4 ms·

As Silicon Valley Retrenches, a Tech Talent Shift Accelerates

17 points by laurex 4y ago

sanderjd 4y ago
This seems like a real trend and I'm curious what experiences people here have had or are having with this. It seems to me like it might be a major culture clash. My experience of "big tech" was of very little process a huge amount of autonomy and ownership of projects for individual engineers and long cycles for deliverables aligned with quarters or semi-yearly performance reviews. Whereas my experience with more "enterprise" companies is of "agile" processes like scrum or scaled agile framework, more detailed roadmaps with shorter deliverable cycle times oriented around "sprints" of a couple weeks, and significantly less individual autonomy and ownership. And beyond process differences, there are a bunch of other culture clashes, I think, in things like the level of focus on tooling, operations, observability, etc. etc. I'm fascinated which of these borgs will assimilate the other as they increasingly mix, or whether everything will balance out somewhere between. I'd love to hear what others are seeing.
- tom-_- 4y ago
  The similarities in my experience between big tech (FAANG) and big non-tech are heavy process/communication burden, deep tech debt and perf review driven culture. The main differences in tech are: Engineers seen profit centers instead of cost centers, therefore treated/compensated as "talent" Many (but probably not most) big techs are bottom up, much less common in non-tech There is at least as big of a process and cultural difference between small startups and big co's.
  - Ancalagon 4y ago
    Also, pay is typically lower in non-tech, with some exceptions (mostly finance though).
mavelikara 4y ago
https://archive.vn/BWLjG https://archive.vn/BWLjG
Apocryphon 4y ago
Definitely wondering if there will be an engineering exodus to non-tech if the tech industry’s fortunes don’t improve in 2023.
- sanderjd 4y ago
  I'm hopeful there will be, though the article made me a bit more pessimistic about which industries will be the beneficiaries. I've been hoping it will be things like climate and bio tech, not things like Nike and Walmart...

17 points by laurex 4y ago

This seems like a real trend and I'm curious what experiences people here have had or are having with this. It seems to me like it might be a major culture clash. My experience of "big tech" was of very little process a huge amount of autonomy and ownership of projects for individual engineers and long cycles for deliverables aligned with quarters or semi-yearly performance reviews. Whereas my experience with more "enterprise" companies is of "agile" processes like scrum or scaled agile framework, more detailed roadmaps with shorter deliverable cycle times oriented around "sprints" of a couple weeks, and significantly less individual autonomy and ownership. And beyond process differences, there are a bunch of other culture clashes, I think, in things like the level of focus on tooling, operations, observability, etc. etc. I'm fascinated which of these borgs will assimilate the other as they increasingly mix, or whether everything will balance out somewhere between. I'd love to hear what others are seeing.

tom-_- 4y ago
The similarities in my experience between big tech (FAANG) and big non-tech are heavy process/communication burden, deep tech debt and perf review driven culture. The main differences in tech are: Engineers seen profit centers instead of cost centers, therefore treated/compensated as "talent" Many (but probably not most) big techs are bottom up, much less common in non-tech There is at least as big of a process and cultural difference between small startups and big co's.
- Ancalagon 4y ago
  Also, pay is typically lower in non-tech, with some exceptions (mostly finance though).

mavelikara 4y ago

https://archive.vn/BWLjG https://archive.vn/BWLjG

Apocryphon 4y ago

Definitely wondering if there will be an engineering exodus to non-tech if the tech industry’s fortunes don’t improve in 2023.

sanderjd 4y ago
I'm hopeful there will be, though the article made me a bit more pessimistic about which industries will be the beneficiaries. I've been hoping it will be things like climate and bio tech, not things like Nike and Walmart...