zlacker

>>colone+(OP)
Recently talked to 2 friends working for fb. According to them, the culture there is very toxic. For a master's degree, once get in, you need to get promoted in 22 months (I might misremember the actual number.) or you will have to leave. Debugging is never counted as a real work, so for quick promotion, nobody wants to solve bugs unless a bug becomes too obvious. And they also complained about no work-life balance. They got pushed to check-in code at 12a.m. for example.

>>wfwefw+J3
What, exactly, is wrong with the expectation that people make senior level eventually? What exactly is wrong with being able to work at any time? I worked there for years, and if I was landing code at 12am, it was because I was excited about what I was doing. It was wonderful being able to work with people from all over the world on high-impact projects, and fixing important bugs was definitely high-impact. People who fixed vexsome bugs were heroes.

>>quotem+C7
What you call being "excited about working at 12am" I call "accepting being a corporate slave".

>>twohea+w8
I don't think you can so glibly dismiss enthusiasm as Stockholm syndrome. Passionate people push the world forward, and mocking passion is a recipe for mediocrity and stagnation.

>>quotem+R8
On the flip side celebrating a culture where (allegedly) people are expected to toss out their personal lives and time (what is sometimes referred to as passion in some circles) is a race to the bottom. It means colleagues who DON'T do this are punished or replaced. Perhaps that's what you refer to as mediocrity, the unwillingness to put in long workdays that extend into night.

>>mancer+Da
Do you think that I should be forced not to code after a certain time of day? I wouldn't work at a company that imposed this restriction.

>>quotem+Ra
Yes, and it shouldn't be up to an employer to set that limit, but to regulatory bodies. Having people spend 12-14h a day working is not good in the long term, and expecting people to do that otherwise they will be fired is draconic.

>>fesoli+gh
It’s not that cut and dry. For a lot of reasons, I don’t do side projects. But I do choose jobs that are using technologies that will keep me marketable. So if I want to learn a new to me technology, I’ll often work some crazy hours to both learn the technology and get the work done.

Yes my company benefits from it, but so do I. For instance, given a choice of trying to come up with an idea to learn about a feature of AWS and pay money for the resources I use, and take advantage of my work AWS (Dev) account where I am an admin, I would rather do a work related project where I have the resources and I don’t have to come up with an idea and I don’t have to pay for it.

What I don’t do is “signal”. I don’t stay at work late, I don’t send emails out after hours, and I pushback if they give me unreasonable deadlines.

>>scarfa+sl
You’re not working.

>>Spooky+kN
Let’s say my team had a feature to get out and the React expert said he could do it in 30 hours and he could have it done by Monday morning without working extra during the week or on the weekend.

On the other hand, say it would take me 50 hours and I knew I would have to work on the weekend because I’m not as experienced, but I thought I could still have it done by Monday.

I might be willing to volunteer, knowing it would take me longer but it would also be done on time. That extra 20 hours, I’m still working, committing code but zeal do trying to figure out the framework. I wouldn’t have a problem doing that because I am learning a new skill.

But, I wouldn’t work weekends to finish a project because I was given an unrealistic deadline.

The first scenario, the extra 20 hours benefits me and the company. The second, it just benefits the company.