14 ms·

Let's be realistic: there are many companies that won't hire you after this. The question is, are those the companies that you want to work for? It's a tough ch

Let's be realistic: there are many companies that won't hire you after this. The question is, are those the companies that you want to work for? It's a tough choice, of course. You mention that the company you worked at is popular here on Hacker News. So let's assume we are talking about Apple or Google or perhaps AirBnB. So from now on, when people look up your name, they will see something like "Testified against Apple". A lot of companies will quietly remove you from consideration, if they see that you have testified. And, sad to say, this might exclude you from a lot of the better paying jobs in the industry. All the same, you have to ask yourself, how will you feel about yourself if you don't testify? What kind of world do you want to live in? What sort of tech industry do you want to live in?

waterlesscloud 12y ago
This the truth of it. People are going to lie to you and tell you they wouldn't hold it against you. But they would.
- mistermann 12y ago
  Exactly. I think a lot of technical people are extremely naive about how corporate politics work. As we enjoy solving technical puzzles, a similar game is played by ambitious people in management at various levels, and ethics takes a seat at the back of the bus. Oh sure, they will say all the right words (if you can get them to say anything), but their actions are very different from words. And, they seem to be able to identify others who are playing by the same book, who will scratch your back if you scratch theirs. Sure, OP "should" do the right thing and testify honestly, but in the big scheme of things, it probably will make hardly a lick of difference, and it could very well have extremely negative ramifications for his career.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - v13inc 12y ago
    Do these corporite politics apply to a company the size of, say, segment.io? How about Dropbox? Apple? I have a hunch that they type of politics you encounter will vary widely based on the size of the company. Edit: scare quotes were not needed
    - mistermann 12y ago
      I would say it is probably present everywhere, but in different forms and to different degrees. My hunch is that it is most present in companies whose core business is not technology (software/hardware), but it's just a hunch.
javert 12y ago
There's got to be lots of companies that, as a policy, don't do illegal things. Especially smaller businesses that can't afford to break the law. But larger ones too. Presumably, those kinds of places just wouldn't care if you testified against a former employer who broke the law. Because it just wouldn't matter.
- varelse 12y ago
  In corporate America, companies do not do illegal things, illegal things do companies.
  - _yosefk 12y ago
    I laughed, though it doesn't quite work, and I don't quite know how to fix it. In America, companies break the law. In Soviet Russia, the law breaks companies. Or something
    - anoncoward2015 12y ago
      In America, company fixes law. In Soviet Russia, company fixes you! "Ahha, but which is better?" asks Confucius.
- poikniok 12y ago
  This to me is a silly idea, as I am confident that if you let me follow any person, or work in any company for a day, I could find laws that they are breaking. Everybody breaks laws, and nobody wants to have the passenger in their car report them for speeding 5mph over the limit.
  - Squarel 12y ago
    The OP does not seem to be testifying against a company for under declaring the amount of stationary they have though, unless that involves major law firms, and breaks state and federal law.
javert 12y ago
And to add to my other comment, I'm willing to bet that large companies that break the law in certain areas sequester those activities away. They don't put their "regular, probably honest" employees into areas that are lawbreaking.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
BurningFrog 12y ago
> A lot of companies will quietly remove you from consideration This is probably true. At the same time, some will certainly see it as a good thing and want to hire OP.
- setpatchaddress 12y ago
  That seems very unlikely. If given a choice between two candidates, equal in capabilities, where one has had some amount of public exposure in the manner described, and the other is relatively anonymous, generally the corporation is going to pick the anonymous one. There's no upside to attracting unnecessary, uncontrolled publicity. At best, they'll ignore it. It won't be a net positive unless the hiring company is some kind of issue-oriented non-profit, or the role itself is issue-oriented. Personally, there are some issues I would absolutely fall on my sword for. And there are some I certainly wouldn't. It's your own moral compass.
  - BurningFrog 12y ago
    Most people here are for OP testifying. Many people on HN make hiring decisions. Yes, you can imagine that they would see things differently when actually facing a hiring decision, but my base assumption is that most of them don't.
    - TheDong 12y ago
      Before a developer on HN gets the chance to get a say in the decision, an HR filter goes over it. Those people are more risk-averse and this is clearly a company risk.
      - ScottBurson 12y ago
        If my group wanted to hire this person and HR rejected them for this reason, I would quit.
      - late2part 12y ago
        I've worked at 4 big name tech companies. None of the HR departments could block a hire based on these sort of issues. If the applicant fails to pass a background check for issues like criminal, etc, that's different. But some intangible 'industry risk' has never been a veto power that HR gets. I'm sure there's some company out there that could do this, but I haven't seen it.
davidw 12y ago
> Let's be realistic: there are many companies that won't hire you after this Based on? This sounds important enough to warrant real data rather than our guts, whims, direction of the wind, or whatever else.
- mikekchar 12y ago
  I think there is definitely risk, but how serious that risk is depends entirely on the context. Very early on in my career, my employer sued me for breach of contract. I was working for an influential contractor but they we incredibly abusive to heir staff (as many contractors often are). I quit after 6 months and found another job (in that order). The job I found happened to be with one of their clients. I had been careful to check my original contract to make sure there wasn't a competition clause that would stop me from doing this and there wasn't. For whatever reason (nothing I said since I barely knew anyone in the company and had worked all 6 months off site), when word got out that I landed a job at one of their clients, virtually every developer jumped ship. It almost drove that influential contractor into the ground -- fortunately for them the government bailed them out. Anyway, they sued me and luckily for me my new employer sent out nazgul-like lawyers their way and the case was dropped. For many, many years after that, when I was looking for a job in that city I had to put an asterisk on my CV that said "Did not part ways amicably. Please contact me for details" -- everybody in that city knew this employer and many people had heard of the story. Possibly this hurt me for jobs, but of course I never noticed. I worked for other very prominent companies in that city with no problem at all. I have never had difficulty finding good work, so it was fine. I had one other experience (with another prominent big company) where I was ordered by a very high up executive to add code to the system that was illegal (this was a telephone system, so there are some laws about what you are allowed to do). I refused and they threatened me, but I didn't back down. I think they found someone else to do it behind my back. Again, this could have been quite risky for me, but I refuse to do anything illegal in my job and do not want to work for a people who think I should have caved. There is always work for good programmers. There are also always things that will prevent you from working with some specific companies, whether that be a bad performance on the day of your interview, bad luck about getting your CV seen by the right people at the right time, a mismatch in personalities or skills, or sometimes situations in your history. It depends on the situation, but it is far from game over to have a mark like that in your history. I no longer put an asterisk on that company on my CV. They even called me up one time to try to recruit me. I had to remind them what happened the last time I worked there. Time heals all... eventually.
pvg 12y ago
That's not realistic, that's tinfoil hat paranoid. Nobody makes key hiring decisions on that basis, for statistically significant values of 'nobody'. People with past felony convictions and thriving careers post on HN regularly.
pcthrowaway 12y ago
> You mention that the company you worked at is popular here on Hacker News. So let's assume we are talking about Apple or Google or perhaps AirBnB Or Uber
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

