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Twitter’s ongoing cruel treatment of software engineers
- djaouen 4y agoIf anyone at all stays after round after round of fear-based managing, you are throwing in the towel to Fear. Rise above: quit before it is too late!
- r721 4y agoRelated discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33730985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33730985
- bkishan 4y agoI absolutely cannot understand why any engineer would chose to stay at Twitter with the way things are.
- tleilaxu 4y agoVisas, in the short term at least.
- negamax 4y agoI don't think anyone is staying there by choice now. Most stayed because of visa issues. Some might have stayed because of Musk's wow factor.
- tleilaxu 4y ago“Wow factor” as in “wow, what are you doing” presumably.
- chitowneats 4y ago> Most stayed because of visa issues I keep seeing people repeat this. Where is this factoid coming from? I'm left to assume it's subtle racism stemming from a photo Elon took with some Asian (many likely Asian-American?!?) guys at the office.
- negamax 4y agoI am an immigrant myself. So I understand the pain of uprooting yourself and moving to another country. I put myself in the shoes of Twitter staff. That ultimatum by Musk of Twitter 2.0 would simply had me quit. As did many engineers. But if my visa status was tied to the job, I would had stayed. Simply to get some more time in landing another job if nothing else.
- chitowneats 4y agoI agree that there could be people caught in this situation. I feel for them and I want this system to be improved. However, people are claiming that no engineer in their right mind would stay there if not in that situation. It turns out Twitter has had less than 700 H1-B approvals since 2009: https://nitter.pussthecat.org/Noahpinion/status/1594641746410905600#m https://nitter.pussthecat.org/Noahpinion/status/159464174641... Basic arithmetic to determine there are at least hundreds of American engineers working at Twitter right now. People. I get it. You don't like Elon. You find this type of work environment toxic. Not everyone is like you though! In fact, at least a few of us are applying to work there as we speak.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dccoolgai 4y agoJust as a thought exercise: What are you going to say 3 years from now when a hiring manager asks why you willingly chose to start working for someone who had just wantonly admitted that he intended to be abusive to his staff and force them to work nights and weekends for a venture that he was actively undermining? Is this representative of the judgment you use on a regular basis, and if it is why should that manager trust you near their area of responsibility?
- chitowneats 4y agoDefinitely just a thought exercise. In no universe would a hiring manager ever ask this. "Why did you sacrifice other things in your life to work at a large tech company, operating at scale, for a high salary?" Edit: Absolutely laughable that you think this will be detrimental to people's careers. Your other comments on this topic are frankly unhinged. If you are indeed a hiring manager planning on factoring this in to your criteria, please know this will be a massive red flag to productive engineers.
- theptip 4y agoWhile this is certainly one factor, it can’t be the only factor. Twitter apparently had ~300 H-1B employees which is less than 20% of their remaining headcount. Unless there are vastly more of other visa types like L-1? Discussed further in https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-h-1b-visa-has-problems-but-its https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-h-1b-visa-has-problems...
- sedatk 4y agoVisas like H-1B can be limiting career mobility until the employee gets a green card. Under H-1B quitting a job means committing to move back to your country in a month or so. It's traumatic.
- MBCook 4y agoIf I were H-1B I would stay, but only until I got a new job to sponsor me. And I would be looking as hard as I could.
- dccoolgai 4y agoYeah, this is literally the only thing stopping me from taking a "hard judgement" position like "if you worked at Twitter after 2023 I have serious questions about your judgement and I probably won't hire you." The way H1-B employees are treated is ignominious. It breaks my heart to think of the situation these poor people are in - and make no mistake: In their hearts they want to treat _you_ that way, too. Speak out about it while you can, because you're next.
- pstuart 4y agoLikely a majority are on H1B visas -- they're trapped.
- _2d30 4y agoLikely you made this up and have no idea actually.
- pstuart 4y agoIt was pure conjecture, idle speculation, a haphazard guess. While most of us in this forum probably appreciate drive, technical mastery, and the creation of great things, etc., the reports on Musk's management style don't make for a compelling recruitment pitch.
