5 ms·

it is nothing like a "slave driver" environment. People are extremely smart and focused on building cool things fast - top to bottom.

vaksel 17y ago
oh please, it's facebook, not Google, their "cool" projects involve translating the site into pirate and latin languages. + with ~1000 employees, chances are you as a programmer are most likely doing mundane crap. The "extremely smart and focused" people don't take well to having to do bullshit projects.
- ivankirigin 17y ago
  you have no idea what you're talking about
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
- sachinag 17y ago
  Um, you know ivankirigin works at Facebook, right?
  - vaksel 17y ago
    someone whose company was acquired in order to get them into Facebook, will most likely have a different experience and quality of projects, than the average drone. + he's been there what...a month? he is still biased by the honeymoon phase.
    - wheels 17y ago
      Tipjoy wasn't actually acquired -- they hired Ivan, though there may have been a little extra on the table: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/22/facebook-hires-tipjoy-co-founder-ivan-kirigan-after-backing-away-from-a-full-acquisition/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/22/facebook-hires-tipjoy-c...
      - ivankirigin 17y ago
        There wasn't anything extra. That story if full of shit.
        wheels 17y ago
        To be clear, I didn't mean any foul-play. Quite the contrary. I remember reading that it was chill in the HN comments and don't think I'd bothered to read the original article. Basically I thought you might have gotten a better than average contract there as a devel since you had a background doing cool stuff and was clarifying that Tipjoy wasn't actually acquired.
        ivankirigin 17y ago
        No problem, I just wanted to clarify.
- zandorg 17y ago
  You've been Annie Hall / Marshall McLuhan'd! [Edit for obscure reference: In film Annie Hall, someone criticises Marshall McLuhan in a line at the cinema, and he pops out from nowhere and says 'You know nothing of my work'. It's quite a famous scene.]
- notaddicted 17y ago
  With the number of users facebook has, there is no room for shoveling crap in the business model. Everything has to be done efficiently and with focus. The cool projects (according to me anyway) are dealing with the scale and the constant evolution of the site.
- unalone 17y ago
  There's a lot wrong with this statement, so I'll address the thing that sounds the least wrong. Have you seen how in-depth the translations on Facebook are? I used Facebook Pirate for three or four months because I was so delighted at how many variable phrases they introduced regarding every small item on the page. It was as thorough a translation as I've ever seen online. (As an unrelated aside, Facebook supports the Konami code, which makes it the most mainstream geek site on the planet, and their Konami code triggers something wholly unexpected and hilarious.) I don't know Facebook's employee breakdown, but remember that Facebook offers multiple products, each of which is a fairly complex offering. I can see their Photo app being worthy of a large interesting team; ditto Events, Notes, Video, their link sharing, their search (and doing search for Facebook sounds much more interesting than doing search for Google, because you get to play with so many concrete variables), their public pages offering, their iPhone application, and who knows what else they're cooking up. They've also got a unique graphic style that I'm sure a handful of people work on, and there's the usual stuff of marketing and advertising that's fun no matter where it is. It doesn't seem completely insane to me that working for Facebook might be really fun, even as a grunt. Unlike Google, which always sounds like working there is 90% backend, Facebook has a lot of stuff that's immediately noticed by its users. It's one of the few big companies that I'd actively like to work for after graduation.
- gaius 17y ago
  Whereas Google's "cool" projects involve, umm, finding new things to insert ads into. With 20,000 engineers now, Google is as "cool" as HP or IBM.
  - treyp 17y ago
    i think you mean 20,000 employees, not engineers.
- dschobel 17y ago
  I can imagine infrastructure alone would be a lifetime of awesome projects at FB.
  - borism 17y ago
    or maybe... more like lifetime of a nightmare
- physcab 17y ago
  Hive is a pretty sweet project and also super useful.
- lacker 17y ago
  Hey, Google is also translated into pirate and latin! http://www.google.com/intl/xx-pirate/ http://www.google.com/intl/xx-pirate/ http://www.google.com/intl/la/ http://www.google.com/intl/la/ We have Klingon too - http://www.google.com/intl/xx-klingon/ http://www.google.com/intl/xx-klingon/

vaksel 17y ago

oh please, it's facebook, not Google, their "cool" projects involve translating the site into pirate and latin languages. + with ~1000 employees, chances are you as a programmer are most likely doing mundane crap. The "extremely smart and focused" people don't take well to having to do bullshit projects.

