Ask HN: What is a good company for you?
21 comments
I'm very... Selfish? I suppose is the way to put it.
Beyond what's required, I don't really care about the 'vision'. I'm here to exchange effort for money.
As long as it's reasonably in my skill set/responsibility and doesn't require me to push a boundary like kicking puppies, that's the deal of the day
I care about how I feel about waking up in the morning more than anything. The people I need to work with should be decent, and I don't do well pigeonholed
Finding a place with
If my anxiety reaches a certain level or consistency, I'll look elsewhere
I'm a wizard with Linux internals yet lately find myself "the network guy", for example.
If I didn't know my current team could catch up I'd be carrying so much burden
Beyond what's required, I don't really care about the 'vision'. I'm here to exchange effort for money.
As long as it's reasonably in my skill set/responsibility and doesn't require me to push a boundary like kicking puppies, that's the deal of the day
I care about how I feel about waking up in the morning more than anything. The people I need to work with should be decent, and I don't do well pigeonholed
Finding a place with
- capable teammates
- restraint to not commit members to the first thing they are found to be good at forever
If my anxiety reaches a certain level or consistency, I'll look elsewhere
I'm a wizard with Linux internals yet lately find myself "the network guy", for example.
If I didn't know my current team could catch up I'd be carrying so much burden
What about just pushing puppies around a little? In other words how far are you willing to push your boundaries in terms of exchanging effort for money?
It's tough to say, the most resilient answer is 'it depends'. Playfully pushing, absolutely! Off a cliff? No way
There are some guidelines, I'd like to say I wouldn't break the law... but even that's not very solid.
Say a boss wanted me to J-walk, I'd do that -- but I wouldn't participate in fraud.
Tough to draw firm/lasting lines, it's an ongoing consideration. I use the word 'no' a lot -- it doesn't hurt
edit: One thing that helps with this instead of stopping at 'no' is continuing with, 'instead...'
Elaborating on what I'd prefer to do instead, either for moral/legal/administrative fatigue/whatever reasons
There are some guidelines, I'd like to say I wouldn't break the law... but even that's not very solid.
Say a boss wanted me to J-walk, I'd do that -- but I wouldn't participate in fraud.
Tough to draw firm/lasting lines, it's an ongoing consideration. I use the word 'no' a lot -- it doesn't hurt
edit: One thing that helps with this instead of stopping at 'no' is continuing with, 'instead...'
Elaborating on what I'd prefer to do instead, either for moral/legal/administrative fatigue/whatever reasons
having capable teammates decreases a lot how much effort you need, it's something that I highly recommend
Certainly! I was deliberate with capable too. I don't want us all to know the same things, but I'm teachable and expect it of others
A company that affords me autonomy in finding satisfaction in my work. By this I mean don’t tell me how to work, tell me what the goals are and let’s collaborate on a solution. I am not interested in attaching my satisfaction to inputs and outputs that I have little control over, if I have no control over them I lose control of my happiness/satisfaction. Finding satisfaction in the company mission is a classic trap for this. I have found this autonomy in both small and large companies, it isn’t only possible at startups.
Great question. For me, to be a great company it must have a combo of traits: a mission I'm bought into, a team that compliment each other, and great work-life balance.
My personal top priority is no Jira or other project management software, no standups, no sprints.
Not because these are annoyances in the sense of feeling like I have an Office Space job.
It's because I have a certain psychology of how I work where I thrive and overperform when I feel I have space. I lose engagement and shut down when I feel micro-observed, -managed, -scheduled. I admittedly have a much more sensitive threshold than most people for feeling discomfort from these, and need more space to thrive. But it's who I am. I can't help that it makes a world of difference to my performance and engagement. I've tried to adjust, it doesn't work.
I love my job when it involves the process of fluidly deciding what to do on a given day, balancing fires, deadlines, maintenance, new functionality, ideas I woke up with, etc. And also I'll choose how to communicate rather than fill out rote status reports or go to rote meetings. I enjoy communicating when it's at its natural cadence and level rather than driven by process.
I shut down when I have to represent tasks or resolve them with project management metadata and process.
It's not that slowing down annoys me, it takes away a kind of agency that's necessary for me to have. When I don't have it, my job is a stressful thing that I only do for the paycheck. I can't over perform in that headspace and then it starts a spiral where doing average work makes me feel bad about my career and myself.
I also don't understand how people feel true ownership of systems when their work is carved up in tickets and sprint boundaries. I see so many things falling through the cracks because people do the minimum that Jira tells them to do. Or some common sense important change doesn't get made because it's no one's job to do what needs to be done to keep something working well, only to respond to tickets.
