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How I Left YouTube
- brcmthrowaway 9mo agoSeems like a warm reboot for a career coach hustle Expect a mailing list subscription with courses coming soon
- panny 9mo agoI read the title and thought it would be about migrating from youtube to something self hosted/self made. Oh well :) Good luck in your future endeavors or sorry about your "ai" layoff, whichever applies.
- robofanatic 9mo agoI thought same and wonder what other platform one can migrate to and have the same kind of audience reach.
- johanvts 9mo ago> In the software engineering world, we exist on a ladder. We call this ”Leveling”. That bubble is not the world, I exist outside the ladder and I am legion.
- clickety_clack 9mo agoI am also a renegade it seems. I just couldn’t institutionalize myself like that.
- delichon 9mo agohttps://foreignlegion.info/ranks/ https://foreignlegion.info/ranks/
- browningstreet 9mo ago> That bubble is not the world Hence the author's "In the software engineering world". Nothing in author's write-up led me to think he doesn't understand that.
- mixologic 9mo agoYeah, no. Most companies do not have that exact hierarchy. Maybe at FAMGA etc, but most engineering jobs are not there.
- browningstreet 9mo agoSure, not that exact hierarchy. But a hierarchy. At other places it might be Senior, Principal, Director, etc. at some places they’re given, at other places you fight for it. Variations of leveling.
- myvoiceismypass 9mo agolevels.fyi makes it seem otherwise
- 65 9mo agoI must say, life is a lot easier as a software engineer outside of Big Tech. It seems like a bit of a pressure cooker to me.
- Nextgrid 9mo agoUnfortunately this shit is contagious so even non-Big-Tech companies eventually start to imitate it.
- nutjob2 9mo agoThe article title is actually "How I Left YouTube". Maybe someone could update it?
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- moss_dog 9mo agoIIRC HN typically removes the "How" from article titles like these, presumably to avoid clickbait titles.
- MinimalAction 9mo agoTried to read through the article, but couldn't finish. I felt this writing heavily alluded to a ChatGPT generated response. Too many punchlines and paragraph breaks.
- LoganDark 9mo agoIt does look LLM-assisted, but I'm fairly sure the experiences shared are genuine.
- tolerance 9mo agoThe word genuine is taking on a lot of responsibility in this line of reasoning.
- amazingman 9mo agoSome version of this comment shows up in just about every HN comment thread on a blog post. It must be LLM-generated.
- nubg 9mo agoHis criticism is valid. Not his fault most blog posts are AI slop these days.
- amazingman 9mo agoOverzealous pattern matching is not criticism.
- nubg 9mo agoOk, why can I not just read the prompt that went in? Why do I need to read a verbosified version of it? What's the point?
- amazingman 9mo ago
- lukevp 9mo agoAnd??? Where did you go? Did you get L5/L6? Or did you just leave and not get another job? What a wild article to have the interviews so prominently featured but not have a conclusion.
- tacker2000 9mo agoYea I was also looking for this info. But his Linkedin says he is still at Google. So is this some weird cliffhanger now?
- supriyo-biswas 9mo agoPeople in my experience usually don’t post about their new employer until they’re settled in for one or two months in order to not bad mouth a new employer which didn’t work out as expected.
- qwe----3 9mo agoYoutube is very tough for promo- I wouldn’t recommend it
- zhach 9mo agoAuthor here. You're telling me! :)
- paulcole 9mo agoLove how he’s critical of the 13-interview hiring process despite having done all 13 of those interviews. “Nobody drives there anymore. There’s too much traffic.” These companies can do 13 interviews because people will put up with them. The little place I work does phone screen, work sample, final interview, reference check. We can be done in a week. Nobody wants to work with me bad enough to sit through 13 interviews.
- foxheadman 9mo agoYou manage to live a life where if you don't like something, you can just avoid it?
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- mgaunard 9mo ago13 interviews suggests he was interviewing for multiple roles within the same company; in which case it's not that shocking. In many places every team runs their own interviews.
- paulcole 9mo agoLord I would hope so lol
- lbrito 9mo agoEven more so for such a great engineer that in the words of his colleagues is "indispensable for the company". If you're such a rockstar you can probably get shortened loops in good companies through referrals
- arkitct 9mo ago[flagged]
- baobun 9mo agoStrange hill. Police is a protected title but anyone can be a thought police. One can be a spin doctor without any academic acumen. Notice how when qualified, the words take on a broader and sometimes illustrative meaning than when used in isolation. Context matters.
- amazingman 9mo agoNow do every other common term in software engineering.
- dullcrisp 9mo agoSomeone once told me they built a trampoline and I show up in their backyard and there’s nothing.
- tverbeure 9mo agoYou’re thinking about the “Professional Engineer” title or some variant thereof. You’ll be happy to hear that anyone can call themselves an engineer, even in Oregon, as a Federal Court correctly decided in a first amendment case brought by Mats Järlström. https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-light-timing-lawsuit/ https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-li... You’re welcome.
- ThrowawayTestr 9mo ago>At one prominent tech company, I underwent 13 separate interviews for a single role. In what insane world does this make any amount of sense?
- 2f0ja 9mo agoI went through a loop at Meta that was probably 10-11 rounds. I would have done 100. The compensation is truly life changing and the engineering problems were world-class. I'm sure OP is correct that this is a signal for a bad org - but from the outside looking in you'll do anything.
