4 ms·

I spent 7 amazing years working for Walmart Labs (what they called it at the time) and it was a great place to work. I was being paid like I lived in the Bay Ar

I spent 7 amazing years working for Walmart Labs (what they called it at the time) and it was a great place to work. I was being paid like I lived in the Bay Area, but I lived in a much lower cost of living area. I worked my tail off for them and got two promotions. On the second one they declined to increase my annual RSU target because I was making too much for my geo. I saw the writing on the wall regarding their plans for remote workers and left to a competitor that has been much more remote friendly. I know so many amazing people that were doing the work of their lives that quit or were laid off because of the RTO mandate. I can’t believe that they are doubling down on this, despite the human and financial costs associated with it. Ultimately it highlights an important fact about working at WM (and lots of other companies, I am sure): you aren’t as special or irreplaceable as you think you are. Look out for yourselves and do what makes sense for you, always!

delichon 2y ago
I picked an outfit where the CEO, CTO and everyone else is remote. There is no office to return to. I'm not a second class citizen as remote staff. Recommended.
- slyall 2y ago
  I worked at a company like that. This was 10 years ago when remote was less common but the company was in the work-from-home space so it was sort of in line with the product. We got a new CEO from Austin. They opened a new office there. Over the next few years they closed most of the other offices and stopped WFH.
- neduma 2y ago
  Nice or Start you own.
  - red-iron-pine 2y ago
    easier said than done mon ami
- datavirtue 2y ago
  Living this. Very nice.
Aurornis 2y ago
This comment is interesting to me because I know a lot of people who went to Walmart Labs with similar stories: Amazing at first, then sudden drop in compensation when they didn't refresh RSUs, then slow slide into being pushed out. The strange part is that all of the stories I've heard covered different time periods, often not overlapping. Off the top of my head I can think of 4 people I've run into at local meetups who went from thinking Walmart Labs was a great place to work, to having nothing good to say about the place at all. It's natural for new jobs to have a honeymoon period that wears off over time, but I've heard this same story arc so many times that, as an outsider, it feels like something must be wrong with how they approach long-term employees. Obviously the RTO mandate is a huge blow to one of their original selling points, too.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- awill 2y ago
  I think it's straight forward. They made a decision to pay top dollar because they had ambitious plans, and wanted the silicon valley types. All went well. Then, as this part of the company grew, some bean counter decided it was a huge expense, and something had to be done. I suspect these walmart labs people were costing triple the standard walmart webdev, and so to the bean counters, the path forward was obvious. It's really unfortunate when non tech people make decisions like this. I've worked at a FAANG for 10 years, and before that was at HP and other mid-sized companies. HP's average principal engineer would be outperformed by our interns.
  - harrisi 2y ago
    This doesn't make sense given what the person you're responding to is claiming. If several people over several non-overlapping time periods have the same positive experience then decline, what you're stating is that the company is having memory loss every few years, decides to go for the pros, then remembers they didn't actually like doing that. Maybe that is what's happening, and management is just cycling through the same way the engineers are. Walmart does have plenty of money to relearn lessons every few years, but I also would be surprised for the same reason - they didn't find billions of dollars under a rock. They're good at making money. Making the same mistake with personnel repeatedly is not a good way to make money (or maybe it is, what do I know).
whalesalad 2y ago
Were you writing Clojure there?
kubectl_h 2y ago
Did the work that WM Labs did influence the Sams club mobile experience? It (the app) is so much better than Costco and is one of the reasons I still pay for a Sams membership even though Costco has now moved into my area.
Aloisius 2y ago
> I was being paid like I lived in the Bay Area, but I lived in a much lower cost of living area I'm a little confused as to why a company would pay bay area rates for remote workers given the higher competition for jobs.
- OkayPhysicist 2y ago
  Bay Area workers don't get paid well just because of the higher cost of living. They also have a lot more options, so you have to pay more to keep them. Those factors combine to lead to inflated salaries which in turn attracts a disproportionate concentration of high quality workers. Companies then follow and or spring up from the talent pool, and boom, you've got yourself a tech hub and a positive feedback loop. Living on a private island in the South Pacific is expensive, too, but most companies wouldn't pay a premium to employ you. I'm not saying that if you pick two random software developers, one from Nebraska and the other from San Francisco, that the SF dev will always be better. I am saying that, if we track a population of 100 developers from Nebraska and SF, more of the top 20 devs from Nebraska than those in the bottom 20 are going to move to SF, and in the SF group more of the bottom quintile is going to leave than in the top quintile, leading to better median developers in the Bay.