- pythonguython 4y agoLooks like around 300 people who worked at Twitter were on H1B visas [1]. Let’s assume they were let go at the same rate as all employees and say there are 150 left. That’s a minority of the work force. People are choosing to stay for reasons beyond being trapped by visa requirements. [1] https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/11/18/politics/twitter-layoffs-visas-h1b/index.html https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/11/18/politics/twitter-layoffs-...
- HWR_14 4y agoAccording to the article, Musk started giving six-figure retention bonuses. That's a lot of motivation if you think things will calm down soon.
- jasonpeacock 4y agoAnd if don't think he'll fire you on whim tomorrow.
- HWR_14 4y agoActually, I'm far more likely to accept if I think I'll be fired tomorrow on a whim. Like, I can accept 3 months severance today -or- take a six-figure bonus today and then get 3 months severance tomorrow? That's the easiest money I will ever make.
- jasonpeacock 4y agoYou're assuming that your'e still getting/keeping that bonus after being fired. There's no way they are just giving you 6 figures in cash and hoping that you'll stick around - it's golden handcuffs. And as others mentioned, the recent batch of firing "for cause" did not come with the same generous severance.
- falcolas 4y agoIf I read correctly, it’s down to 4 weeks severance with this latest batch of firings.
- HWR_14 4y agoThe severance is presumably a constant. The question is if you can get an additional six figure bonus for a day and then get fired.
- falcolas 4y agoHiring bonuses usually have a clause about having to work for a specific amount of time, or you owe it back to the company. So, to your question, probably not.
- Waterluvian 4y agoThis is a completely valid perplexion. It's so bewildering, right? Something I've learned (and keep learning in other contexts) is that change can be overwhelming for some for many reasons, probably more than I'm aware of. I've literally gone to a previous coworker and said, "there's a job with your name on it. Your pay will literally double. Your hours will halve. And you won't ever have to fear a C-level throwing a tantrum." They hummed and hawed and explained away why they didn't want to try. I think some of it is: - inertia - anxiety of "what if?" - known over unknown - ???
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ramesh31 4y ago>I absolutely cannot understand why any engineer would chose to stay at Twitter with the way things are. I get it. For the same reason that Geohot gets it. There's a certain type of personality that doesn't care about life. They don't care about family. They don't care about wealth and material possessions. They don't care about "work life balance". They care about clout. They care about being "the best of the best". They want to be part of an elite team working on the hardest problems in the world, and nothing else matters. And Elon (through SpaceX, Tesla, and now Twitter) feeds that need greater than anything else available.
- vsareto 4y agoMusk is basically trying to be an Old Republic Sith Lord and filtering for apprentices. All he has to do is throw down a gauntlet and it'll attract people who like running gauntlets. This particular gauntlet is software engineering. Make a thing seem really hard and prestigious (even if it's artificially hard) and you'll attract the hyper-competitive people.
- subroutine 4y agoAlso all the people who stood between you and your boss's job are now gone. If I survived the initial round of firings and then the code review, I'd probably stick around to see what happens - maybe just to watch the place burn. I wouldn't substantially change my work behavior, and get my resume up to date. But it might be interesting to stay for a while.
- api 4y agoThat works for Tesla and definitely for SpaceX. I don’t think that works for Twitter. It’s Twitter.
- kodyo 4y agoNobody has ever had any idea how to make Twitter "work."
- TruthIsHeresy 4y ago[flagged]
- dang 4y agoWe've banned this account. You shouldn't post like this, but not because it's against the rules (I mean, that too, but I get that you don't care right now); rather because when you post like this you discredit your own position and thereby weaken yourself. That is not in your interest. Also, when you post abusively to HN it eventually gets your main account banned as well. But really you should just realize that it's not in your interest.
- ergocoder 4y agoNot everyone is born rich and/or can stay without visa. It's hard to find other jobs right now with all the companies laying off people.
- amerkhalid 4y agoI’m not the greatest fan of Musk but if I was at Twitter, I would have stayed just to see how Musk works up close, to see the changes, and maybe to feel like being part of something big. Now, in retrospect, I would not have stayed but 9 months ago it was hard to know how chaotic Musk will be.
- duke98 4y agoSome of us like to work, eat, and make money. Before Musk, there is no way I would have offered any alternative view. Now, I can speak freely. Anyone complaining is more vested in politics than software.
