4 ms·

The thing about this story that strikes me is that it's impossible to know if this rejection was because of any objective quality that would have prevented you

The thing about this story that strikes me is that it's impossible to know if this rejection was because of any objective quality that would have prevented you from being a good Facebook employee, or whether it was just politics. Even for the players themselves I don't think anyone can say for sure. Even though Facebook has a reputation for a strong, engineer-driven culture, the fact is that at a certain size the politics are complicated. It's not a question of whether you have to play politics or not, but rather what do the politics look like? This is why I like working for startups, there just isn't any room for politics, and you can sink or swim based on highly visible contributions. Even though Facebook makes the claim that as an engineer you are responsible for the experiences of X million users, in practice that's not how it works. Good luck in your new job.

calinet6 13y ago
Even if it's "just politics"—politics is what prevents companies from thriving. It's a sign of poor management, poor culture, and poor understanding of human psychology. In two words: screw that.
- dasil003 13y ago
  My point is that politics are endemic to large organizations. You can't have no politics, you can only have different forms of politics.
  - calinet6 13y ago
    Almost by definition, yes, I believe you're right. You need some sort of organization with large numbers of people, and politics are just the part that self-organizes. I think the negative aspects can be controlled better than they are in most large organizations. But most large organizations don't focus on that, to their detriment.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    Politics are endemic to all organizations, and the larger an organization becomes, the more it loses the ability to keep politics from interfering with an employee's work and abilities to do that work. Workplace politics are a kind of professional corruption, and this corruption easily hides behind headcount.
  - marssaxman 13y ago
    Sounds like an excellent reason to avoid large organizations.

calinet6 13y ago

Even if it's "just politics"—politics is what prevents companies from thriving. It's a sign of poor management, poor culture, and poor understanding of human psychology. In two words: screw that.

dasil003 13y ago
My point is that politics are endemic to large organizations. You can't have no politics, you can only have different forms of politics.
- calinet6 13y ago
  Almost by definition, yes, I believe you're right. You need some sort of organization with large numbers of people, and politics are just the part that self-organizes. I think the negative aspects can be controlled better than they are in most large organizations. But most large organizations don't focus on that, to their detriment.
- rhizome 13y ago
  Politics are endemic to all organizations, and the larger an organization becomes, the more it loses the ability to keep politics from interfering with an employee's work and abilities to do that work. Workplace politics are a kind of professional corruption, and this corruption easily hides behind headcount.
- marssaxman 13y ago
  Sounds like an excellent reason to avoid large organizations.