delichon 2y ago

I picked an outfit where the CEO, CTO and everyone else is remote. There is no office to return to. I'm not a second class citizen as remote staff. Recommended.

slyall 2y ago
I worked at a company like that. This was 10 years ago when remote was less common but the company was in the work-from-home space so it was sort of in line with the product. We got a new CEO from Austin. They opened a new office there. Over the next few years they closed most of the other offices and stopped WFH.
neduma 2y ago
Nice or Start you own.
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  easier said than done mon ami
datavirtue 2y ago
Living this. Very nice.

Aurornis 2y ago

This comment is interesting to me because I know a lot of people who went to Walmart Labs with similar stories: Amazing at first, then sudden drop in compensation when they didn't refresh RSUs, then slow slide into being pushed out. The strange part is that all of the stories I've heard covered different time periods, often not overlapping. Off the top of my head I can think of 4 people I've run into at local meetups who went from thinking Walmart Labs was a great place to work, to having nothing good to say about the place at all. It's natural for new jobs to have a honeymoon period that wears off over time, but I've heard this same story arc so many times that, as an outsider, it feels like something must be wrong with how they approach long-term employees. Obviously the RTO mandate is a huge blow to one of their original selling points, too.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
awill 2y ago
I think it's straight forward. They made a decision to pay top dollar because they had ambitious plans, and wanted the silicon valley types. All went well. Then, as this part of the company grew, some bean counter decided it was a huge expense, and something had to be done. I suspect these walmart labs people were costing triple the standard walmart webdev, and so to the bean counters, the path forward was obvious. It's really unfortunate when non tech people make decisions like this. I've worked at a FAANG for 10 years, and before that was at HP and other mid-sized companies. HP's average principal engineer would be outperformed by our interns.
- harrisi 2y ago
  This doesn't make sense given what the person you're responding to is claiming. If several people over several non-overlapping time periods have the same positive experience then decline, what you're stating is that the company is having memory loss every few years, decides to go for the pros, then remembers they didn't actually like doing that. Maybe that is what's happening, and management is just cycling through the same way the engineers are. Walmart does have plenty of money to relearn lessons every few years, but I also would be surprised for the same reason - they didn't find billions of dollars under a rock. They're good at making money. Making the same mistake with personnel repeatedly is not a good way to make money (or maybe it is, what do I know).

whalesalad 2y ago

Were you writing Clojure there?

kubectl_h 2y ago

Did the work that WM Labs did influence the Sams club mobile experience? It (the app) is so much better than Costco and is one of the reasons I still pay for a Sams membership even though Costco has now moved into my area.

Aloisius 2y ago

> I was being paid like I lived in the Bay Area, but I lived in a much lower cost of living area I'm a little confused as to why a company would pay bay area rates for remote workers given the higher competition for jobs.

OkayPhysicist 2y ago
Bay Area workers don't get paid well just because of the higher cost of living. They also have a lot more options, so you have to pay more to keep them. Those factors combine to lead to inflated salaries which in turn attracts a disproportionate concentration of high quality workers. Companies then follow and or spring up from the talent pool, and boom, you've got yourself a tech hub and a positive feedback loop. Living on a private island in the South Pacific is expensive, too, but most companies wouldn't pay a premium to employ you. I'm not saying that if you pick two random software developers, one from Nebraska and the other from San Francisco, that the SF dev will always be better. I am saying that, if we track a population of 100 developers from Nebraska and SF, more of the top 20 devs from Nebraska than those in the bottom 20 are going to move to SF, and in the SF group more of the bottom quintile is going to leave than in the top quintile, leading to better median developers in the Bay.