- pstuart 4y agoWhat were you not able to say before?
- deviantbit 4y ago.
- pstuart 4y agoThat does sound messed up -- it's one thing to be ignored on an issue like that but to be fired yourself is kind of crazy. I guess it's good to have friends in high places....
- duke98 4y agoIn the morning, Slack was filled with people showing off their morning run, coffee on a table, you name it. Nothing about what needed to be accomplished. I mentioned it in a stand-up, and was told to spend time reflecting on my position in the company. Certain people were allowed to code outside of the 'standard', and if you spoke about it, it turned into an intervention.
- ssnistfajen 4y agoSpeak freely about what? You think these random printout code reviews would spare you just because of your political views? That would imply Elon's Twitter is still more vested in politics than software.
- pythonguython 4y agoBecause many engineers are being paid upwards of $200k to work at one of the largest social media companies. On top of that, the economy in general is uncertain right now, with many other similar tech companies not hiring as aggressively as before. Layoffs were heavy handed, but this was a company that has been historically not profitable. Those that remain are being asked to show up in person and provide proof that their work adds value to the company. I understand why some would leave, but I can’t fathom how you absolutely cannot understand the reasons many are choosing to stay.
- tomp 4y agoBecause you get to work directly with one of the most productive and (technically) creative people in history? Alive right now, dining with you and reviewing your code? Plus you get to work on one of the most important platforms for world politics. If I was in SF, I’d definitely apply.
- michaelt 4y agoCollapsing companies can be an excellent way to jump several rungs on the career ladder at a time. If you're an ambitious Level 2 Hierarch and you know your Level 3 and 4 Hierarchs along with many of your fellow Level 2s have just departed, you can roll the dice and maybe become a Level 4 Hierarch before you depart in 6 months time. Experience allowing you to become a Level 4 Hierarch at a company that isn't collapsing. Of course, it isn't clear that Musk is looking to promote any Hierarchs, so this would be a gamble.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- fzeroracer 4y agoOne of the more recent layoffs was Ikuhiro Ihara [1] who is definitely not someone I'd classify as an 'underperformer' (though I'm sure that's how he'll be reclassified since that seems to be how people act). [1] https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1595818243620380672 https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1595818243620380672
- noncoml 4y agoThe motivation of the purge was 100% political and cultural. Performance was the facade.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoSadly, that was often the case in corporate America. In practical sense, firing 'for cause' were often just finding an appropriate level of 'excuse' to not have to pay unemployment. I assume, this is a rather cynical way to cut additional costs.
- duke98 4y ago
- fzeroracer 4y agoYou didn't actually explain what makes him an underperformer beyond an entirely different argument.
- ssnistfajen 4y agoExplain how that makes him an "underperformer"
- ergocoder 4y agoI doubt he is an underperformer. He has launched stuff successfully. He has been at twitter for 10y and probably know s how every system at twitter works (and/or can figure out quickly). His twitter doesn't tweet anything political at all. He doesn't disparage twitter even after being fired. It is stupid to fire a person like this. Mad respect for keeping it cool.
- togaen 4y ago
- weakfish 4y agoNot if they’re on a work visa.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dvt 4y agoGergely Orosz has been engagement farming this ongoing saga for weeks now (I had to mute him on Twitter). Kind of makes him a bit hypocritical when taking advantage of this situation for his own enrichment, no? I wonder how many books he's sold in the meantime. Also, acting like engineers that have been making six-figures for years now are some kind of underclass is a bit ridiculous, but that's neither here nor there.
- roflyear 4y agoAnyone can be mistreated
- hnal943 4y ago100% agree. He's hysterical. It has changed my opinion of him.
- thenerdhead 4y agoThat's the word I was trying to find: "engagement farming". While I respect his hustle, majority of his content is exactly that. Find the outrage in the world, wrap it up in a box, and include some of your products to alleviate the pain(i.e. layoffs -> job postings). This is a pretty well known pattern to grow on social media though. Find the major division, double down on one side, and repeat your position. It's smart, but feels wrong to me. Needless to say, our attention talking about this is just making him more money, so I respect him to be in that position.
- ssnistfajen 4y agoRapid mass layoffs based on completely arbitrary grounds and sudden drastic changes in work expectations are abusive practices regardless of the level of compensation.
