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Wow that's so cool but makes sense! Is it not like that there anymore? They still hire experienced engineers, so I wonder what changed? As an aside, is there an

Wow that's so cool but makes sense! Is it not like that there anymore? They still hire experienced engineers, so I wonder what changed? As an aside, is there any low hanging fruit / interesting work left to do at Netflix?

g9yuayon 3y ago
I left Netflix years ago, so I don't know their current culture. Netflix's culture demands very strong leadership and probably works only when the company is small enough. From CEO and down, leaders in every level need to know how to set context for their teams, give enough freedom to their teams, while making sure failures are manageable and success rate are maximized. That is, Netflix assumed that people would make mistakes and fail, but the trick was to ensure that failures do not hinder overall success of the teams and the company.
- silentsea90 3y ago
  Sounds very cool. Were failures punished by low ratings, bonus? How did they incentivize taking risks? Did the focus on being a leader make you stronger? Were Netflix employees from then valued very highly?
  - g9yuayon 3y ago
    > Were failures punished by low ratings, bonus? Netflix's culture stack used to say that culture is all about who gets rewarded and who punished. So, yes, people did get punished for their failures. The key here is what behavior led to a failure? We have to analyze consider the failure and the associated human behavior together and see if there is a lesson or a punishable pattern - this is where strong leadership is needed for a just assessment and action. There is no rating. At that time, one either their job or not. There was no bonus either, as bonus contradicted to the no-rating system. > How did they incentivize taking risks? Taking calculated risk was also part of the culture. Good people actually wanted to take risks. So the incentive systems is to take road blocks away. > Were Netflix employees from then valued very highly? I think the success of the company and the quality of the employees make them marketable. Everything else is secondary.
  - lovich 3y ago
    Netflix was known for being very fast to fire if you stopped producing. Netflix didn't even value Netflix employees beyond what they could produce in the moment. They leaned into the zero loyalty to employees model that US corporations rely on. Read this article which is pushing this as a positive. Grep for "Tell the Truth About Performance" to see where they talk about changing what an employees job needed. An employee they recognize had done a good job for 5 years, but wasn't what they wanted going forward so they weren't even going to try and help get her the skills to do the new job, but just lay her off immediately.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      This is the other side of the coin for keeping processes and bureaucracy minimal.
    - lovich 3y ago
      Somehow I completely missed linking the article https://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr https://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr
aaronblohowiak 3y ago
It was a very very special place to work for a time. Everything changes, though, and I will leave it to say the Netflix I left early this year was a completely different place from the one I joined almost 8 years ago.
- mochomocha 3y ago
  To expand a bit on what Aaron said, 2022 was a year where the company experienced drastic culture changes: introduction of levels, new VP&director-level leadership with more traditional / "big corp" management styles, push to hire junior engineers, decrease in transparency during decision-making, to name a few... These changes have alienated a lot of people who self-selected for the unique culture the company had, which was truly remarkable.

g9yuayon 3y ago

I left Netflix years ago, so I don't know their current culture. Netflix's culture demands very strong leadership and probably works only when the company is small enough. From CEO and down, leaders in every level need to know how to set context for their teams, give enough freedom to their teams, while making sure failures are manageable and success rate are maximized. That is, Netflix assumed that people would make mistakes and fail, but the trick was to ensure that failures do not hinder overall success of the teams and the company.

silentsea90 3y ago
Sounds very cool. Were failures punished by low ratings, bonus? How did they incentivize taking risks? Did the focus on being a leader make you stronger? Were Netflix employees from then valued very highly?
- g9yuayon 3y ago
  > Were failures punished by low ratings, bonus? Netflix's culture stack used to say that culture is all about who gets rewarded and who punished. So, yes, people did get punished for their failures. The key here is what behavior led to a failure? We have to analyze consider the failure and the associated human behavior together and see if there is a lesson or a punishable pattern - this is where strong leadership is needed for a just assessment and action. There is no rating. At that time, one either their job or not. There was no bonus either, as bonus contradicted to the no-rating system. > How did they incentivize taking risks? Taking calculated risk was also part of the culture. Good people actually wanted to take risks. So the incentive systems is to take road blocks away. > Were Netflix employees from then valued very highly? I think the success of the company and the quality of the employees make them marketable. Everything else is secondary.
- lovich 3y ago
  Netflix was known for being very fast to fire if you stopped producing. Netflix didn't even value Netflix employees beyond what they could produce in the moment. They leaned into the zero loyalty to employees model that US corporations rely on. Read this article which is pushing this as a positive. Grep for "Tell the Truth About Performance" to see where they talk about changing what an employees job needed. An employee they recognize had done a good job for 5 years, but wasn't what they wanted going forward so they weren't even going to try and help get her the skills to do the new job, but just lay her off immediately.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    This is the other side of the coin for keeping processes and bureaucracy minimal.
  - lovich 3y ago
    Somehow I completely missed linking the article https://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr https://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr

aaronblohowiak 3y ago

It was a very very special place to work for a time. Everything changes, though, and I will leave it to say the Netflix I left early this year was a completely different place from the one I joined almost 8 years ago.

mochomocha 3y ago
To expand a bit on what Aaron said, 2022 was a year where the company experienced drastic culture changes: introduction of levels, new VP&director-level leadership with more traditional / "big corp" management styles, push to hire junior engineers, decrease in transparency during decision-making, to name a few... These changes have alienated a lot of people who self-selected for the unique culture the company had, which was truly remarkable.