- zhach 9mo agoAuthor here. Very good point. I am in a lucky position for retrospective, but I was also very much in the mood of "I'll take what i can get" lol
- lbrito 9mo agoThat's a huge privilege; most people don't have enough time for that
- gherkinnn 9mo agoMeta is truly changing the lives of millions and millions of people for the worse.
- chihuahua 9mo agoI did 13 interviews in 2 days at Microsoft Research (in 1998). I did not get the job.
- userbinator 9mo agoI see that as a manifestation of Buridan's Ass --- when they're very indecisive about it, they will naturally try to measure more.
- 20after4 9mo agoIt really doesn't make much sense. The article was actually insightful on this point, or at least this matches my experience: > it suggests they operate on a consensus-based model that stifles autonomy The one place where I experienced a lot of rounds of interviews (at least 8 interviews, I think) was at the Wikimedia Foundation. It's an organization that is very explicitly built on consensus-based decision making. There were many great things about working there and at first it was very different from typical corporate culture. In some ways it was stifling, at least for someone who isn't a savvy politician. By the time I left in 2021, they had fully adopted the same kind of leveling system as discussed here, with all of the same political and structural constraints on advancement.
- Scubabear68 9mo agoReading this I feel like I live on another planet. I recognize this guy seems to only be dealing with FAANG type companies, but the disconnect from my own reality is so vast it’s hard to reconcile. I have never worked anywhere with the L4/L5/whatever crap. No one I have worked with has either. It sounds downright dystopian that people are reduced to a basically a number (if you leave out the L). I am assuming he left the job this year? If so, more disconnect. I am working but looking, and this job search is the hardest I have faced in over 30 years. Just talking to a human is almost impossible. This guy went on a zillion in person interviews? Is he maybe talking about the distant past of two years ago? The NDA minefield? Maybe I am naive or sheltered, but it’s never came up in interviews and was not something I ever sweated. For the simple reason that there is no secret sauce so magic that I could tell someone in ten minutes in an interview and spill all the beans. But what do I know, maybe YouTube has some secret variable this dude invented I am just too dumb to understand. I could go on. But the entitlement coming off of this post as I stress about paying bills and keeping my kids in school and fed as I read this on Xmas eve is a lot to take. Am I that much of an outlier that I need to get with the program? Or is this as out of touch with the current reality as I feel?
- reactordev 9mo ago>Am I that much of an outlier that I need to get with the program? No! You’re right where you need to be (just not where you want). Many of us have had a ridiculously difficult year. You’re not alone.
- Analemma_ 9mo agoI've been at three FAANGs now and my experience has been that nobody really cares about your level for day-to-day work. The only times it has ever come up for me is when a) I was part of assembling a new team and we needed a mix of juniors and seniors or b) when some dangerous action like deploying during a holiday code freeze needed approval from an L9+ by policy, so you had to go find that person and justify it to them. Now, your compensation is based entirely on your level, which obviously makes it matter a great deal, but my experience hasn't been that there are mind games around it.
- conqrr 9mo ago> In the software engineering world, we exist on a ladder. We call this ”Leveling”. Career is a made up game. There are no true levels or ladders in life that you have to chase. Nobody will care or remember what you did or what level you were given enough timespan. Take the bits that you want (money, skills etc) to live life, but don't get too caught up trying to win the game.
- reactordev 9mo agoIt took me a long time to realize this.
- MobiusHorizons 9mo ago+1. Worth saying this is also not at all a software engineering thing, it’s a large organization thing. I found I could easily discuss career leveling with non-technical government employees. In fact they have much more context than my friends in software engineering that never worked for large companies.
- motbus3 9mo agoTrue. Except for the economics part, it is much more fulfilling to work for a smaller company.
- raw_anon_1111 9mo agoExcept for the money - the entire reason most people work everyday… I’m 51, worked at two F10 at the time companies out of my ten jobs and hated them both - GE and 8 years later Amazon. I purposefully made the choice of pursuing a smaller company and ignoring constant outreach from Google (GCP consulting division). But let’s not dismiss the close to $100K diference I could be making than what I make now. Also a 25 year old SA that I mentored at AWS three years ago is making the same as I am making. They are an L5 (mid level) and I am a staff consultant. They are pre-sales (no commission) and I am implementations.
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- LoganDark 9mo agoI really don't feel it's that unique that it took a while to quit. A big reason these cultures are so popular is because a lot of of the time people don't quit right away and you can keep extracting work above their pay grade until they do. Even if you have some churn, you can keep getting that kind of work for cheap as long as you have a good supply of new hires.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- rebtevyescap 9mo ago[dead]
- cyberax 9mo ago> Do say: "I optimized a high-throughput distributed system to prioritize user retention metrics, reducing latency by 150ms through a custom caching layer." Ugh. Pain. I'm hiring, and I've been filtering out resumes that are heavy on these kinds of metrics. Because I literally get thousands of entries with these kinds of wording. Often with excessively precise numbers, like "by 23.5%". My problem is that it's hard to tell the amount of real work it took to do that. It might have been as stupid as creating an additional index in the database, or it might have involved a deep refactoring across multiple systems with a zero-downtime gradual rollout. I would prefer something like: "I worked as the hands-on leading developer to do a large-scale refactor on the highly loaded front-end network routing system, resulting in user-visible latency decrease on the Youtube front page". For me the key words are: "hands-on" (and not just writing a product brief and getting resources for it), "large-scale refactor" (so likely not just creating an additional database index), "highly loaded".
