piaw

7 ms·

1.
Exploitation(piaw.blogspot.com)
2 points by piaw 12y ago|0 comments
2.
by piaw 16y ago
That's because those are the people most likely to apply to another job! The people I know getting the big packages aren't waiting to be "noticed." That's not likely to happen since they weren't recognized where they were. They took a proac
3.
by piaw 16y ago
Having assisted in negotiating a couple of those multi-million dollar offers, that is absolutely correct. Most of those offers aren't going to "successful senior people." They're going to people who were repeatedly passed over for promotion
4.
The Counter-offer Conundrum(piaw.blogspot.com)
10 points by piaw 16y ago|0 comments
5.
by piaw 16y ago
Attitudes like this is why I had to write a book about startups. In 2003, people said the same thing about Google. It turned out that yes, joining Google in 2003 had a very good chance of making you a millionaire, even if you weren't a star
6.
by piaw 16y ago
I don't think Google openly discusses it. At least, certainly if there was such discussion I wasn't privvy to it. I only felt free to post these thoughts post Google.
7.
by piaw 16y ago
Paul "liked" the blog post on Facebook. :-)
8.
by piaw 16y ago
See the contextual blog post above and below this comment.
9.
by piaw 16y ago
I think that it is possible to build a culture where the grunchy unsexy work becomes much less un-thanked. Microsoft at its best did it: Raymond Chen was much celebrated for his heroic efforts at preserving backwards compatibility in Window
10.
by piaw 16y ago
I know several Apple and ex-Apple engineers. Let's just say that the environment isn't even comparable. Google wins hands down. One of my friends at Apple had to file for an information request so that she could debug a problem that spanned
11.
by piaw 16y ago
The massages aren't free. They're subsidized at $20/hour.
12.
by piaw 16y ago
The slide deck was part of a blog post. It's not my fault that news.ycombinator.com only linked to the slide deck and did not provide context: http://piaw.blogspot.com/2010/10/facebook-and-google.html
13.
by piaw 16y ago
That's not true. I think the traditional management systems do a good job of not setting bad incentives for tech leads.
14.
by piaw 16y ago
I've often thought about that. I think it would be a worthwhile experiment.
15.
by piaw 16y ago
Depends on how you feel about the recent spate of defections to smaller companies.
16.
by piaw 16y ago
Sorry, the slide deck was there as a presentation to Facebook's VP of engineering. I wasn't about to transcribe my own talk.
17.
5 Google Engineering Management Mistakes(piaw.blogspot.com)
7 points by piaw 16y ago|1 comments
18.
by piaw 16y ago
That's a bizarre attitude. If you cookie cutter travel, you'll get cookie cutter memories. I travel my way, my style, at my pace, and at my speed. When I travel, I get invited into people's homes for tea, get introduced to their families, a
19.
by piaw 16y ago
If you think Europe looks like the US, you're doing travel wrong.
20.
by piaw 16y ago
OK, since I have retired to travel and write, I'll chime in here. The writing part is fun, and being able to do it on my own terms (i.e., not kowtow to a publisher/editor's need to sell books by the pound rather than by content) was worth i
21.
by piaw 16y ago
People tell me how much they're getting. The numbers do go up to 7 figures even for rank and file engineers. But if I wrote a post about how to get that kind of money, I'd be accused of being even more cynical (I'm already accused of being
22.
by piaw 16y ago
Good points. I don't think interiews ever became hazing rituals. What happened instead was that a lot of folks got burned out on interviewing, and because interviewing was never taken seriously as a priority, interview training was outsourc
23.
by piaw 16y ago
I don't know if I disliked a lot of things about Google. Otherwise, I would have left long before my 6.5 years. I turned down requests to join other companies while at Google. I couldn't have disliked that much of it. :-)
24.
by piaw 16y ago
Google is still handing out million dollar awards. For many people, the low risk but potentially high reward setup is ideal. For instance, getting the big Android founder's award probably beat being the 10th employee at Aardvark.
25.
by piaw 16y ago
Thanks!
26.
by piaw 16y ago
Google has a software engineering ladder. It was introduced in 2002-2003. Many old-timers considered it Google's biggest mistake. Past a certain point in the ladder, promotions were a big deal and those who got promoted to that point got it
27.
by piaw 16y ago
Yes. The advice was given to help people move up the ladder, grab the brass ring, and get the big payout. If you want quality of life, that advice is not for you. Then again, if you want quality of life, and money is not that important, I t
28.
by piaw 16y ago
Google is still the best big publicly held company in the valley to work for. I wrote this to guide the thousands of Googlers they'll add this year. Having said that, I've been at well functioning startups, and I've been at Google. Google w
29.
by piaw 16y ago
Ah cool. Thanks!
30.
by piaw 16y ago
What do you expect engineers to do while code compiles? And flipping to a browser could also mean checking e-mail, filling out expense reports, or scheduling a design meeting. The problem is: even if those things are a productive use of an

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