waterlesscloud 12y ago

This the truth of it. People are going to lie to you and tell you they wouldn't hold it against you. But they would.

mistermann 12y ago
Exactly. I think a lot of technical people are extremely naive about how corporate politics work. As we enjoy solving technical puzzles, a similar game is played by ambitious people in management at various levels, and ethics takes a seat at the back of the bus. Oh sure, they will say all the right words (if you can get them to say anything), but their actions are very different from words. And, they seem to be able to identify others who are playing by the same book, who will scratch your back if you scratch theirs. Sure, OP "should" do the right thing and testify honestly, but in the big scheme of things, it probably will make hardly a lick of difference, and it could very well have extremely negative ramifications for his career.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- v13inc 12y ago
  Do these corporite politics apply to a company the size of, say, segment.io? How about Dropbox? Apple? I have a hunch that they type of politics you encounter will vary widely based on the size of the company. Edit: scare quotes were not needed
  - mistermann 12y ago
    I would say it is probably present everywhere, but in different forms and to different degrees. My hunch is that it is most present in companies whose core business is not technology (software/hardware), but it's just a hunch.

javert 12y ago

There's got to be lots of companies that, as a policy, don't do illegal things. Especially smaller businesses that can't afford to break the law. But larger ones too. Presumably, those kinds of places just wouldn't care if you testified against a former employer who broke the law. Because it just wouldn't matter.

varelse 12y ago
In corporate America, companies do not do illegal things, illegal things do companies.
- _yosefk 12y ago
  I laughed, though it doesn't quite work, and I don't quite know how to fix it. In America, companies break the law. In Soviet Russia, the law breaks companies. Or something
  - anoncoward2015 12y ago
    In America, company fixes law. In Soviet Russia, company fixes you! "Ahha, but which is better?" asks Confucius.
poikniok 12y ago
This to me is a silly idea, as I am confident that if you let me follow any person, or work in any company for a day, I could find laws that they are breaking. Everybody breaks laws, and nobody wants to have the passenger in their car report them for speeding 5mph over the limit.
- Squarel 12y ago
  The OP does not seem to be testifying against a company for under declaring the amount of stationary they have though, unless that involves major law firms, and breaks state and federal law.