- tyii888 9mo agoThere's no such thing as a "hands-on leading developer" on a "large-scale refactor" at Google, it'd be like saying you were the hands-on leading mechanic on building the 787 dreamliner.
- cyberax 9mo agoI mean something like "spent a significant time as an individual contributor".
- gen220 9mo agoFWIW, I agree that less ink on a resume is usually a higher signal, and I also find that indicators for “ownership”, social trust, autonomy, and proxies thereof are more valuable than number go up narratives. But sometimes people feel like they must play this game to get past the pre-interview loop screen; I’ve interviewed plenty of people with number go up narratives who’ve done exceptionally well. It’s challenging to make hard and fast rules!
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- azangru 9mo ago> And I had to highlight the incredibly talented team I worked with and the amazing managers that taught me so much. I wonder what it was that the amazing managers taught him. I've never had an experience with managers that would leave such an impression on me. Fellow developers, sure; but not managers.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- esseph 9mo agoFind a smaller company that has managers that came from a tech background that are still hands-on-keyboard. They have both the time and experience to help mentor.
- sixspeedengine 9mo ago> The results of that meeting? The same from the previous promotion decisions; “it’s unfortunately a no. You don’t have enough impact.” Promotion at Google, as in many places, is tough. Status is allocated partially on level, so it sucks to not see that growth. Sometimes lack of promotion can be not having the right opportunities. It's fair to leave a company for whatever reason. For any other L4->L5s, or anyone wanting to become a senior engineer, it's worth self reflecting on whether there's improvement that can be made from failed promotion attempts. > people all across the org knew me and said I was indispensable to the company and were surprised that I wasn't already at an L5/6 level. No one in a large org is indispensable, but many are very valuable. Many L4s are very valuable, but at doing L4 work. It's not a value judgement. L4->L5 is a step of responsibility: can you be trusted to handle a multi quarter project, without much supervision. > I helped launch/lead features on YouTube, I led teams, I designed and implemented systems that were still in use to that day by many people The details aren't clear here, but sometimes an engineer can be leading projects, and need supervision: poor delivery, poor communication, poor outcomes. "Too little impact" in this context can mean "you needed too much supervision" or "too little impact per $TIME_PERIOD" meaning you can have delivered great technical solutions, but not at the rate or level of independence needed to meet the mark. Again, not meeting this mark isn't a value statement. It's a different type of work, but it happens to be incentivized with more $$$.
- huug156 9mo agoAll L4s are going to have supervision at Google, whether they “need” it or not. And most managers and tech leads aren’t going to just sit around twiddling their thumbs when no one “needs” supervision. Because most of them are bad at their jobs (I can count the number of good managers I’ve seen in 20 years on one hand).
- hibikir 9mo agoThe problems of lack of independence are rarely the kind of thing you decide in a big leveling meeting though: Someone working in near the project has to be providing the feedback regarding the employee needing more supervision. If that's the reason someone fails to uplevel, the manager and the dev lead are failing you, or outright saying something different for your packet than they say to your face.
- omoikane 9mo ago> I was leaving because I had outgrown the pot I was planted in I wonder if the author had attempted to transfer to a different part of the company first, since a different organization might have more room to grow. It might not be possible to do a transfer plus a promotion simultaneously, but it's likely a less stressful option than leaving the company.
- zhach 9mo agoAuthor here. I debated this, but the state of Google and YouTube together and certain things internally led me to just look for external opportunities. Probably would've been less stressful. Lol.
- djmips 9mo agoI wonder why 7 of your comments have been killed (dead) maybe it's the new HN account or something?
- xenihn 9mo agoI don't mean this to be a callout, but what do you mean you led teams as an L4? Even if you were unofficially leading them, you get caught in the politics trap of not being able to claim any credit for having done so, because that means the higher levels in the workstream weren't doing their jobs, and you can't write that down or say it outloud. This is a problem in every hierarchical organization, and learning how to navigate it is unfortunately a part of the leveling process in itself when you are starting from a lower level versus being hired into a higher one.
- shermantanktop 9mo ago>The strain comes from context switching. From 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, I had to care deeply about our quarterly goals and production stability. Then, from 6:00 PM to midnight, I had to care about inverting binary trees and system architecture design. >This duality is exhausting. It forces you to lie by omission to people you respect. You can't tell your team, "I can't take that ticket because I need to study dynamic programming." You just have to work faster. Guess what promo will get you? More context switching. Maybe that’s a thing to work on.
- zhach 9mo agoAuthor here. At the new job and yes, context switching has helped me a lot! Lol
- shermantanktop 9mo agoWe geeks often like to go deep, and engineers who persist with shallow understanding of tech hit limits. But as you get more responsibility, getting quickly oriented to project/task/business stuff is extremely valuable. And tbh, doing the same for tech topics is valuable but harder to do.
- scuff3d 9mo agoThis is why it's honestly not worth working that hard. Work hard enough to get noticed, spend the rest of the time making sure the right people know what you're doing. After a certain point it just doesn't matter anymore. The company has quarterlies to hit, and they aren't going to budge from whatever they have allowed for salary. And they're going to take the money they won't pay you and put it in an exec bonus package. If you're that passionate focus the excess energy into your own projects, technical or otherwise. But don't give your life to a corporation that couldn't give less of a shit about you. And this is also why you should be applying and interviewing along the way. Always keep your options open. The corporation is only looking out for itself, you need to be doing the same.
