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One thing that really turns me off is when people talk really negatively about former employees. I met a CTO of a company in Toronto who told me how his predec

by morgo 11y ago

One thing that really turns me off is when people talk really negatively about former employees. I met a CTO of a company in Toronto who told me how his predecessor had set up MySQL all wrong. I pressed him for details, and it was not setup any differently to how I would have. This was not in the context of an interview, but it left a very lasting negative impression.

michaelochurch 11y ago
I agree completely. Bitterness or negativity toward people who leave for normal reasons is a common sign of a bad company. Also, when people speak negatively of the person who's in some way my predecessor in a role, I tend to wonder if they're going to say the same things about me in the future.
- scruple 11y ago
  I went through this recently and was very put off by it. A team member left for a (dramatically better paying) position elsewhere. The day after that team member left, our manager was making it very clear that they had left us to work on something trivial (and maybe they did, but it's no one else's business) while we were left behind working on Things That Really Matter (medical devices). It wasn't the first time that a Senior Manager at this place was trying to convince the team that "...what we do is making a difference."
saalweachter 11y ago
One of the things I eventually realized was that -- maybe not for everyone, for all programs, but certainly for a lot of people -- the programs we write are very incomplete. There's a portion that we write down, that the machine runs, and then there's a portion that's only in our head. When you've got both portions, everything is awesome. I'd worth with a guy for years, and never had a problem with them. If I was working with some code they wrote and didn't get what was going on, I'd ask them, they'd explain, it'd make sense, and everything would be fine. Then they'd leave, and I'd no longer have access to the portion of the program in their head, and the code they'd left behind would become worthless crap. The structuring was all wrong, the choice of variable names idiotic, the corner cases they handled seemed trivial and the ones left unhandled, crucial. Maybe there's something wrong with everyone I used to work with (as I tended to think the first time or two this happened), maybe if we were better and writing documentation this wouldn't happen. But it is very, very easy to be given a codebase from a former employee -- a perfectly fine codebase written by a perfectly competent employee -- and conclude they are an idiot, because you're missing the portion that's in their head.
- witten 11y ago
  So absolutely true. But I think the best programmers strive to minimize the portion of the program that resides in their heads, and maximize the ease with which it can be recreated in someone else's.
- shoo 11y ago
  See Peter Naur's essay "programming as theory building". link:http://www.dc.uba.ar/materias/plp/cursos/material/programmingAsTheoryBuilding http://www.dc.uba.ar/materias/plp/cursos/material/programmin...
- bandushrew 11y ago
  That is a really insightful comment, thanks.
rcurry 11y ago
I consider it a major red flag if a potential employer starts trashing former employees. Any employer who trashes a former employee to you, will trash you to the next guy who comes along.
- Gibbon1 11y ago
  This is good dating advice too. First comment about employers treating a coworker badly. It's a good general rule, if someone does something nasty to someone else, stick around and they'll do it to you too.

by morgo 11y ago

michaelochurch 11y ago

I agree completely. Bitterness or negativity toward people who leave for normal reasons is a common sign of a bad company. Also, when people speak negatively of the person who's in some way my predecessor in a role, I tend to wonder if they're going to say the same things about me in the future.

scruple 11y ago
I went through this recently and was very put off by it. A team member left for a (dramatically better paying) position elsewhere. The day after that team member left, our manager was making it very clear that they had left us to work on something trivial (and maybe they did, but it's no one else's business) while we were left behind working on Things That Really Matter (medical devices). It wasn't the first time that a Senior Manager at this place was trying to convince the team that "...what we do is making a difference."

saalweachter 11y ago

One of the things I eventually realized was that -- maybe not for everyone, for all programs, but certainly for a lot of people -- the programs we write are very incomplete. There's a portion that we write down, that the machine runs, and then there's a portion that's only in our head. When you've got both portions, everything is awesome. I'd worth with a guy for years, and never had a problem with them. If I was working with some code they wrote and didn't get what was going on, I'd ask them, they'd explain, it'd make sense, and everything would be fine. Then they'd leave, and I'd no longer have access to the portion of the program in their head, and the code they'd left behind would become worthless crap. The structuring was all wrong, the choice of variable names idiotic, the corner cases they handled seemed trivial and the ones left unhandled, crucial. Maybe there's something wrong with everyone I used to work with (as I tended to think the first time or two this happened), maybe if we were better and writing documentation this wouldn't happen. But it is very, very easy to be given a codebase from a former employee -- a perfectly fine codebase written by a perfectly competent employee -- and conclude they are an idiot, because you're missing the portion that's in their head.

witten 11y ago
So absolutely true. But I think the best programmers strive to minimize the portion of the program that resides in their heads, and maximize the ease with which it can be recreated in someone else's.
shoo 11y ago
See Peter Naur's essay "programming as theory building". link:http://www.dc.uba.ar/materias/plp/cursos/material/programmingAsTheoryBuilding http://www.dc.uba.ar/materias/plp/cursos/material/programmin...
bandushrew 11y ago
That is a really insightful comment, thanks.

rcurry 11y ago

I consider it a major red flag if a potential employer starts trashing former employees. Any employer who trashes a former employee to you, will trash you to the next guy who comes along.

Gibbon1 11y ago
This is good dating advice too. First comment about employers treating a coworker badly. It's a good general rule, if someone does something nasty to someone else, stick around and they'll do it to you too.