5 ms·

Sometimes you can get lucky and land an interesting job, but I think getting to do interesting work takes time (and luck). An anecdote from my past as an illust

by gniv 4y ago

Sometimes you can get lucky and land an interesting job, but I think getting to do interesting work takes time (and luck). An anecdote from my past as an illustration: When I started my job at [FAANG] I was assigned a project. It was not mind-numbing, but not sexy either -- modernize the infrastructure while not messing up the site. Being new, I gave it my all and was rewarded a couple of years later by having the option to work on a very interesting project, used by tens of millions, with a clear user-visible outcome. Afterwards I usually had my choice of projects and teams inside that org. Edit: I guess the actionable advice is to get into a company that is big enough to have _some_ interesting projects.

dan-g 4y ago
This resonates with me, and I recently read (yet another) Cal Newport book that helped me codify the feeling into words. “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” makes a lot of good points, but IMO chief among them is building up career capital that you can use to leverage to work on things you’d rather be doing. In this example, you earned so much capital with the boring project that you were able to spend some to work on something you wanted to—obviously higher-ups don’t want to lose a good worker.
- DoughnutHole 4y ago
  The important thing to note is that this is not a passive route to the good stuff - there's no guarantee that being a good soldier will get you rewarded with interesting work. There's probably as many examples of excelling at the more mundane work getting people pigeonholed into the role of the reliable maintenance guy who couldn't possibly be moved off of a project because it would fumble without them. And then you have the companies with work cultures that like to boast about doing "interesting" work - in companies like Google you get nowhere doing important, mundane maintenance work. You'll only get promoted for making the new shiny thing even if you're reinventing the wheel - it's the reason any new Google product that's not a main driver of the business gets shelved after a couple of years.
  - uVacCXNiiJCTnYB 4y ago
    Yeah, seriously I'd put a big warning on that one. I've been burned many times (and know many people who have) being the nice one who does the hard boring work that no one wants to deal with, only for the company to then make you do more and more of it. It's a good way to make yourself hard to replace, but they're probably gonna want you to keep doing the thing you're hard to replace at.
    - dan-g 4y ago
      Yeah, this is addressed in the book as well. Thinking about your career in terms of capital is really just a useful simplification, but obviously doesn’t capture all the nuance and politics that one has to navigate in a larger corporate environment. There needs to be self-advocacy, a little luck, and the willingness to walk away (just like in any negotiation)
- andsoitis 4y ago
  What you want to work on should still align with the business' goals, otherwise you're just indulgent. So the art is in recognizing and steering towards that overlap.
uVacCXNiiJCTnYB 4y ago
Honestly, Facebook has tried to hire me like 3 times now and every time I got a completed offer at a different job by the time they finished organising their 8-step interview process so I never finished it. FAANG might be interesting but their interview processes kill it for me. I have no idea how people find the time to do homework for it + are willing to spend months in this lengthy interview pipeline. (Also there are problems with FAANG type companies being generally kind of evil these days, of course)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Aromasin 4y ago
  Doesn't have to be a FAANG to do something impactful. Many of the other Tech 100 companies have things that you can work on at scale that are fulfilling. I work at a semiconductor company on projects that end up in almost everything, and I love what I do. The interview process was fine compared to the horror stories I've heard. I had 1 long interview with the manager, then 6 short (30 min) interviews back-to-back with the team over the course of an afternoon. A couple of technical questions but nothing rediculous. They hired me based on credentials, so the tests were ceremonial if anything. It was more about discovering whether I would get on socially with the team.
- yodsanklai 4y ago
  FAANG is mostly 3 steps. 1. chat with the recruiter 2. screening interview 3. on-site interview You normally get an offer after 3. EDIT: I'm downvoted, but this was my experience at Google/Facebook. There were exactly three steps. There can be more if they ask a follow up if you're borderline in some of the interviews but it's not the default.
  - lifthearth 4y ago
    My experience was FAANG was dragging their feet but another massive tech company hired me in 3. They make a decision if they want you almost immediately based on your experience. If the answer is no they'll keep your in the pipeline just in case. Your first year is the real interview IMO.
Zvez 4y ago
I achieved this state of 'you can choose whatever you want to do here, you are too useful to loose' on my previous job and it was pretty great. The main problem with this is you have to invest couple of years to get proper reputation. But you need to be mindful about what you actually get for your efforts. I've started working at [faang] a year ago and now I'm pretty sure I've wasted this year. While I got my share of good reputation, the team I'm working in is basically an island. There is no visibility to other teams, so I can't convert my local reputation into ticket to choose projects I like.
- strikelaserclaw 4y ago
  At behemoths like FAANG, 95% of engineers are replaceable. The ones that aren't probably joined in the early days and grew with the company. It is very important to grow with a company rather than coming in at the end stages hoping to make an impact. Two equally talented engineers could have widely varying outcomes depended on how they choose their opportunity.