Maybe not everyone can be expected to perform well with full trust of ownership, maybe most can't, but others can only perform well that way. The most important development of my career has been learning my own personal psychology of work.
It's a tragedy that we expect everyone to work and communicate in the same set of processes rather than optimize based on the diversity of individual psychology. And I get that this is high maintenance and not scalable for a huge org. But these days even small companies have the cargo cult behavior of adopting the process they see at large companies.
Not because these are annoyances in the sense of feeling like I have an Office Space job.
It's because I have a certain psychology of how I work where I thrive and overperform when I feel I have space. I lose engagement and shut down when I feel micro-observed, -managed, -scheduled. I admittedly have a much more sensitive threshold than most people for feeling discomfort from these, and need more space to thrive. But it's who I am. I can't help that it makes a world of difference to my performance and engagement. I've tried to adjust, it doesn't work.
I love my job when it involves the process of fluidly deciding what to do on a given day, balancing fires, deadlines, maintenance, new functionality, ideas I woke up with, etc. And also I'll choose how to communicate rather than fill out rote status reports or go to rote meetings. I enjoy communicating when it's at its natural cadence and level rather than driven by process.
I shut down when I have to represent tasks or resolve them with project management metadata and process.
It's not that slowing down annoys me, it takes away a kind of agency that's necessary for me to have. When I don't have it, my job is a stressful thing that I only do for the paycheck. I can't over perform in that headspace and then it starts a spiral where doing average work makes me feel bad about my career and myself.
I also don't understand how people feel true ownership of systems when their work is carved up in tickets and sprint boundaries. I see so many things falling through the cracks because people do the minimum that Jira tells them to do. Or some common sense important change doesn't get made because it's no one's job to do what needs to be done to keep something working well, only to respond to tickets.
Maybe not everyone can be expected to perform well with full trust of ownership, maybe most can't, but others can only perform well that way. The most important development of my career has been learning my own personal psychology of work.
It's a tragedy that we expect everyone to work and communicate in the same set of processes rather than optimize based on the diversity of individual psychology. And I get that this is high maintenance and not scalable for a huge org. But these days even small companies have the cargo cult behavior of adopting the process they see at large companies.
I think a good work/life balance, a decent salary and benefits (I'm in the U.S. so healthcare is important but not cheap), and maybe a somewhat decent mission...but that mission need not be some granidose vision either. It can be a humble little goal (or sets og goals) that the company wants to achieve. Sure, ideally it would be good for achieving those goals to help hu7manity at large, but that's not essential either if the company isn't "corporate evil". Some might mistake what i have escribed as a sort of lifestyle business, but i actually am ok working for a company if they don't feel that they need to be the next Facebook/Meta, Google, Uber, GE, Johnson & Johnson, Chase bank, etc.
In one word: Microsoft
They put a PC on every desk, today was a slow day and I used at least a dozen flavors of Microsoft….all of them for free.
It’s also important to stress the free part, they don’t pursue piracy and just elect to recoup those losses by charging their Fortune 500 clients a bit more.
People will point out to the DOJ proceedings in 2000, but I have no sympathy for paper millionaires who didnt cash out in times of fat cows and didnt realize that software is a winner take all market. Even less sympathy for ideological people who want to impose their niche preferences over everybody else.
99% of people use computers to access informations , communicate with the world and to store/manipulate written or numerical data. Nobody makes all those 3 tasks easier than Microsoft.
They put a PC on every desk, today was a slow day and I used at least a dozen flavors of Microsoft….all of them for free.
It’s also important to stress the free part, they don’t pursue piracy and just elect to recoup those losses by charging their Fortune 500 clients a bit more.
People will point out to the DOJ proceedings in 2000, but I have no sympathy for paper millionaires who didnt cash out in times of fat cows and didnt realize that software is a winner take all market. Even less sympathy for ideological people who want to impose their niche preferences over everybody else.
99% of people use computers to access informations , communicate with the world and to store/manipulate written or numerical data. Nobody makes all those 3 tasks easier than Microsoft.
We can't see the alternative world where another company or entity ended up being at the helm of the personal computer revolution. Since you mentioned the winner take all aspect that should orient the way we think about these companies.
Ok but Linux is not a company. They don’t understand that coders are people and have a variety of interests.
They want to pursue such interests via FIRE so Linux would have never worked.
DEC and IBM could have been the ones
They want to pursue such interests via FIRE so Linux would have never worked.
DEC and IBM could have been the ones
For me personally, a corporation's ethics are huge. I permanently lose all trust and respect for the types of companies that silently and willingly complied with programs demanding blatant betrayal of customer privacy, like PRISM.
