Ask HN: I joined a big co, like the team, hate some policies, what should I do?
I recently joined a big tech company. The work is interesting and the team seems skilled and well run. But the larger company has done some really sketchy things where they mislead users in the name of growth. They also have policies that help entrench it beyond what is fair. They are in an industry where the leader has a big natural advantage, and they are in that lead by a large margin. They'd seem like they'd rather win a dirty fight than lose a fair one. Most days I feel a combination of frustration and shame working for them because of this. It seems that the policies follow from the leadership and company culture, and they have been doing similar things for awhile.
I am not sure what I should do.
160 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 144 ms ] thread> They are in an industry where the leader has a big natural advantage, and they are in that lead by a large margin.
I'd be happy to have a chat and see if there's a space for you somewhere in my network. Life's too short to do morally-dubious work. Contact info's in my profile.
Personally, I find ethical problems are the kind that would make me leave. Business disagreements and technical differences are one thing... but I can't support something if it directly conflicts with my personal ethics.
So if I were in your shoes, I'd frame the question in exactly that way - is this just a disagreement in style for you, or an ethical conflict?
This tends to be my experience, nice people find it very hard to start and run successful companies. The sort of person who feels guilty for making a good profit is at a disadvantage to the person who feels delight at taking as much money as possible.
[edit] I keep getting down votes for stating my experience and opinion. I have no idea how the voting system on HN works. Should I avoid personal anecdotes?
Most of the businesses have to make tough decisions to survive, not all of them are fair (to users, employees, etc). However, the difference is in attitude about such decisions and frequency of them.
>> The sort of person who feels guilty for making a good profit is at a disadvantage to the person who feels delight at taking as much money as possible.
Making as much money as possible is just a goal that some people set and do everything possible to achieve that. It's no different than any other goal. You don't need to absolutely maximize the monetary output of your life in order to be happy.
For me personally I totally agree. I have switched careers and taken a big cut in wages to give me more time with my family.
I have to assume that a middle of the ground company exists, but again, in my experience I have not worked for one. Some have been cottage industries happy clappy the world is kind and karma is real and others who think the customer is a chump and we can screw them out of as much money as possible.
I don't know of a universal rule for finding companies like that. But you can definitely recognize them when you see them in action.
Say that I with a couple of friends could, in 9 months or so, develop a system that would, for JC Penneys (say), save $10M or raise their sales by 1% (I think they are between $10B~$15B in annual revenue, so this would be around $100M+ revenue and at 5% margin (for example) worth about $5M to their bottom line...)
I think it would be reasonable to charge them $1M+ for this work.
One might argue (they would argue!) that 3 guys for 9 months should NOT be $1M+ -- that we were being greedy. But, I would argue that we are creating significant positive value after our fees.
Would you agree with their reasoning and disagree with mine? If so, that's fine - but I am curious as to why.
Also, you're not charging enough for your hypothetical services. What you really want to do is discount your pricing to, say, $500K but collect on revenue as part of a fee-at-risk deal, assuming you're that hypothetically confident of your hypothetical value-add.
Some people will look for careers in industries that are known to pay more (e.g. finance), even though they don't like or even hate the industry.
For others, they just prefer a job that they actually enjoy and just enough income to support their life style and have a good level of financial safety.
None of them is unethical or wrong, just different personal preferences.
To your 2nd point, I constructed my hypothetical badly, but regardless, I've learned that I (personally) don't like to depend on the client for accurate monthly or quarterly reports, and then have to do some anti "Hollywood accounting" measures on it, or deal with the inevitable re-org's required re-calculation. I completely understand what you are saying, but if possible, I like to make sure that the client is getting somewhere in the ballpark of at least 10:1 (pro forma, reviewed and agreed to by client) and call it a day. If I had a slightly different personality, your way can be a very (!) good way.
Anyone who wants to verify this (and isn't close friends with executives) should speak with salespeople, maybe lead devs... rank-and-file devs tend to be poor sources since they're often like mushrooms, left in the dark. Even salespeople in fairly scrupulous companies often discuss the systematic lies. (Lies which should conform to some rules in order not bite the company in the ass later.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology
[2] Particularly since markets are the dual to religion; a rupture that created egoism and altruism.
And I have to say I was also tempted to do so.
Non the less I do believe a counter argument being more productive.
I for example know a lot of companies having a great founder and a great culture as well as values. And are (at least in the founder's eyes) quite successful.
OK they are no Google. But none the less I like working in one of these.
While I don't necessarily agree with your comment I'm glad you shared it. I appreciate hearing different opinions and ideas.
When people down vote to express disagreement with a well-articulated idea it makes HN a worse place. It silences dissent (by pushing it down on the screen and fading it).
I think HN needs to explain that downvoting isn't "I disagree with this sentiment", it's "I think this is a bad comment that detracts from the quality of the conversation". I suspect new users might not know this since it's different from many other sites.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171
Regardless of what the intention of the up & down vote buttons are, what matters is the reality of what the userbase interprets them to be. I've always been under the impression that a downvote on HN is only for inappropriate discourse (as it is supposed to be on reddit, but then maybe I should go double check that belief as well), rather than disagreement.
It's not everyone on HN, just a significant group. You shouldn't take it to heart.
Also, it's not uncommon for comments to get downvoted several times in the first few minutes (by people skimming New Comments), and then brought back into the black later on by more thoughtful readers getting the full context.
If the latter, OP didn't disclose anything about a specific company.
How should I have phrased it to avoid ambiguity?
Day-to-day, what really matters to your experience is the direct team around you. You're a little enclave inside a larger organization, and may never really interact outside said enclave.
