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This is why I don't work for large companies. I don't want the stress or to play the bullshit games. My last company tried to pretend it was larger than it was

This is why I don't work for large companies. I don't want the stress or to play the bullshit games. My last company tried to pretend it was larger than it was and introduced KPIs. I pushed back hard but had little control over it. I argued that if we were going to be judged on KPIs then that's all we would spend our time on. Commits matter? Guess I'm committing every few lines. Bugs found matter? Guess I better backchannel with QA to prevent a real bug getting logged since I'll get dinged. Story points uncompleted matter? Guess I'll drop the points I take so I never worry about not finishing everything. It gamifies everything and not in a good way. Just like this post says, it doesn't matter what is best long-term or what is good for company/customer, all that matters is what you are graded on.

SilverBirch 4y ago
I've worked for a number of large companies, and it doesn't have to be like this. It absolutely can be like this, but it depends what you want. You can plough your own furrow and be nicely rewarded for it and be in a very secure situation. What is described in this article is the sort of behaviour that'll get you through 1-2 years, but fairly quickly people will spot what kind of person you are. This post sort of implicitly views management as NPCs, they're not. They have their own things going on, but they do pick up on things eventually and it gets difficult to change their mind, it's pretty hard to shake that reputation so you'd better move on quick. You can do something similar - build more long term reputation, influence across teams etc. and that'll pay off in the longer term. Or you can say "I'm going to do it my way" and put your priorities first, work on what you think is valuable, and if you really succeed generally you will be recognised - these hacks are easy ways to advance, not the only way. All of these are different games you can play at Big Corp. But you don't have to play them, and you can choose your own strategy, but the basline is high pay, low risk, and you can always walk away with 0 guilt, and that's not a terrible place to be.

SilverBirch 4y ago

I've worked for a number of large companies, and it doesn't have to be like this. It absolutely can be like this, but it depends what you want. You can plough your own furrow and be nicely rewarded for it and be in a very secure situation. What is described in this article is the sort of behaviour that'll get you through 1-2 years, but fairly quickly people will spot what kind of person you are. This post sort of implicitly views management as NPCs, they're not. They have their own things going on, but they do pick up on things eventually and it gets difficult to change their mind, it's pretty hard to shake that reputation so you'd better move on quick. You can do something similar - build more long term reputation, influence across teams etc. and that'll pay off in the longer term. Or you can say "I'm going to do it my way" and put your priorities first, work on what you think is valuable, and if you really succeed generally you will be recognised - these hacks are easy ways to advance, not the only way. All of these are different games you can play at Big Corp. But you don't have to play them, and you can choose your own strategy, but the basline is high pay, low risk, and you can always walk away with 0 guilt, and that's not a terrible place to be.