I've worked at startups and big tech companies and I am still trying to find what I consider "good". It is something that changes a lot during someone's life because one day you are single and don't have any kids, in the other you are a father and don't want to risk unstable companies.
As a naive student, I've tried to find the perfect company: good people, smart coworkers, humanized vision, challenging opportunities, career growth, etc. Today, the only thing I can guarantee is that you have to pick your poison.
As a naive student, I've tried to find the perfect company: good people, smart coworkers, humanized vision, challenging opportunities, career growth, etc. Today, the only thing I can guarantee is that you have to pick your poison.
At this point my needs to satisfy me are simple: Pay me a reasonable wage when you say you are going to pay it. Don’t make it a hassle to accomplish the task/job. Don’t ask me to manage people other than myself. Don’t ask me to travel more than 25% of the time. Most important, provide me effective and competent leadership.
I am nearing the end of my career, I could care less about changing the world through work/product, corporate activism and all that stuff.
I am nearing the end of my career, I could care less about changing the world through work/product, corporate activism and all that stuff.
All those things sound nice, but ultimately, it's going to be a company that allows me to be in a good situation with my keeping work stress low, work volume reasonable, vacation high, compensation high.
All companies end up being terrible in some way, but the biggest factor will always be what life it allows me to create for myself.
All companies end up being terrible in some way, but the biggest factor will always be what life it allows me to create for myself.
That's an interesting question. I've been meaning to write something about it for ages. Here's a brief:
People, vision and ways of working. With time, I've developed my values and principles that makes me practically unemployable if I don't turn a blind eye to some of them. Alternatively, I could start my own company.
Needless to say that it is pretty much impossible to find a place like this. Although, with some compromises on my values and principles, I consider the current company I'm working with way above average; granted, I helped shape the culture, which seems to be diluting/changing now as the compromised values are missed. The company is trending towards mediocrity in that sense.
People, vision and ways of working. With time, I've developed my values and principles that makes me practically unemployable if I don't turn a blind eye to some of them. Alternatively, I could start my own company.
* Small, empowered, and trully cross-functional team;
* Highly collaborative in ensebles;
* Unified flow with limited WIP;
* No middle-management;
* Little-to-no hierarchy;
* No titles or levels;
* Team-set salaries;
* Organic team growth;
* Test-driven;
* Trunk-based;
* Continuous delivery;
* No perverse incentives;
* …
Needless to say that it is pretty much impossible to find a place like this. Although, with some compromises on my values and principles, I consider the current company I'm working with way above average; granted, I helped shape the culture, which seems to be diluting/changing now as the compromised values are missed. The company is trending towards mediocrity in that sense.
On one hand, values could stand to change to great effect. On the other, these characteristics didn't pop out of nowhere. It's a bit like cryptocurrency today: as some have put it, a 19th century speedrun towards rediscovering the reason why banking regulations exist.
The other distinction is between companies that have this horizontal ethos AND have a profit generating golden goose (Valve, Motion Twin/Evil Empire) and those that adopt the ethos without it. This is where the real test comes in.
Personally, I would take a 32 hour/4 day workweek at full comp over all of these values put together. Except maybe team-set salaries, that would be interesting if also dangerous for some
The other distinction is between companies that have this horizontal ethos AND have a profit generating golden goose (Valve, Motion Twin/Evil Empire) and those that adopt the ethos without it. This is where the real test comes in.
Personally, I would take a 32 hour/4 day workweek at full comp over all of these values put together. Except maybe team-set salaries, that would be interesting if also dangerous for some
Any company where my job title doesn't have a number in it.
1. Top tier product and technology
2. End product is meaningful
3. Interesting technical challenges
Actual transparency, in practice. Unless it's an org focused around an open-source component, it doesn't have to be IMO GitLab's[1] level of radical _public_ transparency, but it should be at least as radical internally.
Even partial transparency was useful when everyone was worked in person, because gaps were easier to mitigate via "you didn't hear this from me, but" statements from immediate managers, or from peers in other teams, or from just the uncomfortable situation of showing up in person and asking about it directly. But working remote-first or -only, then actual, practiced transparency is an absolute requirement for me. (Which sucks, because that's very difficult to suss out from a typical tech interview process.)
I've worked with two remote companies during the pandemic that've struggled with this. It's always listed as a "company value" but sometimes comes with a fundamental misunderstanding where "transparency" is only openness - being willing and wanting to answer any questions when asked, which is also good. But actual transparency is both openness AND having the discipline and process to document everything important - good and bad, erring on the side of oversharing - and share it with everyone _without being asked_.