But, we also like to take pride in what we do. If you are ashamed to work for the company, that will probably eat at you. You might learn something that changes your perspective that leads to changing your mind, but the company probably won't change.
In general a large corporation is -- surprise surprise -- going to be made up of a lot of people. Some of them are going to be really passionate about doing the right thing, some of them will be happy to do what it takes to get ahead, and a lot of them are just going to want to do their job, get paid, and not worry too hard about the bigger picture. It can feel bad to be at the big evil and feel like you're being corrupted by being a part of it, but you always have the option to do what you think is right. You can stay there, work hard, and push back against the culture and attitudes you think improper. Maybe you'll make a difference. Maybe you'll give up. Maybe you'll try hard but no one will listen, and meanwhile your hard work will benefit the wrong people. Maybe you'll get fired after people get tired of you telling them how bad they are or after you refuse to do something that crosses the line.
Does this actually work for people? My experience interviewing for software engineering roles is that it's a time consuming and tedious process. I can't imagine juggling a full time job while interviewing with more than one company at a time.
After I grew dissatisfied with my first job out of college, partially because I'd just been there five years and wanted to try something else, partially for ethical reasons (the new owners were hosting fundraisers for Jenny McCarthy), I sent resumes to three companies, got a callback from one, did a phone screen, took a day off work for the interview, and then got the offer a few weeks later. Gave three weeks notice, took a month off, was at a new job about three months after I first decided to leave the old.
This is absolutely not a typical experience. In most cases, software companies are very hesitant to give you more than 3 weeks.
I'd just add that regardless of your decision, try to take a step back and see if you could have spotted these issues earlier, before joining so that you'd be less likely to repeat this mistake in the future. Maybe there were some red flags that you missed or downplayed?
They don't follow the golden rule. They do X to other companies, while actively preventing other companies from doing X to them. If X is okay, then it should be a two way street. If X is not okay, then it should be a zero way street. Either of those positions I could be happy with. In no case of good behavior is X a one way street.
In 5 years all this will feel natural to you like the rest of us, and your stock options would have fully vested by then.
a good book that addresses some of this is Driving Technical Change. some people you will never change, and those you can ignore. if there are enough people that you can influence you have a chance to make a difference. as long as you're strong enough to not let the negativity bring you down, this all can be a rewarding path...
But there's of course a limit to that, and once illegal things start to happen - quit. But if that's a "regular shady" stuff everyone does, you may have problems finding company that won't do it (well, you can find companies that are much subtle internally about it, and you won't know what they do).
Also don't trivialize the psychological impact that this can have on you, especially if you find yourself thinking about this off work hours.
If you and other coworkers are treated fairly, then you are probably being a bit too sensitive / idealistic. Relax and view it as a challenge: learning how to deal with people that you view as too aggressive/competitive. It will serve you well in life.
Again, given the lack of detail that's my best advice... Note that I've worked at a company that stole code and got sued, so I have some experience in unethical companies and leadership.
You make a very good point here!
Every company has issues and decisions that you don't agree with for variety of reasons. So looking for some perfect company will make your life much harder than it should be.
It's just that you have to draw a line what's acceptable and what is not.
Having experience in industry (or just general professional experience) can help a lot because it allows you to compare the issues and set the line. I know that because I was wayyy too idealistic and naive at my first full time job :)
If there are possible legal issues for you, then you need to get your own lawyer, because the company's lawyers aren't your lawyers.
Putting that aside, if you want to make a change to a management decision then you'll have to be making a presentation to management that's heavy on facts (evidence of risks and bad consequences) rather than about how it makes you feel. Since you're looking to change the status quo, the burden of proof is going to be on you and your allies (if you have any).
If that actually succeeds then it's evidence of strong leadership. But in the more likely case, it's time to look elsewhere.
It is the same with HR. HR is not there to protect employees. HR is there to protect the company and the easiest way to do that is to get rid of troublemaking employees even if they are making a valid case.
Seems like you're making this into a company-versus-employee dispute when it hasn't reached that stage yet. And better to avoid turning it into that.
If nobody is willing to consult the lawyers about their area of expertise, why have them?
Of course, that assumes a certain level of privilege. For someone who can't afford to quit and find another job, things are different.
If you talk to an attorney who isn't paid by you and bound by privilege to you (ie corporate counsel) to address a problem that you have, you now have two problems.
(Unless you're a relatively high-level being with some political cachet, which, given you're new and having asked this question in the first place, you're probably not.)
I worked for a similar company right out of college, when I was young(-er) and naive(r). Those 18 months barking up an amoral tree would be handy to have back.
There are a lot of good comments here, enough to get you to an answer I think. Personal integrity comes at a cost, and you describe a situation where your personal integrity is in conflict with the company's policies. It is true you should always be looking for a new job, thinking about what you want to do next what you like in a company what you dislike. One of the reasons for leaving is that the company's ethics and yours are too far out of alignment.
Here is the really tricky bit. Companies that are unethical get a reputation for that, the longer you stay at that company the more someone will believe that you're ok with that stance.
So three things;
1) Lead by example, speak out about unethical behavior to your peers and make your own choices in line with your values.
2) Look around for a company that is more aligned with your values, that is much easier to do while employed though.
3) Develop some questions you will use when you interview to understand how leadership treats those questions. Things like "Tell me about a time when your management suggested something against the best interests of the customers/users, and the response to it from your organization."
Good luck.
in some companies I've worked for it's quite accurate
A company that rips off its users will eventually rip you off.
Note though, that if the users are sophisticated enough that they should be able to read and understand a contract, and your company is following their contracts, then they are not ripping anybody off.