- webdevver 9mo agoi would like to push back a bit on this and say, it is worth working hard, but i would argue a lot of programmers get hindered by the illusion that programming is important, or even delivering results. unfortunately in software this is exacerbated by the very real world-wide impact that programming actually does have, but: it will always be subjugated by the most important job... the most important job, that has ever existed, and that will ever exist, is politics. moving up the career ladder you have to start thinking in terms of people, or maybe even in terms of mammals and mammalian group dynamics, cos thats who youre "programming" now, not computers. and most programmers aren't cut out for that, just as most regular people aren't cut out for programming. its hard to say why, but thats the on-the-ground data i see again and again. i also would like to push back on the "personal projects" mindset - the sentiment often being "just live in your own little world" (not saying it is here, but this is what it often implies.) if youre going to admit defeat and retreat, be honest about what youre doing. dont dress it up as a 'win'. ceding financial/social/political agency is never a victory, but sometimes a neccesity. quitting a mag7 like google is objectively a step down whichever way you slice it. you can count on two hands the number of companies that have the level of resouces that google does - it might be worth to swallow ones pride and slog it out.
- scuff3d 9mo agoIf you look at my comment again you'll see I said "work hard enough to get noticed... And make sure the right people know". I'm saying the same thing you are. You also don't have to be a Tyrion Lanister level political manipulator to get ahead. You mostly just have to make sure a few key people are aware of you and like you. The comment about working in your own projects was to say that if you are so passionate you want to keep working behind what you need to put in to your job, work on something important to you.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- qwe----3 9mo agoI guess lying on your linkedin "senior swe" is also helpful for getting a staff engineer position?
- tyii888 9mo agoGoogle submits your title and salary info to theworknumber, I would advise against this (and lying in general).
- zhach 9mo agoAuthor here. They do, even most recruiters require this before submitting for some of these jobs. Most hiring managers also filter that out by behavioral interviews and seeing how you handle team work, large scale work, and discussion upwards and downwards. Especially the higher you go, the harder it is to lie to get through.
- torlok 9mo agoI never knew this existed. It's insane how much data this service collects, and that the data is available for sale just like that. What a nightmare.
- begueradj 9mo ago>The problem of "doing more work and not getting compensated" is pretty well-known. Yes, the reward for more work is always more work. Hard work is the best way to make yourself unseen. Those who get promoted are busy advertising themselves, befriending strategically and may even take credit of your work while you are busy sweating. >My final conversation with my manager was heart-wrenching. I had prepared a script, anticipating a counter-offer or a guilt trip. Instead, I was met with soft and understanding empathy. Too much naivety out there to mention empathy even in a startup, let alone when working for a shark as Youtube. That was rather a good news for your manager: no counter offer, but also the fact they never rewarded you internally (L5/6) was a way to push you to leave.
- zhach 9mo agoAuthor here. I do want to mention that I don't exactly know the situation my manager was in, but he definitely did not make me feel dispensible personally. He and I had long conversations about life and work and our own lives and how the company will continue. Some manager may seem this way, but my manager (and the other direct managers I had I YouTube) felt the most human and caring people I have met. They had goals to meet, but I also felt they really cared for me (and their other reports). So I really thank them for that.
- shomp 9mo ago...did you find a new job before leaving YT?
- zhach 9mo agoAuthor here. I did! :) But I was really about to quit with a job lined up. I gave myself to the end of 2025 to get a new job. I had savings enough to hold me off, but it was one of those things where I was ready to even do freelance or contract. Putting more time in searching and portfolios. I'd rather get more time making code that was publicly available on GitHub to show my prowness than just talking about it to people. And I had an incredible support system from my partner. I wouldn't feel comfortable taking this leap without her. :)
- laidoffamazon 9mo agoWhy does OP's linkedin say Senior then?
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- piskov 9mo agoTwo questions: 1. Is it normal for someone who graduated in 2018 tell “with over 13 years” of experience? 2. He quit Google but not got hired anywhere else?
- dylan604 9mo agoRe 2), this reminds me of those situations where people are given the opportunity to resign rather than being fired. They get to save face on their next job interview, but it does the next hiring company a disservice. It might be something that comes up later in the hiring process, but nothing that would be identifiable at the start of that process
- jtokoph 9mo agoRe. (1): It can really depend on what they did before and during school. While in school, one could have real internships, real personal projects, open-source contributions, working for the university, contract gigs, etc. Personal anecdata: I was solo building software projects in highschool that earned income (real product, creating real value, some of which were acquired) and worked on the school district websites. During college I contracted with startups part time while also building projects of my own.
- zhach 9mo agoAuthor here. I worked at internships and smaller contracts in HS and college. But I've been coding since the start of highschool with coding competitions and jobs that helped my neighbors and my grandparents. Even in retrospect, even though they were small or not as full time as what I did now, I would still count them as learning career experience And I have been hired somewhere else. I was really close just to quit early and go to contract work. But I got really lucky with an offer a few months ago. If someone's feels like they want to quit, definitely investigate the amount of work it will take to be self employed. It's a lot, but understanding your own skills and being able to market that is a great ability to learn!
