4 ms·

Not really. It comes down to the asymmetry in hiring outcomes. It is much more expensive to hire a bad employee than it is to hire a good employee. It’s gotten

by sulam 4y ago

Not really. It comes down to the asymmetry in hiring outcomes. It is much more expensive to hire a bad employee than it is to hire a good employee. It’s gotten exceptionally hard to just fire people in corporate America, at-will employment notwithstanding.

atomicnumber3 4y ago
Is it really that hard, though? I mean, you say at-will employment notwithstanding, but like, that's not my experience at all. Companies are free to hold you to whatever absurd metersticks they want, and even if they fire you for-cause, it's not like they a) even need a cause or b) will ever properly share that cause with you or c) share it externally at all. Mind you - not that I actually want them to do C) - but my point is that the law provides zero protection, the culture provides zero protection/accountability, and the only thing that provides anything is whatever weird bureaucratic nonsense the company has imposed upon itself. My point being, companies have only themselves to blame for making it hard to fire people. Both companies I've worked for have fired really high-performing people for (these are my interpretations, but I do honestly believe they're the "real" reason all these folks were fired, and I was closely familiar with the details in all the situations I mention here): Chronological order of my witnessing them over the years. Several different companies. 1. My boss didn't like how the guy thought. Literally, the guy got good results and wasn't weird or crazy or anything, but him and my boss always had kind of weirdly unproductive conversations. I liked the guy, personally. 2. He very loosely implied the owner of the company didn't know or like statistics. (Which was correct). This is while the owner of the company was trying to shove his nose way to deep into a system he had designed 20 years ago but had been away from, and in his absence the code and the industry had moved on. He got fired and a complicated statistical modelling system was replaced with one a high-schooler would've built. 3. He was a good performer but a bit brusque, but our newest boss was kind of lukewarm for him, so when my boss's boss's boss's boss decided he was the reason some project failed, he eye-of-sauron'd him and had him fired, and my manager didn't really step up to defend him. These just off the top of my head. I've also seen droves of people fired essentially because the owner would hired 20-ish new-grad-type folks/early career, then over about a year fire all but 3-5 of them, and those who survived were then kept on for a more normal period of time. The de-facto 1-year trial period wasn't ever explicitly described to them (just a 60-day review that was just a rubber-stamp) or formal. People literally moved hours away (this job was unusually high-paying for our locale) and bought new houses and in some cases moved families (not all were early-career, that was just most of our funnel), only to be fired 1 month later for no (to them) apparent reason other than that they weren't in the small handful the owner decided to keep that year. Really hard to feel sympathetic towards corporations of any size when being absolutely evil to common folk seems to just be how the game is played.
lovich 4y ago
Is it more expensive than leaving the position open for months though? I’ve seen multiple companies I’ve applied at and my own employer just sit with empty roles which meant the job never got done. I was under the impression from the startup world and my won engineering experience that getting to market with a substandard product was always better than never releasing because you were aiming for perfection.
- tehjoker 4y ago
  I think at big companies that serve millions, it's more the other way. The brand hit of a substandard product or actual defects could result in recalls or lawsuits. It's the problem of scale: imperfect code works for a few hundred users but you need finely engineered code to work for millions. Same with other products as they will be used in every crazy way you can imagine and some you can't.
  - lovich 4y ago
    I get why FAANGs do this, the scale the work at and the salaries they pay make it seem worth the extra scrutiny. I wasn’t clear in my previous question but I don’t work at FAANG tier, I work at startups and enterprises who struggle to break 200 million/yr in revenue and offer 180k max for principal engineer positions. What I’m curious on is why all these bit players are acting like they need FAANG level talent without paying out the salaries, but more importantly, paying the cost of having this complicated an interview process. Every position they leave unfilled is an opportunity cost and every extra step they add to their interview process is another few thousands of dollars they add to the acquisition cost of every engineer. I’m struggling to see what the benefit is for them when they do not operate on the scale that requires meticulous engineering
- therealdrag0 4y ago
  It is easy to imagine it’s more expensive to hire a baddie vs an empty role. Have you not worked with people who were a drain on the entire team? I rather have deadlines pushed back than a bad hire.
- Beltalowda 4y ago
grumple 4y ago
Is it that much more expensive? It's mostly opportunity cost imo, but that's basically a nonfactor for big corps that take ages to do anything anyway, and they are constantly hiring replacements. I can terminate team members with a couple of clicks in workday if I wanted. Seems overblown.
jdmg94 4y ago
Ha! that's a funny one a company will not hesitate to fire you. Just look at how many companies started layoffs as soon as the stock market started crashing

