5 ms·

> I left FAANG basically because you had to play the politics and self-promotion game to get promoted. I have no reason to doubt that in the particular corner

> I left FAANG basically because you had to play the politics and self-promotion game to get promoted. I have no reason to doubt that in the particular corner of your organization that may well have been the case, but you cannot generalize this over the whole field. As stated elsewhere, I never played any game to be promoted, I simply never consciously sought the goal of promotion, and I was promoted anyway just because of the real, substantial job I did.

lolinder 4y ago
We have multiple people giving their anecdotes saying big tech positions emphasize self-promotion, and one anecdote (yours) saying they don't. So, sincere question: for those of us who haven't worked at a FAANG, why should we believe that your experience is the norm while the other people's is the "corner"?
- throwabayhay 4y ago
  Just look in front of you. The monitor you are using right now. That's incredible technology. You think that would be possible if people did not care about engineering, having a number of peers around them across multiple levels of the organization that cared to a similar level? EDIT: What I mean is, you need multiple passionate people across many levels to achieve that. If reward culture wasn't somewhat healthy, I don't believe this could work.
  - lolinder 4y ago
    That has absolutely no bearing on the comment you replied to or my own. OP didn't say anything about engineering, OP said you had to play games to get promoted. That's not mutually exclusive with having good engineers.
    - throwabayhay 4y ago
      I am not sure it is realistic to expect that all the good engineers never get promoted and that there would still be something good coming out over time.
      - lolinder 4y ago
        You're still putting words into people's mouths. No one said none of the good engineers get promoted, they said that being a good engineer is not sufficient to be promoted. A good engineer who is also good at playing promotion games would presumably do very well. PragmaticPulp specifically said the engineers his team hired were actually rather good, just had bad habits: > The strange thing was that many of them were actually good programmers when it came down to it.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        throwabayhay 4y ago
        I said: "I never played any game to be promoted, I simply never consciously sought the goal of promotion, and I was promoted anyway just because of the real, substantial job I did." And I did see other peers who did not play any games that I could see be promoted for merit. So maybe generalizations over large companies just don't work well.
        lolinder 4y ago
        Now we're back to where I started: I don't disbelieve your experience, but given that you're the only one here who shares that experience I asked you to tell me why I should believe that your experience is more representative than the half dozen other people who have shared theirs? To me it seems more likely that you had a particularly good corner of the organization.
        throwabayhay 4y ago
        We're moving in circles, but again, I don't believe a company can bring out good products for very long if my experience is the exception. And as so often the case, the "half dozen" other people might be venting for their experience. If there is no somewhat healthy reward culture, the multiple passionate people in the many different levels needed would leave.
- spacedcowboy 4y ago
  shrug I work at Apple. I'm fairly senior. I don't play politics. YMMV, just like everywhere else.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  I'll state the obvious: FAANG isn't a place. It's 5 gigantic tech companies lumped into a cute acronym. Each of the 5 is a huge sprawling organization with 1000s of separate teams, working in very different ways. Anything you can say about "working at FAANG" will be true of some parts and untrue of others.
- paulcole 4y ago
  People who don’t get promoted are likely to complain about it — often that the system was out to get them. I mean how often do you hear somebody go, “Yeah I was passed over for a promotion and you know what, I didn’t deserve it.” People who do get promoted at a FAANG (either by self-promotion or not) probably don’t want to brag about it because of the general sentiment here at HN.
  - doktorhladnjak 4y ago