This requires practice, discipline, common venues and processes, and a blameless culture. It empowers every other thing I also value in a company - transparency doesn't just encourage me to talk about what I need, it requires it, and makes it communal by default. So I might feel uncomfortable being transparent about telling people what I truly, honestly, frankly want and need out of work in terms of work/life balance, pay, advancement, training, joy, space, management, teamwork, and process, but so does _everyone_, and in the end there's far less ambiguity about where I and everyone else and the company all stand on them.
I can stop worrying about the things I don't know about the company because it's all just... there. Less ambiguity means less fear, less friction, less bikeshedding. We know what we have, what we need, and where we're going. Actual internal transparency up and down the organizational ladder flattens it for the important part - the impact that any one person can have on the company - even if it isn't structurally flat for making decisions.
In a mediocre org, a win gets celebrated in a team. In a good org, a win gets celebrated across a department, maybe even by everyone in a special event. In a transparent org, every win gets celebrated by everyone. The same works in reverse - when a team member struggles, at work or in life, everyone can help if everyone knows about it. I learn to shed fears of failure because everyone's failures are on display, and everyone's getting help to solve them, to do better going forward, and everyone shares the responsibility and accountability of doing so.
When false transparency comes without accountability, it never moves toward transparency, which lets things that rot the culture slowly and seemingly mysteriously from within fester, in secrets and silos and forgotten corners of the org. It's painful to have worked at an internally transparent org and then move into an org where different teams are at each others' throats, not because of personal conflicts but because one team has information that the other one needs to work, and they can't get it because of arbitrary obstacles that practiced transparency would eliminate.
It isn't perfect - it's uncomfortable, it's overwhelming, it's incredibly hard to effectively scale to dozens of new people per week as successful startups tend to do when they land some funding. It certainly isn't for everyone, but I also often find that the people who feel the _worst_ about transparent work cultures and practices are people I work the _least well_ with.
[1] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#transparency
Even partial transparency was useful when everyone was worked in person, because gaps were easier to mitigate via "you didn't hear this from me, but" statements from immediate managers, or from peers in other teams, or from just the uncomfortable situation of showing up in person and asking about it directly. But working remote-first or -only, then actual, practiced transparency is an absolute requirement for me. (Which sucks, because that's very difficult to suss out from a typical tech interview process.)
I've worked with two remote companies during the pandemic that've struggled with this. It's always listed as a "company value" but sometimes comes with a fundamental misunderstanding where "transparency" is only openness - being willing and wanting to answer any questions when asked, which is also good. But actual transparency is both openness AND having the discipline and process to document everything important - good and bad, erring on the side of oversharing - and share it with everyone _without being asked_.
This requires practice, discipline, common venues and processes, and a blameless culture. It empowers every other thing I also value in a company - transparency doesn't just encourage me to talk about what I need, it requires it, and makes it communal by default. So I might feel uncomfortable being transparent about telling people what I truly, honestly, frankly want and need out of work in terms of work/life balance, pay, advancement, training, joy, space, management, teamwork, and process, but so does _everyone_, and in the end there's far less ambiguity about where I and everyone else and the company all stand on them.
I can stop worrying about the things I don't know about the company because it's all just... there. Less ambiguity means less fear, less friction, less bikeshedding. We know what we have, what we need, and where we're going. Actual internal transparency up and down the organizational ladder flattens it for the important part - the impact that any one person can have on the company - even if it isn't structurally flat for making decisions.
In a mediocre org, a win gets celebrated in a team. In a good org, a win gets celebrated across a department, maybe even by everyone in a special event. In a transparent org, every win gets celebrated by everyone. The same works in reverse - when a team member struggles, at work or in life, everyone can help if everyone knows about it. I learn to shed fears of failure because everyone's failures are on display, and everyone's getting help to solve them, to do better going forward, and everyone shares the responsibility and accountability of doing so.
When false transparency comes without accountability, it never moves toward transparency, which lets things that rot the culture slowly and seemingly mysteriously from within fester, in secrets and silos and forgotten corners of the org. It's painful to have worked at an internally transparent org and then move into an org where different teams are at each others' throats, not because of personal conflicts but because one team has information that the other one needs to work, and they can't get it because of arbitrary obstacles that practiced transparency would eliminate.
It isn't perfect - it's uncomfortable, it's overwhelming, it's incredibly hard to effectively scale to dozens of new people per week as successful startups tend to do when they land some funding. It certainly isn't for everyone, but I also often find that the people who feel the _worst_ about transparent work cultures and practices are people I work the _least well_ with.
[1] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#transparency
Is it the people?
Is it the vision they pursue?
Is it the topic they work on?
What is it for you?
(1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33342361