll just leave it at that.
nzmsv 5y ago
Every one of your interviewers says they have great work life balance while looking like an extra from a zombie movie. Dark circles around the eyes, bags underneath.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  To be fair, in my case that’s because I play computer games until 2am, nothing to do with my job that ends at 6pm.
  - nzmsv 5y ago
    That's what the "every single one" qualifier is for :)
steveBK123 5y ago
One is how much they expose you to the team you will join / consistency of information about the size / location / roles within the team during the interview process. I once joined a team that had 40% sustained turnover for the 5 years I stayed on. I only stayed because they basically golden handcuffed me. Despite interviewing with 6-7 different individuals 1-on-1, only 2 of them were actually future team mates. By the time I joined, I discovered that on my team of 5: - manager had joined weeks before interviewing me, replacing the long time team lead who had been fired - 2 guys were being fired & I was to take on their responsibilities along with the other guy they just hired (who was a flake, so I took on 2 jobs within 3 months) - I was the first person to sit in-office, the rest were remote, this meant a disproportionate support burden went to me immediately despite being new and not knowing the platform It was also the first place I ever worked where it was normal for people to get fired in their first year. Not sure how you ask about that in an interview though, lol.
- bostik 5y ago
  > It was also the first place I ever worked where it was normal for people to get fired in their first year. Not sure how you ask about that in an interview though, lol. There is a way, actually. One of the things you want to ask when joining a non-tiny company is about the overall retention figures. Average/median tenure is a good start, especially coupled with a question on what the company does with their exit interview data. You could also ask for a rough bucketing on the tenure: how many people stay beyond 1y/3y/5y. It's going to be a rare company who can (or will) share even semi-accurate figures, but you should be able to get a decent grip on the fractions. Also, if those in the company who are supposed to know this are evasive about the question, that's a red flag all on its own right.
  - rustoo 5y ago
    I hope all people start asking such questions. It will bring more accountability and will make it difficult for toxic companies to hide their issues. Maybe candidates can start asking for a company's "resume"?
- dvtrn 5y ago
zuppy 5y ago
i would ask what is their opinion regarding overtime. it’s a good measure of toxicity if overtime is expected (excluding emergencies), whether it is paid or not.
myth_drannon 5y ago
I find that Blind discussions are pretty representative, but it's mostly abour larger companies. For every Amazon there are hundreds of smaller companies.

High turnover, especially if there’s a big peak at 2-3 years of experience. For mid-career professionals, you should be able to tell this from your second or third degree network on LinkedIn or similar. For students, you should be suspicious of any company that’s hiring a lot of fresh grads unless they are gigantic (in which case, consult the alumni whisper network).