ivankirigin 17y ago
you have no idea what you're talking about
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
sachinag 17y ago
Um, you know ivankirigin works at Facebook, right?
- vaksel 17y ago
  someone whose company was acquired in order to get them into Facebook, will most likely have a different experience and quality of projects, than the average drone. + he's been there what...a month? he is still biased by the honeymoon phase.
  - wheels 17y ago
    Tipjoy wasn't actually acquired -- they hired Ivan, though there may have been a little extra on the table: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/22/facebook-hires-tipjoy-co-founder-ivan-kirigan-after-backing-away-from-a-full-acquisition/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/22/facebook-hires-tipjoy-c...
    - ivankirigin 17y ago
      There wasn't anything extra. That story if full of shit.
      - wheels 17y ago
        To be clear, I didn't mean any foul-play. Quite the contrary. I remember reading that it was chill in the HN comments and don't think I'd bothered to read the original article. Basically I thought you might have gotten a better than average contract there as a devel since you had a background doing cool stuff and was clarifying that Tipjoy wasn't actually acquired.
        ivankirigin 17y ago
        No problem, I just wanted to clarify.
zandorg 17y ago
You've been Annie Hall / Marshall McLuhan'd! [Edit for obscure reference: In film Annie Hall, someone criticises Marshall McLuhan in a line at the cinema, and he pops out from nowhere and says 'You know nothing of my work'. It's quite a famous scene.]
notaddicted 17y ago
With the number of users facebook has, there is no room for shoveling crap in the business model. Everything has to be done efficiently and with focus. The cool projects (according to me anyway) are dealing with the scale and the constant evolution of the site.
unalone 17y ago
There's a lot wrong with this statement, so I'll address the thing that sounds the least wrong. Have you seen how in-depth the translations on Facebook are? I used Facebook Pirate for three or four months because I was so delighted at how many variable phrases they introduced regarding every small item on the page. It was as thorough a translation as I've ever seen online. (As an unrelated aside, Facebook supports the Konami code, which makes it the most mainstream geek site on the planet, and their Konami code triggers something wholly unexpected and hilarious.) I don't know Facebook's employee breakdown, but remember that Facebook offers multiple products, each of which is a fairly complex offering. I can see their Photo app being worthy of a large interesting team; ditto Events, Notes, Video, their link sharing, their search (and doing search for Facebook sounds much more interesting than doing search for Google, because you get to play with so many concrete variables), their public pages offering, their iPhone application, and who knows what else they're cooking up. They've also got a unique graphic style that I'm sure a handful of people work on, and there's the usual stuff of marketing and advertising that's fun no matter where it is. It doesn't seem completely insane to me that working for Facebook might be really fun, even as a grunt. Unlike Google, which always sounds like working there is 90% backend, Facebook has a lot of stuff that's immediately noticed by its users. It's one of the few big companies that I'd actively like to work for after graduation.
gaius 17y ago
Whereas Google's "cool" projects involve, umm, finding new things to insert ads into. With 20,000 engineers now, Google is as "cool" as HP or IBM.
- treyp 17y ago
  i think you mean 20,000 employees, not engineers.
dschobel 17y ago
I can imagine infrastructure alone would be a lifetime of awesome projects at FB.
- borism 17y ago
  or maybe... more like lifetime of a nightmare
physcab 17y ago
Hive is a pretty sweet project and also super useful.
lacker 17y ago
Hey, Google is also translated into pirate and latin! http://www.google.com/intl/xx-pirate/ http://www.google.com/intl/xx-pirate/ http://www.google.com/intl/la/ http://www.google.com/intl/la/ We have Klingon too - http://www.google.com/intl/xx-klingon/ http://www.google.com/intl/xx-klingon/