- piskov 9mo agoMy man, if some Joe went as a salesman with 20 years of experience because every summer he sold some lemonade since he was 5, people would, well, at the very best pat one with “good for you, buddy, good for you.” Then again, “fake it till you make it” is known to work too, so you do you. Definitely wouldn’t judge you in this economy to employ every trick in the book. Yet, still a trick
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- ego12309 9mo ago[flagged]
- aeyes 9mo agoI have seen this from the manager side at these kinds of companies, explaining to your manager that you are quitting because your level does not match your work is a waste of energy. Their hands are usually tied. Promotion decisions are made by committees which are 1-2 levels above your manager, your manager presents the candidates. They round up a pot of multiple teams which are discussed at once and there are usually hard quotas (like 5%) of promotions to give out to this pot of employees. These hard quotas make it impossible to "do the right thing" because even if a lot of people deserve the promotion, only x% can get it. The composition of the pot of people can easily cause the problem which is described in the blog post, for example if you have a high number of juniors or a high number of employees who joined at the same time or employees with incorrect levelling from the start. If 20%+ deserve a promotion then it simply turns into a game of luck. As a manager you try as hard as possible to get these promotions but the system of these big companies is just too rigid. Its like a pit fight instead of objectively looking at output. I have seen a lot of people leave for the same reason but I haven't seen a single change to the system in 5+ years. Next we could talk about layoff mechanics, its equally disturbing.
- zhach 9mo agoAuthor here. My manager and I discussed lengths about the capabilities they do, and it is just like this. It's not his fault at all. It's a game at the end of the day, and it's your choice whether or not you want to keep on playing
- blobbers 9mo agoDo you think retrospectively your manager may not have been as supportive of you as you had thought? You missed promo 3 times, and when you left he didn't try to counter you. Is it possible s/he might have been blocking you?
- ryandrake 9mo agoI think counter offers in general are pretty rare, especially in a bad job market. Like unicorn rare. In almost 30 years I’ve never left a company where it was even mentioned during the resignation. The company just says “Well, bye.” Like the Tombstone meme.
- sakex 9mo agoLevels in big tech are just a way to keep you motivated. You'll work harder to get a promo. In the end it doesn't matter, you'll make more money by either leaving or getting a retention offer.
- nilkn 9mo agoMultiple denied promo applications. Warm, caring language but no attempt at retention on resignation. Other companies unsure of hiring candidate even after 10+ interviews. The simplest explanation of these datapoints is simply that this person is not operating at the staff level in a way that is fairly obvious to others, yet hard to articulate in a way that this person can emotionally receive and accept. None of this means they aren’t or can’t be a highly valuable and skilled engineer. Higher levels are more about capacity for high-level responsibility and accountability in a way that makes executives feel comfortable and at ease. “Not enough impact” means that even if this person is involved in high-impact projects, executives do not ascribe the results or responsibility for those results entirely to them. While this is painful, it is not a bad thing, and it is not a disfavor. People who aren’t ready for great responsibility often underestimate the size of the gap. Watching a talented engineer get eaten alive because they were given executive-adjacent accountability that they weren’t ready for is not fun for anybody. Anyone who has operated in true staff+ or director+ roles at huge companies here knows just how brutal the step up in expectations is. It is far from trivial, and it simply isn’t for everyone.
- whymauri 9mo agoHave you worked at BigCo before? This was 1:1 my experience at a large company and within months they were asking for a +1 leveled boomerang. You can't take denied promos at face value, honestly.
- rufo 9mo ago> You can't take denied promos at face value, honestly. This was my experience as well. Maybe your manager didn't push hard enough for you at the level calibration meeting. Maybe your director didn't like the project you were on as much as the one another manager's engineers worked on, so they weren't inclined to listen to your manager push for you. Maybe the leadership team decided to hire a new ML/AI team this fiscal year, so they told the rest of the engineering org that they only have the budget for half as many promos as the year before. And these are the things I've heard about on the _low_ end of the spectrum of corporate/political bullshit. There is an argument to be made that playing the game is part of the job. Perhaps, but you still get to decide to what degree you want to play at any given company, and are allowed to leave and get a different set of rules. And even so, there will always be a lot of elements that are completely outside of your control.
- qinchencq 9mo agoThe levels are very similar to all those hierarchy used in big corporations outside of the tech. Classic selection and grooming techniques. We all get to decide if we want to play that game or not.
- ramencentral 9mo agoI worked at Google. I’ve never worked at a more soul crushing company. The bureaucracy is worse than the government. There are too many embedded multi-millionaires with 15+ years tenure that don’t give a shit and don’t even respond to buganizer tickets. If you come across a resume from anyone with more than 5 years at Google throw it away. It means they thrive in an environment where nothing gets done.
- shevy-java 9mo agoYoutube is getting problematic. I write this as someone who basically has some videos running in the background all the time, mostly just DJ music in the background. First, searching for videos sucks. Yes, the first few results can be useful, then more and more crap shows up. This just wastes my time. But, more importantly - more and more AI videos means I am being bombarded with more time wasters. I have about zero interest in AI videos; I am not saying 100% of it is crap, but I am getting more and more tired wasting any time in this regard here. Then the addiction by Google to have us watch ads - they killed ublock origin too on chrome. Even aside from this, I am noticing a drop of quality lately; many of the channels seem much more boring. I guess this kind of fatigue kicks in over time in general, but it seems to me as if some youtube "content creators" are running out of real ideas. They seem to be desperately addicted to "get the likes" and "get subscribers". I stopped being logged in to youtube years ago already and I also, oddly enough, want to completely decouple myself from Google too (too much Evil in this company now) - youtube is unfortunately something I still need and use right now, but many things suck more and more. Also that "swipe shorts down" - that activity is IMO a mental problem. After some 30 swipe downs, I ask myself why I am doing this. Google tries to want to commit me to this swipe action. It is like psychological manipulation. Click click drag drag click click click.