zikduruqe 5y ago
Cerner in KC is like that. Grab all the college grads, burn them to death for 3 to 4 years, cull the herd. https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/cerner-layoffs-part-of-reorganization-spokesperson-says https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/cerner-layoffs-part-of-... Here is example of the culture: https://www.bizcominthenews.com/files/cerner-1.pdf https://www.bizcominthenews.com/files/cerner-1.pdf
- mistrial9 5y ago
  that would be from then-CEO Neal Patterson, from Wikipedia : Patterson is infamous for an email[7] scolding managers for not coming to work before 8 am and leaving before 5 pm, now a prominent example used when discussing email netiquette. On the day that the email was posted to Yahoo!, the company's market cap fell by over 22%[8] from a high of US$1.5 billion.[9] [7] "BBC News - AMERICAS - Boss's e-mail bites back". BBC. Archived from the original on February 8, 2009. [8] .. [9] Flynn, Nancy; Kahn, Randolph (2003). E-mail Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-mail and Digital Communication. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. p. 45. ISBN 9780814471883. netiquette. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Patterson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Patterson
xf1cf 5y ago
This is highly sector dependent. I've worked at startups for almost my entire career and a big peak of leaving engineers at 2-3 years wouldn't even cause me any concern. In the 10 years in industry I've worked I'd argue the average engineer leaves around the 5 year mark. This typically coincides with a failed seed round or reaching a terminal title (senior, staff, etc) and not being able to go further. The fresh grads case is a good point. The one company I left fairly quickly was almost entirely powered by intern/junior labor. Seniors left quickly due to a combination of bad management, low advancement opportunities, and constantly having to re-train people. This, I think, is worth looking out for.
hinkley 5y ago
If they are specifically recruiting people from out of town, they are most likely doing so to get away from the existing whisper network. That is one thing we are going to be writing extensively about regarding remote jobs in the coming years.
- oceanghost 5y ago
  This. And when they burn you out and you have no support network or family and programming jobs in the area are all full of programmers who got fired from X, because you moved there. Lucasfilm tried to recruit me once-- which would have been my dream job-- but couldn't match what I was being paid in Orange County. The recruiter actually tried to convince me my housing costs would be less in the bay area. I had family in the bay area and they all confirmed that Lucas was a notorious abusive employer. I had a similar thing with Dreamworks-- they best offer they could make was 25k less than I was making at the time.
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
Hiring loads and loads of fresh grads and then making your campus feel just like college so your amenities can trick them into working 60-hour weeks.

scrose 5y ago

For small companies, I feel like checking out how many people used to work there(and when they left) on LinkedIn vs. how old the company is works as a really great metric. If you’re looking at a 100 person company that appears to have more former engineers than a 500 person company in the same timeframe… we’ll just leave it at that.

nzmsv 5y ago

Every one of your interviewers says they have great work life balance while looking like an extra from a zombie movie. Dark circles around the eyes, bags underneath.

Aeolun 5y ago
To be fair, in my case that’s because I play computer games until 2am, nothing to do with my job that ends at 6pm.
- nzmsv 5y ago
  That's what the "every single one" qualifier is for :)

steveBK123 5y ago

One is how much they expose you to the team you will join / consistency of information about the size / location / roles within the team during the interview process. I once joined a team that had 40% sustained turnover for the 5 years I stayed on. I only stayed because they basically golden handcuffed me. Despite interviewing with 6-7 different individuals 1-on-1, only 2 of them were actually future team mates. By the time I joined, I discovered that on my team of 5: - manager had joined weeks before interviewing me, replacing the long time team lead who had been fired - 2 guys were being fired & I was to take on their responsibilities along with the other guy they just hired (who was a flake, so I took on 2 jobs within 3 months) - I was the first person to sit in-office, the rest were remote, this meant a disproportionate support burden went to me immediately despite being new and not knowing the platform It was also the first place I ever worked where it was normal for people to get fired in their first year. Not sure how you ask about that in an interview though, lol.

bostik 5y ago
> It was also the first place I ever worked where it was normal for people to get fired in their first year. Not sure how you ask about that in an interview though, lol. There is a way, actually. One of the things you want to ask when joining a non-tiny company is about the overall retention figures. Average/median tenure is a good start, especially coupled with a question on what the company does with their exit interview data. You could also ask for a rough bucketing on the tenure: how many people stay beyond 1y/3y/5y. It's going to be a rare company who can (or will) share even semi-accurate figures, but you should be able to get a decent grip on the fractions. Also, if those in the company who are supposed to know this are evasive about the question, that's a red flag all on its own right.
- rustoo 5y ago
  I hope all people start asking such questions. It will bring more accountability and will make it difficult for toxic companies to hide their issues. Maybe candidates can start asking for a company's "resume"?
dvtrn 5y ago

zuppy 5y ago

i would ask what is their opinion regarding overtime. it’s a good measure of toxicity if overtime is expected (excluding emergencies), whether it is paid or not.

myth_drannon 5y ago

I find that Blind discussions are pretty representative, but it's mostly abour larger companies. For every Amazon there are hundreds of smaller companies.