Coinbase famously rescinded offers days before people joined when they did a previously huge layoff. That's absolutely diabolical and I sometimes fantasize about accepting a job there and just ghosting them.
That’s not in dispute. The question is whether we should be supportive of the company’s efforts to improve reliability, or whether we should keep punching down. How would you feel if you were in a similar situation and outsiders breathlessly provided uninformed opinions about your problem and questioned your competence?
There are two options, either they are lousy at their jobs, or they are incapable of pushing back against unrealistic demands. Neither is a good indicator of their skill and talent as engineers.
I know I am speaking from a position of some privilege, but I have previously left workplaces that did not allow me to practice good engineering, and I do expect others to do so.
Or, they've been given crap primitives to work with. There's only so much lipstick you can put on a pig. I don't know what database they're using or what their pub sub and streaming looks like, or even what their system diagram actually looks like. But, well, you don't see Google having these kinds of problems. Other ones, sure, but between Chubby and Spanner, if Google had bought GitHub we wouldn't be having these problems.
But it wasn't a pig. It was a reliable system, and then it increasingly became an unreliable one, in a way that is not explainable by the mere increase in demand. Whatever rearchitecture was performed, it was done and is apparently being perpetuated by software engineers who should be held accountable. Not necessarily guilty, or even directly at fault, but accountable nevertheless. "I am just an employee of a bad company" is not a valid excuse for an engineer.
In a SWE job market like this, do you really want to be seen as the "conscientious objector"?
There are literally thousands of people who are ready to ride up the totem pole, it would not be a difficult decision for a bad manager to swing his axe and replace the new head
Talented engineers shouldn’t have much problem finding another position even in this market (of course they should find one before leaving I’m not discounting family responsibilities and whatnot), so if your argument is they’re not able to leave and find another job then you’re essentially agreeing with the person you’re replying to.
I've interviewed at many large tech companies including Microsoft, and Microsoft Azure was mostly a clown show. So, yes I judge the talent there. I'm sure there are some superstars that I'd love to work with, maybe I'd even work there and try to fix it for the right price, but god damn was it a stark contrast to other companies.
Every big tech company gives massive amounts of stock. I would guess more multi-millionaires have been created by Google, Meta, Amazon, and Apple than any other companies or industry ever.
The fastest way for anyone hear to make 7 figures right now would be to join a series D startup and with some luck their stock grants will 2-5x in a year or two.
Levels.fyi did some analysis where it showed the average software engineer who joined Anthropic 2+ years ago are going to be making 10M this year given the valuation increases (and yes they have liquidity events, you don't have to wait for an IPO).
Even for less hocky-stick growth companies, people can make life changing amounts of money for RSU growth.
Personally, even working for a well established company, Over ~3 years, I've made an additional 500k in equity from stock appreciation (not from holding the stock, I mean when granted) beyond what my target compensation was intended.
Ford probably made 3k profit on that car. Given the falling costs of inference, what are the chances your neighbor gives anthropic 3k in profit over the next few years? Not terribly bad.
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