6 ms·

Where do you find this mythical organization you call a healthy company?

by tw8345 2y ago

neilv 2y ago
It's aspirational, and people who aspire will achieve it to varying degrees. For starters, we can all aspire to work in a company where people wouldn't be outright lying, nor feel that they needed to.
- smaudet 2y ago
  > we can all aspire to work in a company where people wouldn't be outright lying, nor feel that they needed to. I think you should consider this might be antithetical to the very concept of a company - although don't misunderstand me to mean I think all companies are "dishonest" (even if many are). "Working" in a "company" implying making some profit, usually implies something proprietary, which implies some secret, or with-holding of information/resources. So then, most, if not all companies, function off of scarcity-of-information/resources, and probably wouldn't be successful without. Withholding of information or resources, is awfully close to the next step i.e. "lying". In fact, it is frequently requisite to "lie" i.e. tell half-truths in order to conceal/confuse/distort whereabouts, processes, etc. So while the stated goal of many companies may be transparency, this is actually incompatible with their own goals in many ways. And so this can be seen repeated internally, where "resources" usually imply "promotions", "sales leads", "job responsibilities". This may explain why nearly every company seems to slowly become worse over time...
hibikir 2y ago
Many of the top companies you know were that healthy company once. You basically need to be one at that magical inflection point where the growth will crush you if your engineering is not empowered and on point. Especially back when clouds didn't exist, or were far less featureful, so turning dollars into horizontal growth was not a thing. The dark secret is that being a healthy company is just a moment, not something a company is at all times. Staying a healthy company as you grown when you are actually successful is very hard, and once the health is gone, good luck regaining it, because now you have a lot of people that thrive in unhealthy environments.
- 000ooo000 2y ago
  >being a healthy company is just a moment Bang on. This is why I find these other comments which amount to "work in an unhealthy company? Just don't!" to be so naive. You're only ever one departure away from a shakeup which can totally change your work environment. If you aren't equipped or prepared to play the big game, then your options are A) suffer B) leave and roll the dice on the next joint
- antod 2y ago
  So true, when looking back at the great companies I've worked at, none of them are still like that any more.
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
To be honest, I'm wondering where all these cartoonishly unhealthy companies come from. I've worked in a bunch of companies in my career, and sure, at pretty much all of them at one time or another I may have thought "are you f'ing kidding me?", but that's really just the nature of large organizations. And perhaps I've just been lucky, but in 25 years in tech I've never seen the level of gross incompetence described in this post. I'm truly envious of the vast majority of senior leaders and execs I've worked with - not because they're geniuses or anything, but because they excel at things that I find very challenging (and I know from my stint in management) and I learned a lot from them. Again, not everyone, but I've certainly had more good bosses than bad.
- neilv 2y ago
  Yeah, I've generally had good bosses and colleagues, including some outstanding great ones. (Actually, I had such overall good colleagues earlier in my career, I was totally unprepared the first time I ran into someone dishonest. It took too long to believe they would behave like they did, which ended up extremely costly.) Despite overall good experiences, I've heard of dysfunction like this article describes, and even worse, in numerous real-world companies. Talking about particular instances can be very delicate when you have insider info. But I think there's enough frequent dysfunction in industry, and some very common tropes that we keep hearing from people at other companies, that senior engineers will tend to be able to immediately recognize some of it.
  - StressedDev 2y ago
    My experience matches yours. I have had very few bad bosses and almost all teams I have worked on have been healthy. I have been on a few bad teams and groups. They usually failed. They were not bad because they failed but because lying was rewarded, political skill was rewarded, and solving the customer's problem was not valued. When I see questions like "where are the healthy companies?", I think either the poster has been very unlucky, or the poster might be the problem. When I say the poster is the problem, I mean they typically fall into one of the following buckets: 1. The person is very critical and cannot accept humans for what they are. They demand perfection, demand their coworkers are the best in the field, etc. They may also minimize the positives. 2. They have a very cynical or negative outlook. 3. They do not like their field (computers, sales, accounting, medicine, etc.). As a result, they are always unhappy. The main point is something inside the person causes them to view every organization as screwed up and awful. This includes organizations which are OK, good, or even outstanding.
aprdm 2y ago
I have close to 15y of experience now, and I've mostly only worked on healthy companies - I can think of 1 that wasn't. I have worked in ~8 companies give or take.
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  That seems quite a lot of changing the companies. Why so frequent switches?
  - okwhateverdude 2y ago
    Not OP, but I have a similar track record. Frequent switches because boredom, better pay (especially the first half of my career), and always searching for that amazing moment of confluence where I'm the dumbest guy in the room and working on an incredibly interesting/complex problem. Two years is about right to tackle something important and deliver, and also feel out if there are other opportunities at the current company. It has mostly worked out for me. You get really good at on-boarding yourself and getting up to speed quickly. I sell my labor as being an expert generalist and have professionally worked with half a dozen different languages, numerous different stacks, in a few different industries, and at big, small and in-between sized companies.
    - mewpmewp2 2y ago
      I feel like this approach wouldn't be able to make me truly valuable at any larger company for example, which in this case would be the ones considered unhealthy? Because there's enough complexity that takes years to understand. I think as an engineer your ability to provide value climbs in multiples the more you understand the product and what the company itself exactly values, besides the tech. You can solve meaningless problems using tech, but if you understand what is exactly worth solving, this is when your value can skyrocket, especially the larger the company is. Because you will have the understanding of marketing, leadership and product people while having technical capability to know what can be done. And also I feel like if it's better to switch companies every 2 years because of better pay, it implies that the current company is not actually healthy, because if they were, they would understand the value you provide, you should be able to provide more value at their company rather than starting from scratch in another company. While I don't feel my current company is healthy, at least I feel like I've been able to climb through promos and compensation faster than if I were to switch every 2 years. I have been there for 6 years.
rsynnott 2y ago
I mean, nowhere's perfect, but I don't think I've ever worked anywhere as dysfunctional as the company depicted in the article. That's really quite bad. If the place you work is like that, consider applying elsewhere; this is not typical.