- cons0le 9mo agoSet up jellyfin and tube archivist - I can't stand buffering
- nyjah 9mo agoI’m a YouTube premium subscriber. Just yesterday I found myself opening a private window to watch a video with ads, rather than letting the algorithm know I was watching the video on my account. Even if I remove the video from my watch history, YouTube can’t help itself. You make a great point on stale content and the overall enshittification is becoming intolerable.
- the_af 9mo agoWow. In my case the YT recommendations system works very well, only suggesting things similar to what I've already watched and liked. I would never use YouTube in incognito mode or logged out... it's positively garish and loud with garbage.
- nubg 9mo agoI'm sorry, but why did the author not mark this post as AI generated? It's clear from many different phrasings that this was written with an LLM. And no, I won't point out any particular spot, but I'm sure my fellow commenters will know what I am talking about. I acknowledge that the author (probably) had indeed experienced the things described (at least most of them, as LLMs often like to add details here and there), and it was fine in terms of being interesting, but I feel offended when people try to pass of text formulated by an LLM (even if they put in a bulletpoint draft) without disclosure that it's been written by an LLM. Can the author please share the prompt containing the draft that he sent to the LLM? I'd much rather read that!
- MinimalAction 9mo agoThank you for saying this. I found it to be heavily assisted by LLM too and commented as well. I ended up receiving too many downvotes though.
- zhach 9mo agoAuthor here. I'm touched by whoever posted this here. I hope people can read this and feel empowered to value themselves and try to make the impact they feel like they can. Happy holidays everyone! ♥
- codingrightnow 9mo agoWhen I read about the culture at Google, and similarly YouTube, I am constantly reminded of how (and probably why) their products have stagnated/gotten worse over time despite having top engineers. I believe Google has the talent to build anything in their wildest dreams. So why do their products suck? YouTube sucks from the user POV, Google classroom sucks, the user experience in their office suite leaves a tremendous amount to be desired for even a basic user like me, Android never improves, their voice recognition and assistant are trash. There's so much room for competition, I wonder where it is? What are they spending their money and talent on (besides AI)? I feel like it must primarily be on reliability, speed, and delivering more ads.
- the_af 9mo ago> If a company requires 13 people to sign off on a hire, it suggests they operate on a consensus-based model that stifles autonomy [...] the companies with 5 to 8 rounds had the clearest internal culture Wow. 5 already feels like too many to me. 3 would be closer to ideal, counting the initial screening. 8 is positively too many; 13 is hellish. It's very depressing when we start accepting 5 as the new normal.
- squirrellous 9mo agoGoogle is a somewhat widely known place where promo is a huge problem, but the problem isn’t particular to Google. Generally companies will require you to repeatedly “prove” you are worth the additional compensation before agreeing to it. The friction varies, but the structural incentives are always there. Therefore if the goal is to maximize earnings, and assuming you are a high performer, it’s in your best interest to job hop once in a while. To not play this made-up game, you either decide to stop caring about compensation, or be your own boss. Of course these are not always realistic depending on one’s life situation.
- immibis 9mo agoMy new job title says "senior". It means nothing within the company except a 5% pay bracket or something, but I don't have to tell the next company that. I understand this is the mechanism by which titles result in money.
- lotsofpulp 9mo agoI would assume title inflation is a widely known phenomenon.
- throwaway2037 9mo agoI think this pattern of "under promotion" is probably common is all highly competitive industries with large wealth corps. Think: Investment banking ("high finance"), oil & gas, big tech, law firms, consulting, etc. When I think about the sheer number of insanely talented people trying to get in, it conjures the World War Z image of zombies trying to get over the walls. With some perspective in my industry, I constantly remind myself: There are many, many more people outside my office that can do my job -- probably better than me. I need to constantly remind my employer why I am good. (Yes, it is exhausting.)
- anal_reactor 9mo agoThere's a third way. Think about maximizing salary to effort ratio instead of total salary. It might be the case that lower position has better ratio. Quiet quitting where people do bare minimum not to get fired is essentially this theory put into practice. You want to avoid a situation where you're rich but too stressed out to do anything with that money.
- neilv 9mo ago> The strain comes from context switching. From 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, I had to care deeply about our quarterly goals and production stability. Then, from 6:00 PM to midnight, I had to care about inverting binary trees and system architecture design. We really need to stop the tech interview nonsense. Here is an experienced, practicing software engineer, who can't get a job without drilling for and performing frat hazing rituals.
- raw_anon_1111 9mo agoSo exactly what kind of interviews do you suggest that a company do at scale to hire people who will make $300K+ a year? Just talk them?
- stack_framer 9mo agoWhy not? People can't fake their way through a deeply technical, probing, 2-hour conversation. You'd be amazed just how much you can learn about someone's actual skills and experience (or lack thereof) through long-form discussion. I think we don't truly talk enough in our currently broken interview process.