javert 12y ago

And to add to my other comment, I'm willing to bet that large companies that break the law in certain areas sequester those activities away. They don't put their "regular, probably honest" employees into areas that are lawbreaking.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

BurningFrog 12y ago

> A lot of companies will quietly remove you from consideration This is probably true. At the same time, some will certainly see it as a good thing and want to hire OP.

setpatchaddress 12y ago
That seems very unlikely. If given a choice between two candidates, equal in capabilities, where one has had some amount of public exposure in the manner described, and the other is relatively anonymous, generally the corporation is going to pick the anonymous one. There's no upside to attracting unnecessary, uncontrolled publicity. At best, they'll ignore it. It won't be a net positive unless the hiring company is some kind of issue-oriented non-profit, or the role itself is issue-oriented. Personally, there are some issues I would absolutely fall on my sword for. And there are some I certainly wouldn't. It's your own moral compass.
- BurningFrog 12y ago
  Most people here are for OP testifying. Many people on HN make hiring decisions. Yes, you can imagine that they would see things differently when actually facing a hiring decision, but my base assumption is that most of them don't.
  - TheDong 12y ago
    Before a developer on HN gets the chance to get a say in the decision, an HR filter goes over it. Those people are more risk-averse and this is clearly a company risk.
    - ScottBurson 12y ago
      If my group wanted to hire this person and HR rejected them for this reason, I would quit.
    - late2part 12y ago
      I've worked at 4 big name tech companies. None of the HR departments could block a hire based on these sort of issues. If the applicant fails to pass a background check for issues like criminal, etc, that's different. But some intangible 'industry risk' has never been a veto power that HR gets. I'm sure there's some company out there that could do this, but I haven't seen it.

davidw 12y ago

> Let's be realistic: there are many companies that won't hire you after this Based on? This sounds important enough to warrant real data rather than our guts, whims, direction of the wind, or whatever else.

mikekchar 12y ago
I think there is definitely risk, but how serious that risk is depends entirely on the context. Very early on in my career, my employer sued me for breach of contract. I was working for an influential contractor but they we incredibly abusive to heir staff (as many contractors often are). I quit after 6 months and found another job (in that order). The job I found happened to be with one of their clients. I had been careful to check my original contract to make sure there wasn't a competition clause that would stop me from doing this and there wasn't. For whatever reason (nothing I said since I barely knew anyone in the company and had worked all 6 months off site), when word got out that I landed a job at one of their clients, virtually every developer jumped ship. It almost drove that influential contractor into the ground -- fortunately for them the government bailed them out. Anyway, they sued me and luckily for me my new employer sent out nazgul-like lawyers their way and the case was dropped. For many, many years after that, when I was looking for a job in that city I had to put an asterisk on my CV that said "Did not part ways amicably. Please contact me for details" -- everybody in that city knew this employer and many people had heard of the story. Possibly this hurt me for jobs, but of course I never noticed. I worked for other very prominent companies in that city with no problem at all. I have never had difficulty finding good work, so it was fine. I had one other experience (with another prominent big company) where I was ordered by a very high up executive to add code to the system that was illegal (this was a telephone system, so there are some laws about what you are allowed to do). I refused and they threatened me, but I didn't back down. I think they found someone else to do it behind my back. Again, this could have been quite risky for me, but I refuse to do anything illegal in my job and do not want to work for a people who think I should have caved. There is always work for good programmers. There are also always things that will prevent you from working with some specific companies, whether that be a bad performance on the day of your interview, bad luck about getting your CV seen by the right people at the right time, a mismatch in personalities or skills, or sometimes situations in your history. It depends on the situation, but it is far from game over to have a mark like that in your history. I no longer put an asterisk on that company on my CV. They even called me up one time to try to recruit me. I had to remind them what happened the last time I worked there. Time heals all... eventually.

pvg 12y ago

That's not realistic, that's tinfoil hat paranoid. Nobody makes key hiring decisions on that basis, for statistically significant values of 'nobody'. People with past felony convictions and thriving careers post on HN regularly.

pcthrowaway 12y ago

> You mention that the company you worked at is popular here on Hacker News. So let's assume we are talking about Apple or Google or perhaps AirBnB Or Uber

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]