10 ms·

how is it better than alternatives? this seems like a huge straw-man given almost every company that hires developers thinks they’re a large tech company and mi

by mylons 5y ago

how is it better than alternatives? this seems like a huge straw-man given almost every company that hires developers thinks they’re a large tech company and mimics their hiring process. it doesn’t seem like serious alternatives have been explored.

novok 5y ago
PIPing and firing is a huge time and emotional energy suck, and it sucks for people on both sides. To reduce the amount it happens is worthy. You can’t in practice just say, “this guy sucks, lets fire him next week” And it shows, barely anyone in my entire career has ever been fired. I only personally have been close to one.
- boisenberrier 5y ago
  So you’ve been close to one person getting fired? How do you have an opinion on the PIP process or firing at all if you have next to no experience with it? I knew a guy at a FAANG who earned himself and his report a PIP for the grave sin of choosing the wrong deputy to send upstairs while he was on vacation. The deputized person went to one meeting and ran his mouth (arguably, told the truth). Both are no longer at the company. PIP politics are absolutely routine in FAANG and if you’re arguing the other side you don’t know. FAANG is actively trying to fire or replace you at all times. I’ve worked at two so I can’t speak for three, but I’ve also worked for the two in that older acronym that you’d think of as the “nicest”. People read that that and probably hear me saying “giant evil entity is out to get you”, but it’s really middle managers cosplaying Kings Landing in the office, mostly unchecked, that does it. Seriously; people want to work at a FAANG/MAMAA or whatever so they often assume it’s good. I had someone ask me if I noticed how light my calendar was now that the org considered me irrelevant. There’s an idea that FAANG is a bunch of nerds with glasses cooking up cool shit in a Zen commune with ambient drone music but it’s honestly some of the worst office politics I’ve ever seen across what is now two careers, and the PIP process is a big tool in that kit.
  - lukeschlather 5y ago
    I worked at a FAANG for 3 years and I'm pretty sure no one I worked with was on a PIP. A PIP is extreme. It's sufficient to simply not give people raises, most people can and will easily find another job earning 10% more.
    - doktorhladnjak 5y ago
      How would you really know? People don't usually talk publicly about their PIP. I went from long time IC to manager at a faang adjacent company. It was eye opening to see who was on a PIP and go through calibrations. There were well liked, competent people who others on the team got along with but they just were not delivering at the expected level. Sometimes the problem was lack of motivation or bad role fit.
      - asveikau 5y ago
        > but they just were not delivering at the expected level. Sometimes the problem was lack of motivation or bad role fit. Another i think is when management doesn't understand that someone is, in your wording, a "well liked, competent person", doesn't adequately understand what they bring to the team. Performance reviews, especially of ICs but not exclusively, have a bias towards perceived individual contribution and against teamwork.
      - google234123 5y ago
        Um, this is an antonymous forum, wouldn't you expect many comments from people that were PIPed if it was a very common thing?
        doktorhladnjak 5y ago
        Sure, but that doesn't give you any information about your particular company or team. In my experience, how aggressive companies are about "performance management" (using PIPs but this can also include other strategies like layoffs and outright firing) varies quite a lot.
    - 5y ago
- tartoran 5y ago
  > PIPing and firing is a huge time and emotional energy suck, and it sucks So is the 7 interview gauntlet. But I guess it just shifts the burden on the candidates and externalizes cost.
  - sevrinsky 5y ago
    Speaking as a senior dev who has interviewed dozens (if not hundreds) of candidates, I assure you that the bulk of the burden is firmly on the interviewers, not the candidates.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Cost externalization is the entire basis of businesses/corporations these days it seems. Maybe it was always that way though
    - pirate787 5y ago
      I think it has gotten better in some areas. Sales processes used to be brutal for buyers. Pricing today is more transparent in general.
  - hinkley 5y ago
    It also selects for people who will put up with anything, which to a cynical manager might sound like a good employee, except that our job is to replace labor with machines. People who put up with anything are expensive. They keep billing you hours for tasks that could have been reduced to minutes by someone with a lower tolerance for BS.
    - bluescrn 5y ago
      It's probably also selecting for people who are unemployed and therefore much more able to attend the entire gauntlet than those already employed.
      - swader999 5y ago
- michaelcampbell 5y ago
  > To reduce the amount it happens is worthy The point is that there is little, if any, evidence that a given interview process does this.
ballenf 5y ago
I've worked and interviewed at dozens of companies and literally never experienced a company that had more than 2 interviews plus a discussion with a hiring manager or HR. I make half-ish of a FAANG salary, but it's enough to comfortably support a family and I'm generally pretty happy and get to work on cool stuff. The only challenge I never get at work are problems that have huge scale components.
- sgerenser 5y ago
  Interesting, I’ve interviewed at all of the FAANGs other than Netflix, plus maybe 10 or so much smaller companies. In general the smaller companies all seemed to want to emulate the FAANG hiring process with 4-6 rounds of interviews with engineers after an initial phone screen. I think only 1 or 2 of them limited their interview to just 2 rounds.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    I've been approached by a couple of FAANG and told them to stuff it because of the recruitment processes. I'm in London, and here at least they're extreme outliers. If you're early in your career, they probably matter and it might be worth it, but for me it's not. Maybe it'd be different in Silicon Valley, but in London they just aren't willing to offer enough over and above the kind of jobs I've had elsewhere to be worth the misery (with the big caveat that I'm at the high end of non-FAANG London market rates; for someone who is not, FAANG may be worth it here too)
    - White_Wolf 5y ago
      You're being kind. "Extreme" doesn't describe it from my experience. For me it was 1 phone call/online meeting and 2 face 2 face. That is about it in terms of interviews. And that is a Fortune Global 500 company that I'm still working for. I was put on a 6 months contract and after 3 they switched to perm. Other interviews back then and more recent were pretty much the same. Max. 3 x 1h-ish meetings. I do have a bad habit of asking the interviewer to sell me the job on the first face 2 face meeting though. This does offend some of them and we drop it there. No point beating around the bush and wasting time if they think the interview is a one way street.
danielmarkbruce 5y ago
Almost every alternative you can imagine has been tried. Lots of interviews, few interviews, take home projects, pair programming, hire fast fire fast, trial periods and on and on and on.
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  Hire fast fire fast is by far the best one, should you really need it. A 20 minute technical conversation and then firing within 2-3 weeks if they do not seem self-directed has worked in my experience. If you can't get someone up to speed with your internal processes fast enough to at least gauge if they're following along that indicates an internal problem. The problem is, I think, that HR does not want technical staff to see the hires for (probably made up) legal reasons. So the decision is mostly made by people who can't actually gauge competency.
  - igetspam 5y ago
    How do you handle the obvious problems of churn and reviews at places like Glassdoor? I can just see it now: "Interview was weak. They don't know what they're doing." "Aced the interview. Fired after two weeks. Leadership doesn't know how to hire or manage." "Never seen a place with so much churn. In the last six months, I've seen at least half a dozen engineers exit after two or three weeks." Know what raises the level of difficulty for finding candidates? Shit reviews about the company. You can have the best tech but if you have a toxic smell, you can't hire. To the outside, perception is reality and reviews are how you get that perception. You can't do the opposite though and say "J Smith passed interview but we let them go after two weeks because they couldn't do more than pseudo code on a whiteboard." and even if you could, you'd look like a shit company and you'd still have an impossible time hiring but for other reasons. This idea of quick hire/fire is so bad that all you have to do it go one or two steps further to find the obvious problems. But hey, start a company and use that model. See how it goes. Prove us all wrong.
    - digisign 5y ago
      Low performing folks are ubiquitous and them being let go sounds good to me, would put a plus in their column if I read that.