    That’s true. There’s also the flip side that those who choose the systems are likely the ones who succeeded in those systems. I’m talking about directors, senior managers of engineering who worked their way up the corporate ladder. The system worked for them, so they think it’s a good system. It’s essentially a form of survivorship bias.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  There is an obvious selection bias in who posts. Anyway I also never seeked promotion (even tried to avoid it) but have been promoted four times now. I never chase glory and only focus on quality engineering and I’ve always gotten credit.
- patothon 4y ago
  I also work at a faang in a senior engineering role. I agree with what the other commenter is saying. I’ve been in several teams with several managers and xfn partners and you have a lot of different cultures. From the toxic wasteland to the ultra focused get shit done right fast environment engineers love. To your point about why more people complain than not, it’s the human condition. Haters hate is stronger than non haters happiness and are more than willing to share their salt
- roland35 4y ago
  I am a staff engineer at meta. I can certainly relate to Carmack's pain in getting things done on a large scale, there are I think about 9 levels between me and Zuck (so a lot of ladder climbing to reach my goal of CEO)!! But I don't feel like I have to be good at politics. You would probably be surprised at the level of snark which is openly published! I don't see my colleagues self-promote very much at all. I am in a very practical and focused team though, there is certainly a variety of team cultures. I will say that the performance review process is a pain, I feel like it is a lot of work documenting everything I have worked on... Literally every single company I've worked at has had loads of bullshit to deal with. Some BS was easier to handle than others! Overall I feel like things are interesting and there are good opportunities to grow in a big tech company, so I am happy for now. I've learned more in one year at meta than multiple years at other places.
  - namdnay 4y ago
    The performance review process at Meta and Google is so exhausting… It eats up a good 50% of everyone in the EM structure, without (in my and my colleagues’ experience anyway) any tangible benefit.
    - moosedev 4y ago
      That side of the EM role is 50% of why I hesitate to move back into management… performance review season is bad enough as an IC!
      - namdnay 4y ago
        It’s really specific to certain SV companies. Everywhere else I’ve worked, the “career mgmt” side is maximum 10% of your time
        roland35 4y ago
        I'm hoping to keep better records as I go in 2023. Famous last words :)
- Analog24 4y ago
  Because there is a huge selection bias that influences the sample of people that comment on these types of posts. I will back up the claim that, in my experience, a lot of this thread is hyperbole. There is some truth to it, sure, but don't make the mistake of thinking these anecdotal accounts actually represent the typical experience.
- rossjudson 4y ago
  These companies are cities, not villages. You'll find every type of experience at them. You'll find some incredibly exciting work, some boring work, great managers, crap managers, and everything in between all of that. In my case I just find scale...fun :)
- goostavos 4y ago
  >why should we believe Oh, good lord. Listen, you're talking about companies with hundreds of thousands of employees scattered all across the globe. Do you really think there's one homogeneous culture across everything? Single orgs can have the population of small towns. "culture" is a local phenomenon. There are promotion oriented people. There are not promotion oriented people. There are mutants who work 12 hours every day and call into meeting while on vacation because they want to climb the ladder. There are teams which are hyper focused on visibility and self-promotion, and there are teams which just quietly churn out good tech. There are hundreds of thousands of people. You're going to get different experiences. I'm not sure why that's such a crazy idea to you.
actionfromafar 4y ago
You could have said “in that particular leaf of the organisation”. Did you work in a leaf?
- throwabayhay 4y ago
  I don't understand this question, can you elaborate?
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    Did you work on something that no other engineer at your org did consume? Like the previous commenter.
    - throwabayhay 4y ago
      I did sometimes, though it still benefitted something in the end. After all, my boss and other people further up the chain have a say in whether I get promoted as well, not just my peers.