- sokoloff 9mo agoNow imagine there are 1000 people who are capable of submitting an application that appears to match the job description. Do you have a way to help either winnow out the 750 worst or (better) identify the 50 best of the lot to start to engage in these 2-hour deeply technical discussions?
- raw_anon_1111 9mo agoFunny enough, I got into my one only and hopefully last BigTech company without a single coding interview even though my job description required me to know how to code. It was all behavioral. It was for a cloud application architect position at AWS ProServe (yes direct hire with the standard 4 year structure between base + bonus + RSUs). My current job was also behavioral where I am a staff architect at a 3rd party company and it does require coding. As an interviewer, I also only do behavioral interviews. But let’s be realistic, it doesn’t take much to be a competent enterprise dev or even an enterprise architect. The type of hard problems that BigTech has to solve is completely different. While I would never have trusted any developer I ever met at AWS within 100 feet of a customer, they also shouldn’t let me within 100 feet of the code that runs any of the AWS services. Even at my medium size consulting company we have a 0.4% application/offer rate. Can you imagine what it is at BigTech? How do you filter just by talking to someone?
- NetOpWibby 9mo agoI'm in a similar situation but I also have a direct report who is clearly displeased at the lack of leveling available to us. All I can do is empathize with them. Anyone have ideas on how to improve morale when decisions are out of your control?
- neilv 9mo ago> Gemini made - “Telling my manager I’m quitting and both of us are upset about it" I bet this AI slop image is actually leaning more towards photos of a counselor at a hospital or clinic. Because it has several things that not only don't make sense for the prompted situation, but also suggest terrible HR for a company big enough to have ID lanyards. A generic corporate stock photo would have a better chance of being appropriate.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- venturecruelty 9mo agoIs this why YouTube kinda sucks now?
- BLKNSLVR 9mo agoThis is an interesting contrast to the "don't become the machine" article. The mouse wheel this guy has been running in, both working for YouTube and preparing for interviews to work elsewhere, just sounds like an intentionally created psychology-breaking torture machine designed to eat youthful enthusiasm and ambition and spit out the dried up shell once the juice has dwindled to an arbitrary low yield. Jumping from one broken hierarchy to another seemed to be the (misguided) goal. The above might be a bit harsh, my opinion hardened and my empathy evaporated somewhat reading this line "prioritize user retention metrics"
- wiseowise 9mo agoThe difference is that the guy has moderate success, while don’t become the machine is a starving student who bought into Andrew Tate instagram kool-aid bullshit. Money is a hell of a drug once you’ve tasted it.
- Lord-Jobo 9mo ago> psychology-breaking torture machine designed to eat youthful enthusiasm and ambition and spit out the dried up shell once the juice has dwindled to an arbitrary low yield. And it shows through in the product. YouTube’s website is one of the 7 Wonders of UX Feces and they are climbing the ranks at a steady rate.
- marcyb5st 9mo agoCurrently in a similar situation. Stuck at L5 and failed the L6 transition due to: "The trajectory is good, but there is not enough evidence showing that you are consistently performing at L6". It's ok. I am in Zurich and an L5 Google employee gets a ton of money so I am happy anyway. I decided that the personal sacrifice to get to L6 is not worth it and I am happy to cruise along for as long as they let me
- qweiopqweiop 9mo agoYes, you're out earning most SWEs, certainly almost all in Europe. Congrats. I'd be optimizing for a lack of stress and working on interesting things, but also my personal life to bring progression and accomplishment.
- bambax 9mo ago> Your level dictates your salary, your stock grants, and most importantly, the scope of problems you are allowed to solve. I found myself in a situation common to many engineers at large organizations. I was operating at a “Senior” or “Staff" level (...) but my official title and compensation were stuck at just above junior level. This has to mean that the "level" does not, in fact, "dictate the scope of problems one is allowed to solve", but only the money part. It's certainly legitimate to want more money, esp. when you think you deserve it compared to others. But it's a little weird the article spends so much time trying to explain they want a more senior position for other reasons after having said they're already tasked with solving senior problems.
- qweiopqweiop 9mo agoTo be fair, if you're a higher level you're more likely to be tasked with problems that have a wider scope, as opposed to having to actively seek them out and balance them against day to day work.
- liampulles 9mo agoBe careful of "Being Glue" https://www.noidea.dog/glue https://www.noidea.dog/glue
- bad_username 9mo ago> If you're a white or Asian dude, everyone assumes you're good at coding, just by default. You could have graduated yesterday with a degree in law, and people assume you can code Close tab
- qweiopqweiop 9mo agoOptimising YouTube viewing time is a terrible goal to devote your life to in my opinion. I'm not sure if OP ever thought too deeply about what he was working on, but addicting people to a screen is not one I consider a value to society.
- kassner 9mo agoI can’t wrap my mind around those goals, because (IMHO) the number one thing that would improve viewership is entirety outside of YouTube’s hand: content quality. So the author can only ever move needles that are thrice removed (i.e.: improving backend tools -> creators have more time -> creators create better content) or are statistical coincidences (we made the buttons round -> viewership went up 0.2%).
- qweiopqweiop 9mo agoThe time spend in the app can be heavily gamed. Better algorithmic recommendations, pushing addictive features like shorts.