- hw 4y agoThis. Tech workers have been pampered for a decade, up to the point where people feel entitled to their job. From high six figure salaries to all the perks that tech cos give out without necessarily requiring a 4 year cs degree, life is pretty good, compared to others in the medical field, education, finance etc. Employment is never certain. Companies grow, pivot, shutdown, cut costs. The last 10+ years were the golden years for tech, but times are changing. Fat needs to be trimmed. Sometimes it hits even the good ones. The business doesnt owe its employees anything other than compensation for services. I empathize with the visa holders stuck in jobs or lost theirs and now have to scramble to look for a new job and sponsor. I was a H1B myself, and I was always aware of the risks and being at the mercy of my employer, but that is the risk I was willing to take for a job I liked that paid a lot more. I see a lot of anger towards companies aggressively hiring at fault, but if they didn't, a lot more people would not have had their cush jobs for however long it lasted.
- spaniard89277 4y agoHonestly, It's surprising how someone who managed to get a car and rockets company up and running can cause so much chaos. This looks so unprofessional, erratic and unnecessary even if you want to cut down headcount and have a political motivation behind the take over, that it shocks me, honestly. I guess that when someone is that wealthy you can duck-tape mistakes with money and move on. I've complained many times about the effects of the so called "woke" ideology has, particularly outside of the US, but I don't think this is the way to do it. If EM thinks this is a way of helping free speech and turn the volume down on some deranged ideologies, I don't think this is moving towards that goal.
- TruthIsHeresy 4y ago
- qbasic_forever 4y agoHe didnt start Tesla, be bought them: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc. Similar story for pay pal.
- negamax 4y agoI think we all invested in him as he's nerdy and chasing moonshots. I bought TSLA stock at IPO and held through all the fail years. Musk enjoys unparalleled fandome and respect in many circles. But of course, Elon thinks it's all him. He's a genius, a savior and nothing can come between his view of reality. Imo, Elon is past his expiry date. Time for capitalism to fix him
- TillE 4y agoThe bizarre micromanaging "code reviews" from a CEO are textbook bad management, like something out of a joke from the 90s. Whatever you think of Musk or his goals, it's just not something that makes any sense for him to be spending his time on.
- cmsj 4y agoImagine being him and sitting in his little billionaire playpen and having the choice of playing with the car thing, the space rocket thing, or the website thing and picking option 3. Literal space rockets. You couldn't tear me away from Starbase Texas.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hw 4y agoIf you were him, would you not focus your time on making sure what you just bought will become even more successful and be what you envisioned it to be when you bought it? Of course, one might argue against buying Twitter in the first place, but that’s done. What makes you think that SpaceX and Tesla aren’t already in good hands?
- dsr_ 4y agoSpaceX and Tesla are in much better hands right now, since Musk's attention is on Twitter.
- ssnistfajen 4y agoHe did just spend $44 billion to acquire "the website thing", most of which were leveraged loans using his wealth as collateral. So some heightened attention is a given, just not this type of micromanagement when it's clearly wreaking havoc in the foreseeable short term.
- ergocoder 4y agobizarre is the right word. Musk's actions are so bizarre and inefficient. He could have used perf review...
- moolcool 4y agoIt's... interesting to see all the VCs on twitter defending the culture at Musk's twitter.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoAbsolutely none of this is surprising. Twitter employees knew that this was coming for like 9 months or so. If people are still there, then they are voluntarily accepting this cruel treatment. Any software engineers that are even halfway decent would still get snapped up in a heartbeat elsewhere. Of course, the one caveat to all this is our indentured servitude system of H1B visas. Even then, though, if I were on an H1B, as soon as it became apparent that Musk was taking over I would have started looking for other employment if I wanted to stay in the US. But otherwise, I don't see why any other software engineers at Twitter would have any right to complain about cruel treatment. Just leave if you don't want to work there.
