5 ms·

It may be entertaining to read internal laundry gripes about a company. But trashing your employer on the way out the door is bad form.

• TJensen 18y ago
  I didn't get "trashing". I got frustration and cultural mis-match. If I were looking to hire the guy, I'd appreciate the insight into the culture he would fit in. If I were at Google, I would know that there is no way he should come back. In major culture mis-matches, both parties know there is no returning anyway. I've had that experience, and I know I can never return.
• jimbokun 18y ago
  This doesn't seem so much a trashing to me, as pointing out a poor fit. In other words, if other companies with an approach to design similar to Google's don't want to hire him in the future, that's probably fine with him.
  • jsrfded 18y ago
    Trashing may be too strong a word, granted. But it's making public unflattering internal details about a company that employed him. I would be personally irritated if I was this guy's manager. Coming across material like that when researching someone for a job would probably be a no-hire flag for me - and many others. I'm sure he's a great designer, but does a post like that expand or limit the number of future gigs he might get? You could say "he wouldn't want to work at places like that anyway", but I'd rather have that decision left to me rather than a lack of response when I'm looking for work. Offering this in the spirit of advice. I've been hiring people in the valley for 10+ years. I used dejanews to screen applicants prior to google... today yes we will read your tweets, find your blog, and skim it all to get a sense of who you are. Be thoughtful about what you post.
    • anatoli 18y ago
      This sounds like you have no clue of who the guy is. I don't think there's a single company or start-up that wouldn't hire him. You're talking about a guy who talks at numerous conferences every year (or at least did), who designed Blogger templates before being employed by Google, who designed Webmonkey, Wired, etc. (http://stopdesign.com/about http://stopdesign.com/about) Besides, he was simply pointing out that this was a complete mismatch for him and I can understand his "frustration", given the fact that he was supposed to be a UI Lead at Google. He wasn't hired to be some low-level pixel pusher.
    • jrockway 18y ago
      I would be personally irritated if I was this guy's manager. Who cares about some middle manager's opinion? Offering this in the spirit of advice. I've been hiring people in the valley for 10+ years. I used dejanews to screen applicants prior to google... today yes we will read your tweets, find your blog, and skim it all to get a sense of who you are. Be thoughtful about what you post. It sounds like you are looking for people who will shut up and churn out mediocre code for 8 hours a day. There's certainly a market for that, but I doubt the author of this article is interested. If I write a blog post about how much I hate cleaning up toxic waste, that will limit my opportunities for employment cleaning up toxic waste. But who cares, I would never do that anyway.
      • jsrfded 18y ago
        It's bad form to diss your employer, current or former, in public. Even more so for a senior guy like that. He's leaving one hot company to go work at another - he can talk about the great opportunity at Twitter. He doesn't need to gripe about the job he's leaving. His post spawned a bunch of mildly unfavorable press, which is currently #1 on Techmeme. Bad form.
        • jrockway 18y ago
          Bad form. You keep saying this. Perhaps you'd like to explain why.
          • raganwald 18y ago
            Paul Graham once wrote that "unprofessional" was the null criticism. It says nothing other than expresses your distaste. I wonder if "bad form" is the same thing, spoken with a slightly English Public School accent?
• adamhowell 18y ago
  I'm 99% certain he's moving on to Twitter, plus he had a very successful freelance career b/f Google, so I see it less as "trashing" and more as freedom to be honest.