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It's really a shame what many of the "FAANG" companies (and the companies who admire/adopt their practices) are doing to tech work. My own experiences, the hor

It's really a shame what many of the "FAANG" companies (and the companies who admire/adopt their practices) are doing to tech work. My own experiences, the horror stories I've read, the broken/horrible interview trivia loops, the nonstop crunches, the nonstop on-call escalations, the difficult ethical positions that come with working at some companies, etc. have me feeling worse than ever about this profession. It didn't use to be like this. There was a time not long ago when individual personality and skills mattered. Workloads could be negotiated, interviews were conversational. But now it seems that a few companies have eliminated all that wasteful "toil" of interacting with human beings by instead treating them like machines, and thousands of other companies follow suit almost blindly. I'd love to see a job aggregator for anti-FAANGs. Does such a thing exist?

deltaonefour 5y ago
Is this the norm? I thought this was mostly just amazon. If it is the norm I blame it on the over supply of software engineers. The salaries stay high but the churn is now higher because with that high of a salary they will burn through as many engineers as possible to get the perfect person.
voakbasda 5y ago
I'd use it, but only if it excluded fads too. I don't want to be near Web 3, cryptocurrencies, or generally any new tech stack released within the last five years. If you don't like this idea, get of my lawn. ;)
pkaye 5y ago
Seems like you just need an job aggregator that skips particular companies you dislike.
unoti 5y ago
> It's really a shame what many of the "FAANG" companies (and the companies who admire/adopt their practices) are doing to tech work. > broken/horrible interview trivia loops, the nonstop crunches, the nonstop on-call escalations, the difficult ethical positions that come with working at some companies, etc. have me feeling worse than ever about this profession. > a few companies have eliminated all that wasteful "toil" of interacting with human beings by instead treating them like machines... I agree that these things are happening, but this is not happening everywhere. In particular, Microsoft is not true for any of the above over the last 5+ years since Satya came onboard. In my experience, every one of the above is not true at Microsoft, with one notable exception: the interview loop is indeed hard. But other than that, it's a much better situation at Microsoft. There are no difficult ethical positions (ethics and trust are first class core values there). Individuals matter, and allowances are made for different people's strengths and weaknesses. Workloads and deadlines can indeed be negotiated. It's far more "human" there than other places like Amazon, Facebook, Uber, and other places.
- bc4m 5y ago
  Microsoft's interview loop was the easiest I've ever had, it's the only job I've had where I've felt my ethics challenged, and my org's leadership was comically ruthless. You joined a good org and that's awesome, but I believe you can just as easily join a bad one at Microsoft or a good one at Amazon.
thrwyoilarticle 5y ago
>It didn't use to be like this. There was a time not long ago when individual personality and skills mattered. Workloads could be negotiated, interviews were conversational. Er, when? Old Microsoft was infamous for the ping pong ball interview questions and stack rankings. Is this not just a result of companies in the tech market being successful and turning from plucky underdog to bureaucratic behemoth?

deltaonefour 5y ago

Is this the norm? I thought this was mostly just amazon. If it is the norm I blame it on the over supply of software engineers. The salaries stay high but the churn is now higher because with that high of a salary they will burn through as many engineers as possible to get the perfect person.

voakbasda 5y ago

I'd use it, but only if it excluded fads too. I don't want to be near Web 3, cryptocurrencies, or generally any new tech stack released within the last five years. If you don't like this idea, get of my lawn. ;)

pkaye 5y ago

Seems like you just need an job aggregator that skips particular companies you dislike.

unoti 5y ago

> It's really a shame what many of the "FAANG" companies (and the companies who admire/adopt their practices) are doing to tech work. > broken/horrible interview trivia loops, the nonstop crunches, the nonstop on-call escalations, the difficult ethical positions that come with working at some companies, etc. have me feeling worse than ever about this profession. > a few companies have eliminated all that wasteful "toil" of interacting with human beings by instead treating them like machines... I agree that these things are happening, but this is not happening everywhere. In particular, Microsoft is not true for any of the above over the last 5+ years since Satya came onboard. In my experience, every one of the above is not true at Microsoft, with one notable exception: the interview loop is indeed hard. But other than that, it's a much better situation at Microsoft. There are no difficult ethical positions (ethics and trust are first class core values there). Individuals matter, and allowances are made for different people's strengths and weaknesses. Workloads and deadlines can indeed be negotiated. It's far more "human" there than other places like Amazon, Facebook, Uber, and other places.

bc4m 5y ago
Microsoft's interview loop was the easiest I've ever had, it's the only job I've had where I've felt my ethics challenged, and my org's leadership was comically ruthless. You joined a good org and that's awesome, but I believe you can just as easily join a bad one at Microsoft or a good one at Amazon.

thrwyoilarticle 5y ago

>It didn't use to be like this. There was a time not long ago when individual personality and skills mattered. Workloads could be negotiated, interviews were conversational. Er, when? Old Microsoft was infamous for the ping pong ball interview questions and stack rankings. Is this not just a result of companies in the tech market being successful and turning from plucky underdog to bureaucratic behemoth?