by gniv 4y ago

dan-g 4y ago

This resonates with me, and I recently read (yet another) Cal Newport book that helped me codify the feeling into words. “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” makes a lot of good points, but IMO chief among them is building up career capital that you can use to leverage to work on things you’d rather be doing. In this example, you earned so much capital with the boring project that you were able to spend some to work on something you wanted to—obviously higher-ups don’t want to lose a good worker.

DoughnutHole 4y ago
The important thing to note is that this is not a passive route to the good stuff - there's no guarantee that being a good soldier will get you rewarded with interesting work. There's probably as many examples of excelling at the more mundane work getting people pigeonholed into the role of the reliable maintenance guy who couldn't possibly be moved off of a project because it would fumble without them. And then you have the companies with work cultures that like to boast about doing "interesting" work - in companies like Google you get nowhere doing important, mundane maintenance work. You'll only get promoted for making the new shiny thing even if you're reinventing the wheel - it's the reason any new Google product that's not a main driver of the business gets shelved after a couple of years.
- uVacCXNiiJCTnYB 4y ago
  Yeah, seriously I'd put a big warning on that one. I've been burned many times (and know many people who have) being the nice one who does the hard boring work that no one wants to deal with, only for the company to then make you do more and more of it. It's a good way to make yourself hard to replace, but they're probably gonna want you to keep doing the thing you're hard to replace at.
  - dan-g 4y ago
    Yeah, this is addressed in the book as well. Thinking about your career in terms of capital is really just a useful simplification, but obviously doesn’t capture all the nuance and politics that one has to navigate in a larger corporate environment. There needs to be self-advocacy, a little luck, and the willingness to walk away (just like in any negotiation)
andsoitis 4y ago
What you want to work on should still align with the business' goals, otherwise you're just indulgent. So the art is in recognizing and steering towards that overlap.

uVacCXNiiJCTnYB 4y ago

Honestly, Facebook has tried to hire me like 3 times now and every time I got a completed offer at a different job by the time they finished organising their 8-step interview process so I never finished it. FAANG might be interesting but their interview processes kill it for me. I have no idea how people find the time to do homework for it + are willing to spend months in this lengthy interview pipeline. (Also there are problems with FAANG type companies being generally kind of evil these days, of course)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Aromasin 4y ago
Doesn't have to be a FAANG to do something impactful. Many of the other Tech 100 companies have things that you can work on at scale that are fulfilling. I work at a semiconductor company on projects that end up in almost everything, and I love what I do. The interview process was fine compared to the horror stories I've heard. I had 1 long interview with the manager, then 6 short (30 min) interviews back-to-back with the team over the course of an afternoon. A couple of technical questions but nothing rediculous. They hired me based on credentials, so the tests were ceremonial if anything. It was more about discovering whether I would get on socially with the team.
yodsanklai 4y ago
FAANG is mostly 3 steps. 1. chat with the recruiter 2. screening interview 3. on-site interview You normally get an offer after 3. EDIT: I'm downvoted, but this was my experience at Google/Facebook. There were exactly three steps. There can be more if they ask a follow up if you're borderline in some of the interviews but it's not the default.
- lifthearth 4y ago
  My experience was FAANG was dragging their feet but another massive tech company hired me in 3. They make a decision if they want you almost immediately based on your experience. If the answer is no they'll keep your in the pipeline just in case. Your first year is the real interview IMO.

Zvez 4y ago

I achieved this state of 'you can choose whatever you want to do here, you are too useful to loose' on my previous job and it was pretty great. The main problem with this is you have to invest couple of years to get proper reputation. But you need to be mindful about what you actually get for your efforts. I've started working at [faang] a year ago and now I'm pretty sure I've wasted this year. While I got my share of good reputation, the team I'm working in is basically an island. There is no visibility to other teams, so I can't convert my local reputation into ticket to choose projects I like.

strikelaserclaw 4y ago
At behemoths like FAANG, 95% of engineers are replaceable. The ones that aren't probably joined in the early days and grew with the company. It is very important to grow with a company rather than coming in at the end stages hoping to make an impact. Two equally talented engineers could have widely varying outcomes depended on how they choose their opportunity.