- endorphine 4y agoCome on, no one could see _this_ coming. Let's be honest, what Musk is doing is surreal and bizarre.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoFair enough, but only around the edges. I mean, it was definitely clear he would: 1. be laying off a shitload of people - he flat out said so pretty early on. 2. that he would drive those that remained extremely hard. Anyone who works at Tesla or SpaceX can verify that. 3. this is kind of a follow on from the first 2, but once it became clear about the financing behind the Twitter LBO, that Musk would be under a ton of pressure to reduce expenses and grow revenue just to pay off the additional billion dollars in annual interest. Yes, the clown-show chaos is pretty extreme, even by Musk's standards. But a have no sympathy for anyone that still remains that doesn't have visa issues to worry about. And, indeed, I'd assume the only people who still are remaining are there by choice given all the great opportunities they've had to leave (3 months severance for quitting is a great deal).
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago<< Some employees were offered up to $100,000 in raises to stay I will admit that this entire saga shows rather reactive, if not plain erratic, behavior. That said, this behavior supposedly is not new in a sense that Musk has been known to sometimes sleep at Tesla factory and is a known workaholic that demands similar level of devotion. I am saying all this as someone, who defended Musk's initial layoffs, because I assumed ( clearly wrongly ) that he had some sort of plan devised during his review of Twitter during purchase. Musk is currently worth 180b. Even if he burns Twitter to the ground, he could still buy 2 or 3 publicly listed companies on a whim ( as he seems prone to do ). Is it the kind of power we, as a society, want one person to wield?
- ramesh31 4y ago>Is it the kind of power we, as a society, want one person to wield? It really is terrifying. You know for a fact that he has a UI where he can pull up the DMs of anyone ever on Twitter. The blackmail opportunities alone were worth the $44b.
- dangue_fever 4y agoAll: please let this topic sit for at least two weeks, if not more. It’s too early to tell what’s happening and we are only getting one side of the story, from very few confirmed first-hand sources.
- madeofpalk 4y agoI feel like there have been a bunch of first hand sources from (ex) twitter employees on the topic?
- terminatornet 4y agoit's been a month since he came into twitter, I think we've got a pretty good idea how things are gonna continue to go at this point.
- osigurdson 4y agoI don’t think it is cruel treatment targeting software engineers, it is targeting employees not originally hired by Musk’s management. Of course, that is everybody at Twitter.
- endorphine 4y agoWhy was this flagged?
- negamax 4y agoWhy is this post flagged? This is not false information
- subradios 4y agoThis is the strategy of someone who is aware of an internal cultural problem at Twitter. You can blame pointy haired PMs, activist community managers, leetcode and Foosball engineers, or whoever you want for the situation. To Musk its all the same, over 50% of the workforce was actively hostile to Musk for being Musk, and at least 25% was actively engaged in sacrificing the business to pursue personal or political agendas. This would be fine if Twitter were a cash cow posting record profits, but it wasn't. The strategy Musk is performing is to create as much chaos as possible to shake out as many of those groups as possible, and hire back anyone caught in the crossfire. I've never seen a CEO attempt this at this scale, but at my last company there was an employee like above in a top position - and in order to get rid of the people under his influence the only solution was to can the whole division.
- guax 4y agoThis 4d chess thing is getting old. He's just a terrible boss doing what terrible bosses do all the time, fire people at whim, decide product direction is a feelings thing that only he is capable of doing, ignores and reject any competence that threats his image and position, etc.
- papito 4y agoI mean, the guy who told us all to "vote Republican" just a few days ago has zero agendas, amiright. Musk is not creating chaos on purpose [eye roll] - he does not know how to be a manager in a situation that is not a crisis dialed to 11 at ALL times. Everything has to be a hair-on-fire-level crisis, to stress the minions and get them moving, except we see how that strategy is burning him out. He's always been like that, we just never called it because "you can't argue with success", but you can definitely argue with failure.
- dymk 4y agoGot a source on >=25% of Twitter's employees being "actively engaged in sacrificing the business to pursue personal or political agendas"?
- subradios 4y ago
- yalogin 4y agoThe worst part is hiring will be impossible for him. I think he feels strongly that throwing money at people will get him engineers. The question is are there enough talented engineers in the cult of Elon in the domain he needs
- sgt101 4y agoWhen someone like Elon Musk does something it is for a reason. He's hiding something.
- jaybrendansmith 4y agoI just keep thinking of some excellent scenes from 'Office Space' all playing out in real life. 'What would you say, you do here?'