by mylons 5y ago

novok 5y ago

PIPing and firing is a huge time and emotional energy suck, and it sucks for people on both sides. To reduce the amount it happens is worthy. You can’t in practice just say, “this guy sucks, lets fire him next week” And it shows, barely anyone in my entire career has ever been fired. I only personally have been close to one.

boisenberrier 5y ago
So you’ve been close to one person getting fired? How do you have an opinion on the PIP process or firing at all if you have next to no experience with it? I knew a guy at a FAANG who earned himself and his report a PIP for the grave sin of choosing the wrong deputy to send upstairs while he was on vacation. The deputized person went to one meeting and ran his mouth (arguably, told the truth). Both are no longer at the company. PIP politics are absolutely routine in FAANG and if you’re arguing the other side you don’t know. FAANG is actively trying to fire or replace you at all times. I’ve worked at two so I can’t speak for three, but I’ve also worked for the two in that older acronym that you’d think of as the “nicest”. People read that that and probably hear me saying “giant evil entity is out to get you”, but it’s really middle managers cosplaying Kings Landing in the office, mostly unchecked, that does it. Seriously; people want to work at a FAANG/MAMAA or whatever so they often assume it’s good. I had someone ask me if I noticed how light my calendar was now that the org considered me irrelevant. There’s an idea that FAANG is a bunch of nerds with glasses cooking up cool shit in a Zen commune with ambient drone music but it’s honestly some of the worst office politics I’ve ever seen across what is now two careers, and the PIP process is a big tool in that kit.
- lukeschlather 5y ago
  I worked at a FAANG for 3 years and I'm pretty sure no one I worked with was on a PIP. A PIP is extreme. It's sufficient to simply not give people raises, most people can and will easily find another job earning 10% more.
  - doktorhladnjak 5y ago
    How would you really know? People don't usually talk publicly about their PIP. I went from long time IC to manager at a faang adjacent company. It was eye opening to see who was on a PIP and go through calibrations. There were well liked, competent people who others on the team got along with but they just were not delivering at the expected level. Sometimes the problem was lack of motivation or bad role fit.
    - asveikau 5y ago
      > but they just were not delivering at the expected level. Sometimes the problem was lack of motivation or bad role fit. Another i think is when management doesn't understand that someone is, in your wording, a "well liked, competent person", doesn't adequately understand what they bring to the team. Performance reviews, especially of ICs but not exclusively, have a bias towards perceived individual contribution and against teamwork.
    - google234123 5y ago
      Um, this is an antonymous forum, wouldn't you expect many comments from people that were PIPed if it was a very common thing?
      - doktorhladnjak 5y ago
        Sure, but that doesn't give you any information about your particular company or team. In my experience, how aggressive companies are about "performance management" (using PIPs but this can also include other strategies like layoffs and outright firing) varies quite a lot.
  - 5y ago
tartoran 5y ago
> PIPing and firing is a huge time and emotional energy suck, and it sucks So is the 7 interview gauntlet. But I guess it just shifts the burden on the candidates and externalizes cost.
- sevrinsky 5y ago
  Speaking as a senior dev who has interviewed dozens (if not hundreds) of candidates, I assure you that the bulk of the burden is firmly on the interviewers, not the candidates.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Cost externalization is the entire basis of businesses/corporations these days it seems. Maybe it was always that way though
  - pirate787 5y ago
    I think it has gotten better in some areas. Sales processes used to be brutal for buyers. Pricing today is more transparent in general.
- hinkley 5y ago
  It also selects for people who will put up with anything, which to a cynical manager might sound like a good employee, except that our job is to replace labor with machines. People who put up with anything are expensive. They keep billing you hours for tasks that could have been reduced to minutes by someone with a lower tolerance for BS.
  - bluescrn 5y ago
    It's probably also selecting for people who are unemployed and therefore much more able to attend the entire gauntlet than those already employed.
    - swader999 5y ago
michaelcampbell 5y ago
> To reduce the amount it happens is worthy The point is that there is little, if any, evidence that a given interview process does this.