- oscarcp 9mo agoI'm writing this without reading the comments first but oh boy, I wanted to punch a stone wall while I was reading this. I don't tolerate any company that has more than 3 interviews for a position, it's an automatic "no, sorry, I have better things to do with my life", and I tried, believe me, Red Hat had 6, Creative Assembly burnt me with 2 personal and 3 technical, all on-site on different dates (edit for peace of mind: these interviews were 13 years ago, it's fine...) Maybe it's my own personal working culture, but when I get into a company I'm not thinking about levels, growth, stock options... I go there with a salary, a position and a willingness to help in whatever I can, once I'm not needed anymore (it's usually a combination of managerial direction changes, new hires, new objectives) that's my cue to help somewhere else where I may be needed or wanted. Am I that weird? I honestly don't understand this culture of quarter finance agent, half developer, quarter manager aspirant :/
- 4dregress 9mo agoI learnt a long time ago that there is no such thing as loyalty with regards to work and that if you want to get the most compensation for what you do you need keep moving until you find the place where you happy with the compensation and equally the culture. However things will change, either at home or at work so you need to balance those out. When I started out I had this misplaced sense of loyalty to my first job I liked and it really held me back, they paid really low wages but for some reason I felt lucky to work there. I changed my mindset and realised I’m selling my time to them so I might as well get the best return on my time in both compensation and enjoyment. The bottom line is you don’t have to except poor pay, bad culture and boring work. You’re in control of your life. EDIT Also don’t be scared to ask for a pay rise or bonus. I make a point of doing it at each review and I check its progress in most one to ones. At the end of the day its your responsibility to get paid, you’re employer not matter how good they are us always going to try and save on opex, do you need to take ownership and make sure you’re getting paid what makes you happy.
- codingbbq 9mo agoIt really sucks to feel so undervalued. I have been working with WITCH company and the entire promotion leveling is based on favoritism. With this 90 days of Notice Period, it is nearly impossible to get through even first round of interview. Every day is a struggle to prove yourself to the handicapped managers and self doubt whether you are even worth something to leave this job and try something else. 10 years and each day is a painful struggle.
- No_Firefighter 9mo agoThe most annoying thing in this world is the titles specially in tech industry.
- markerz 9mo ago> From a critical perspective, this signals organizational dysfunction. If a company requires 13 people to sign off on a hire, it… implies a fear of making mistakes… The company with 13 rounds was fishing for a reason to say "no” I realized this at my current job. The decisive interview decision and feedback impressed me. Once on the inside, I could see how the “bias for action” and push for decisiveness permeated the whole company. PRs get approved timely. Meetings push for a conclusion. When someone complains about being stuck, neighbors will offer advice or even a helping hand. I’m so much more productive here than anywhere previously, and I owe it to the culture. They WANT people to succeed. But success comes with risk of failure, so the culture needs to accommodate some failure to allow people to safely take risks. I’m my interview, I misunderstood the question and presented a solution. The interviewer tried to correct me but I didn’t understand what my mistake was. They encouraged me to just go for it. I eventually realized what they meant, I corrected myself and all of it was a stronger yes signal for them. I push forward, see mistakes, pivot fast, and iterate quickly on feedback. Interviewers are often unsupportive or looking for a reason to say no. It screams that they’re not really “desparate to hire” and in-fact, may be difficult to work with.
- motbus3 9mo agoWhat matters is being (1) happy with your job (2) having an excellent life-work balance and (3) fair or better compensation. The rest is just fuel to the ego and it means nothing. If you want to drive projects, do it at your own free time. You are just a liability to the investors and that's why everyone actually wants AI
- yesitcan 9mo agoSo did the author ever achieve the job change? It doesn’t come to that conclusion.
- braza 9mo agoI used to related with what the OP says and if he’s under 35 makes sense to jump to another adventure. Anyways, a friend of mine told me the complete opposite than the OP after not being selected to a promotion 2x: He stayed competitive enough to the market in case of any issue, but at the same time he slightly moving to the “Dead Sea” existence where the tenure created a small co-dependence between himself and its employer. His employer knows that he’s working at a discount in comparison to offshoring his job, but at the same time even being a L4 like can enjoy a lot of free time and agency to know when and where to throttle his productivity.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- CommenterPerson 9mo agoTo the author: was there an open process to move to another role within your previous company? That could be another path to finding a better environment where one could grow in salary and responsibility?
- eviks 9mo ago> Hunting for a job is a full-time occupation. Doing so while maintaining high performance at a demanding job like YouTube is a recipe for cognitive fracture. You don't need to maintain it that high, just enough not to get fired within the expected time to find a new one? > From a critical perspective, this signals organizational dysfunction. Indeed, but since you understand it, you also don't have to waste your time 13 times?
- wrxd 9mo ago> From 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, I had to care deeply about our quarterly goals and production stability He didn’t have to care that deeply. Alphabet expected from him L4 work. He got paid as a L4. It’s just fair that he also delivered L4 work and spent his effort on something more useful
- einpoklum 9mo agoGoogle is a company which spies on its users, and manipulates search results and recommendations against user interests to further external and internal-corporate interests. This manipulation happens specifically on YouTube. On that platform it also executed the "adpocalypse" in 2017, and other measures. The intrepid author, however, has not a word to say about any of that. "I just work(ed) here" is the implicit statement. He's preoccupied with his leveling and his personal advancement. Is that typical of Google software engineers? I wonder.
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