Where do you find this mythical organization you call a healthy company?

by tw8345 2y ago

Where do you find this mythical organization you call a healthy company?

It's aspirational, and people who aspire will achieve it to varying degrees. For starters, we can all aspire to work in a company where people wouldn't be outright lying, nor feel that they needed to.

smaudet 2y ago
> we can all aspire to work in a company where people wouldn't be outright lying, nor feel that they needed to. I think you should consider this might be antithetical to the very concept of a company - although don't misunderstand me to mean I think all companies are "dishonest" (even if many are). "Working" in a "company" implying making some profit, usually implies something proprietary, which implies some secret, or with-holding of information/resources. So then, most, if not all companies, function off of scarcity-of-information/resources, and probably wouldn't be successful without. Withholding of information or resources, is awfully close to the next step i.e. "lying". In fact, it is frequently requisite to "lie" i.e. tell half-truths in order to conceal/confuse/distort whereabouts, processes, etc. So while the stated goal of many companies may be transparency, this is actually incompatible with their own goals in many ways. And so this can be seen repeated internally, where "resources" usually imply "promotions", "sales leads", "job responsibilities". This may explain why nearly every company seems to slowly become worse over time...

hibikir 2y ago

Many of the top companies you know were that healthy company once. You basically need to be one at that magical inflection point where the growth will crush you if your engineering is not empowered and on point. Especially back when clouds didn't exist, or were far less featureful, so turning dollars into horizontal growth was not a thing. The dark secret is that being a healthy company is just a moment, not something a company is at all times. Staying a healthy company as you grown when you are actually successful is very hard, and once the health is gone, good luck regaining it, because now you have a lot of people that thrive in unhealthy environments.