ballenf 5y ago

I've worked and interviewed at dozens of companies and literally never experienced a company that had more than 2 interviews plus a discussion with a hiring manager or HR. I make half-ish of a FAANG salary, but it's enough to comfortably support a family and I'm generally pretty happy and get to work on cool stuff. The only challenge I never get at work are problems that have huge scale components.

sgerenser 5y ago
Interesting, I’ve interviewed at all of the FAANGs other than Netflix, plus maybe 10 or so much smaller companies. In general the smaller companies all seemed to want to emulate the FAANG hiring process with 4-6 rounds of interviews with engineers after an initial phone screen. I think only 1 or 2 of them limited their interview to just 2 rounds.
- vidarh 5y ago
  I've been approached by a couple of FAANG and told them to stuff it because of the recruitment processes. I'm in London, and here at least they're extreme outliers. If you're early in your career, they probably matter and it might be worth it, but for me it's not. Maybe it'd be different in Silicon Valley, but in London they just aren't willing to offer enough over and above the kind of jobs I've had elsewhere to be worth the misery (with the big caveat that I'm at the high end of non-FAANG London market rates; for someone who is not, FAANG may be worth it here too)
  - White_Wolf 5y ago
    You're being kind. "Extreme" doesn't describe it from my experience. For me it was 1 phone call/online meeting and 2 face 2 face. That is about it in terms of interviews. And that is a Fortune Global 500 company that I'm still working for. I was put on a 6 months contract and after 3 they switched to perm. Other interviews back then and more recent were pretty much the same. Max. 3 x 1h-ish meetings. I do have a bad habit of asking the interviewer to sell me the job on the first face 2 face meeting though. This does offend some of them and we drop it there. No point beating around the bush and wasting time if they think the interview is a one way street.

danielmarkbruce 5y ago

Almost every alternative you can imagine has been tried. Lots of interviews, few interviews, take home projects, pair programming, hire fast fire fast, trial periods and on and on and on.

R0b0t1 5y ago
Hire fast fire fast is by far the best one, should you really need it. A 20 minute technical conversation and then firing within 2-3 weeks if they do not seem self-directed has worked in my experience. If you can't get someone up to speed with your internal processes fast enough to at least gauge if they're following along that indicates an internal problem. The problem is, I think, that HR does not want technical staff to see the hires for (probably made up) legal reasons. So the decision is mostly made by people who can't actually gauge competency.
- igetspam 5y ago
  How do you handle the obvious problems of churn and reviews at places like Glassdoor? I can just see it now: "Interview was weak. They don't know what they're doing." "Aced the interview. Fired after two weeks. Leadership doesn't know how to hire or manage." "Never seen a place with so much churn. In the last six months, I've seen at least half a dozen engineers exit after two or three weeks." Know what raises the level of difficulty for finding candidates? Shit reviews about the company. You can have the best tech but if you have a toxic smell, you can't hire. To the outside, perception is reality and reviews are how you get that perception. You can't do the opposite though and say "J Smith passed interview but we let them go after two weeks because they couldn't do more than pseudo code on a whiteboard." and even if you could, you'd look like a shit company and you'd still have an impossible time hiring but for other reasons. This idea of quick hire/fire is so bad that all you have to do it go one or two steps further to find the obvious problems. But hey, start a company and use that model. See how it goes. Prove us all wrong.
  - digisign 5y ago
    Low performing folks are ubiquitous and them being let go sounds good to me, would put a plus in their column if I read that.