lolinder 4y ago

We have multiple people giving their anecdotes saying big tech positions emphasize self-promotion, and one anecdote (yours) saying they don't. So, sincere question: for those of us who haven't worked at a FAANG, why should we believe that your experience is the norm while the other people's is the "corner"?

throwabayhay 4y ago
Just look in front of you. The monitor you are using right now. That's incredible technology. You think that would be possible if people did not care about engineering, having a number of peers around them across multiple levels of the organization that cared to a similar level? EDIT: What I mean is, you need multiple passionate people across many levels to achieve that. If reward culture wasn't somewhat healthy, I don't believe this could work.
- lolinder 4y ago
  That has absolutely no bearing on the comment you replied to or my own. OP didn't say anything about engineering, OP said you had to play games to get promoted. That's not mutually exclusive with having good engineers.
  - throwabayhay 4y ago
    I am not sure it is realistic to expect that all the good engineers never get promoted and that there would still be something good coming out over time.
    - lolinder 4y ago
      You're still putting words into people's mouths. No one said none of the good engineers get promoted, they said that being a good engineer is not sufficient to be promoted. A good engineer who is also good at playing promotion games would presumably do very well. PragmaticPulp specifically said the engineers his team hired were actually rather good, just had bad habits: > The strange thing was that many of them were actually good programmers when it came down to it.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - throwabayhay 4y ago
        I said: "I never played any game to be promoted, I simply never consciously sought the goal of promotion, and I was promoted anyway just because of the real, substantial job I did." And I did see other peers who did not play any games that I could see be promoted for merit. So maybe generalizations over large companies just don't work well.
        lolinder 4y ago
        Now we're back to where I started: I don't disbelieve your experience, but given that you're the only one here who shares that experience I asked you to tell me why I should believe that your experience is more representative than the half dozen other people who have shared theirs? To me it seems more likely that you had a particularly good corner of the organization.
        throwabayhay 4y ago
        We're moving in circles, but again, I don't believe a company can bring out good products for very long if my experience is the exception. And as so often the case, the "half dozen" other people might be venting for their experience. If there is no somewhat healthy reward culture, the multiple passionate people in the many different levels needed would leave.
spacedcowboy 4y ago
shrug I work at Apple. I'm fairly senior. I don't play politics. YMMV, just like everywhere else.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
BurningFrog 4y ago
I'll state the obvious: FAANG isn't a place. It's 5 gigantic tech companies lumped into a cute acronym. Each of the 5 is a huge sprawling organization with 1000s of separate teams, working in very different ways. Anything you can say about "working at FAANG" will be true of some parts and untrue of others.
paulcole 4y ago
People who don’t get promoted are likely to complain about it — often that the system was out to get them. I mean how often do you hear somebody go, “Yeah I was passed over for a promotion and you know what, I didn’t deserve it.” People who do get promoted at a FAANG (either by self-promotion or not) probably don’t want to brag about it because of the general sentiment here at HN.
- doktorhladnjak 4y ago
  That’s true. There’s also the flip side that those who choose the systems are likely the ones who succeeded in those systems. I’m talking about directors, senior managers of engineering who worked their way up the corporate ladder. The system worked for them, so they think it’s a good system. It’s essentially a form of survivorship bias.
zeroonetwothree 4y ago
There is an obvious selection bias in who posts. Anyway I also never seeked promotion (even tried to avoid it) but have been promoted four times now. I never chase glory and only focus on quality engineering and I’ve always gotten credit.
patothon 4y ago
I also work at a faang in a senior engineering role. I agree with what the other commenter is saying. I’ve been in several teams with several managers and xfn partners and you have a lot of different cultures. From the toxic wasteland to the ultra focused get shit done right fast environment engineers love. To your point about why more people complain than not, it’s the human condition. Haters hate is stronger than non haters happiness and are more than willing to share their salt
roland35 4y ago
I am a staff engineer at meta. I can certainly relate to Carmack's pain in getting things done on a large scale, there are I think about 9 levels between me and Zuck (so a lot of ladder climbing to reach my goal of CEO)!! But I don't feel like I have to be good at politics. You would probably be surprised at the level of snark which is openly published! I don't see my colleagues self-promote very much at all. I am in a very practical and focused team though, there is certainly a variety of team cultures. I will say that the performance review process is a pain, I feel like it is a lot of work documenting everything I have worked on... Literally every single company I've worked at has had loads of bullshit to deal with. Some BS was easier to handle than others! Overall I feel like things are interesting and there are good opportunities to grow in a big tech company, so I am happy for now. I've learned more in one year at meta than multiple years at other places.
- namdnay 4y ago
  The performance review process at Meta and Google is so exhausting… It eats up a good 50% of everyone in the EM structure, without (in my and my colleagues’ experience anyway) any tangible benefit.
  - moosedev 4y ago
    That side of the EM role is 50% of why I hesitate to move back into management… performance review season is bad enough as an IC!
    - namdnay 4y ago
      It’s really specific to certain SV companies. Everywhere else I’ve worked, the “career mgmt” side is maximum 10% of your time
      - roland35 4y ago
        I'm hoping to keep better records as I go in 2023. Famous last words :)
Analog24 4y ago
Because there is a huge selection bias that influences the sample of people that comment on these types of posts. I will back up the claim that, in my experience, a lot of this thread is hyperbole. There is some truth to it, sure, but don't make the mistake of thinking these anecdotal accounts actually represent the typical experience.
rossjudson 4y ago
These companies are cities, not villages. You'll find every type of experience at them. You'll find some incredibly exciting work, some boring work, great managers, crap managers, and everything in between all of that. In my case I just find scale...fun :)
goostavos 4y ago
>why should we believe Oh, good lord. Listen, you're talking about companies with hundreds of thousands of employees scattered all across the globe. Do you really think there's one homogeneous culture across everything? Single orgs can have the population of small towns. "culture" is a local phenomenon. There are promotion oriented people. There are not promotion oriented people. There are mutants who work 12 hours every day and call into meeting while on vacation because they want to climb the ladder. There are teams which are hyper focused on visibility and self-promotion, and there are teams which just quietly churn out good tech. There are hundreds of thousands of people. You're going to get different experiences. I'm not sure why that's such a crazy idea to you.

actionfromafar 4y ago

You could have said “in that particular leaf of the organisation”. Did you work in a leaf?

throwabayhay 4y ago
I don't understand this question, can you elaborate?
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  Did you work on something that no other engineer at your org did consume? Like the previous commenter.
  - throwabayhay 4y ago
    I did sometimes, though it still benefitted something in the end. After all, my boss and other people further up the chain have a say in whether I get promoted as well, not just my peers.