by sulam 4y ago

atomicnumber3 4y ago

Is it really that hard, though? I mean, you say at-will employment notwithstanding, but like, that's not my experience at all. Companies are free to hold you to whatever absurd metersticks they want, and even if they fire you for-cause, it's not like they a) even need a cause or b) will ever properly share that cause with you or c) share it externally at all. Mind you - not that I actually want them to do C) - but my point is that the law provides zero protection, the culture provides zero protection/accountability, and the only thing that provides anything is whatever weird bureaucratic nonsense the company has imposed upon itself. My point being, companies have only themselves to blame for making it hard to fire people. Both companies I've worked for have fired really high-performing people for (these are my interpretations, but I do honestly believe they're the "real" reason all these folks were fired, and I was closely familiar with the details in all the situations I mention here): Chronological order of my witnessing them over the years. Several different companies. 1. My boss didn't like how the guy thought. Literally, the guy got good results and wasn't weird or crazy or anything, but him and my boss always had kind of weirdly unproductive conversations. I liked the guy, personally. 2. He very loosely implied the owner of the company didn't know or like statistics. (Which was correct). This is while the owner of the company was trying to shove his nose way to deep into a system he had designed 20 years ago but had been away from, and in his absence the code and the industry had moved on. He got fired and a complicated statistical modelling system was replaced with one a high-schooler would've built. 3. He was a good performer but a bit brusque, but our newest boss was kind of lukewarm for him, so when my boss's boss's boss's boss decided he was the reason some project failed, he eye-of-sauron'd him and had him fired, and my manager didn't really step up to defend him. These just off the top of my head. I've also seen droves of people fired essentially because the owner would hired 20-ish new-grad-type folks/early career, then over about a year fire all but 3-5 of them, and those who survived were then kept on for a more normal period of time. The de-facto 1-year trial period wasn't ever explicitly described to them (just a 60-day review that was just a rubber-stamp) or formal. People literally moved hours away (this job was unusually high-paying for our locale) and bought new houses and in some cases moved families (not all were early-career, that was just most of our funnel), only to be fired 1 month later for no (to them) apparent reason other than that they weren't in the small handful the owner decided to keep that year. Really hard to feel sympathetic towards corporations of any size when being absolutely evil to common folk seems to just be how the game is played.

lovich 4y ago

Is it more expensive than leaving the position open for months though? I’ve seen multiple companies I’ve applied at and my own employer just sit with empty roles which meant the job never got done. I was under the impression from the startup world and my won engineering experience that getting to market with a substandard product was always better than never releasing because you were aiming for perfection.

tehjoker 4y ago
I think at big companies that serve millions, it's more the other way. The brand hit of a substandard product or actual defects could result in recalls or lawsuits. It's the problem of scale: imperfect code works for a few hundred users but you need finely engineered code to work for millions. Same with other products as they will be used in every crazy way you can imagine and some you can't.
- lovich 4y ago
  I get why FAANGs do this, the scale the work at and the salaries they pay make it seem worth the extra scrutiny. I wasn’t clear in my previous question but I don’t work at FAANG tier, I work at startups and enterprises who struggle to break 200 million/yr in revenue and offer 180k max for principal engineer positions. What I’m curious on is why all these bit players are acting like they need FAANG level talent without paying out the salaries, but more importantly, paying the cost of having this complicated an interview process. Every position they leave unfilled is an opportunity cost and every extra step they add to their interview process is another few thousands of dollars they add to the acquisition cost of every engineer. I’m struggling to see what the benefit is for them when they do not operate on the scale that requires meticulous engineering
therealdrag0 4y ago
It is easy to imagine it’s more expensive to hire a baddie vs an empty role. Have you not worked with people who were a drain on the entire team? I rather have deadlines pushed back than a bad hire.
Beltalowda 4y ago

grumple 4y ago

Is it that much more expensive? It's mostly opportunity cost imo, but that's basically a nonfactor for big corps that take ages to do anything anyway, and they are constantly hiring replacements. I can terminate team members with a couple of clicks in workday if I wanted. Seems overblown.

jdmg94 4y ago

Ha! that's a funny one a company will not hesitate to fire you. Just look at how many companies started layoffs as soon as the stock market started crashing