000ooo000 2y ago
>being a healthy company is just a moment Bang on. This is why I find these other comments which amount to "work in an unhealthy company? Just don't!" to be so naive. You're only ever one departure away from a shakeup which can totally change your work environment. If you aren't equipped or prepared to play the big game, then your options are A) suffer B) leave and roll the dice on the next joint
antod 2y ago
So true, when looking back at the great companies I've worked at, none of them are still like that any more.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago

To be honest, I'm wondering where all these cartoonishly unhealthy companies come from. I've worked in a bunch of companies in my career, and sure, at pretty much all of them at one time or another I may have thought "are you f'ing kidding me?", but that's really just the nature of large organizations. And perhaps I've just been lucky, but in 25 years in tech I've never seen the level of gross incompetence described in this post. I'm truly envious of the vast majority of senior leaders and execs I've worked with - not because they're geniuses or anything, but because they excel at things that I find very challenging (and I know from my stint in management) and I learned a lot from them. Again, not everyone, but I've certainly had more good bosses than bad.

neilv 2y ago
Yeah, I've generally had good bosses and colleagues, including some outstanding great ones. (Actually, I had such overall good colleagues earlier in my career, I was totally unprepared the first time I ran into someone dishonest. It took too long to believe they would behave like they did, which ended up extremely costly.) Despite overall good experiences, I've heard of dysfunction like this article describes, and even worse, in numerous real-world companies. Talking about particular instances can be very delicate when you have insider info. But I think there's enough frequent dysfunction in industry, and some very common tropes that we keep hearing from people at other companies, that senior engineers will tend to be able to immediately recognize some of it.
- StressedDev 2y ago
  My experience matches yours. I have had very few bad bosses and almost all teams I have worked on have been healthy. I have been on a few bad teams and groups. They usually failed. They were not bad because they failed but because lying was rewarded, political skill was rewarded, and solving the customer's problem was not valued. When I see questions like "where are the healthy companies?", I think either the poster has been very unlucky, or the poster might be the problem. When I say the poster is the problem, I mean they typically fall into one of the following buckets: 1. The person is very critical and cannot accept humans for what they are. They demand perfection, demand their coworkers are the best in the field, etc. They may also minimize the positives. 2. They have a very cynical or negative outlook. 3. They do not like their field (computers, sales, accounting, medicine, etc.). As a result, they are always unhappy. The main point is something inside the person causes them to view every organization as screwed up and awful. This includes organizations which are OK, good, or even outstanding.

aprdm 2y ago

I have close to 15y of experience now, and I've mostly only worked on healthy companies - I can think of 1 that wasn't. I have worked in ~8 companies give or take.

mewpmewp2 2y ago
That seems quite a lot of changing the companies. Why so frequent switches?
- okwhateverdude 2y ago
  Not OP, but I have a similar track record. Frequent switches because boredom, better pay (especially the first half of my career), and always searching for that amazing moment of confluence where I'm the dumbest guy in the room and working on an incredibly interesting/complex problem. Two years is about right to tackle something important and deliver, and also feel out if there are other opportunities at the current company. It has mostly worked out for me. You get really good at on-boarding yourself and getting up to speed quickly. I sell my labor as being an expert generalist and have professionally worked with half a dozen different languages, numerous different stacks, in a few different industries, and at big, small and in-between sized companies.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    I feel like this approach wouldn't be able to make me truly valuable at any larger company for example, which in this case would be the ones considered unhealthy? Because there's enough complexity that takes years to understand. I think as an engineer your ability to provide value climbs in multiples the more you understand the product and what the company itself exactly values, besides the tech. You can solve meaningless problems using tech, but if you understand what is exactly worth solving, this is when your value can skyrocket, especially the larger the company is. Because you will have the understanding of marketing, leadership and product people while having technical capability to know what can be done. And also I feel like if it's better to switch companies every 2 years because of better pay, it implies that the current company is not actually healthy, because if they were, they would understand the value you provide, you should be able to provide more value at their company rather than starting from scratch in another company. While I don't feel my current company is healthy, at least I feel like I've been able to climb through promos and compensation faster than if I were to switch every 2 years. I have been there for 6 years.

rsynnott 2y ago

I mean, nowhere's perfect, but I don't think I've ever worked anywhere as dysfunctional as the company depicted in the article. That's really quite bad. If the place you work is like that, consider applying elsewhere; this is not typical.