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Ask HN: Thread about doing nothing at FAANG

14 points by jimmywetnips ↗ HN
there was a post sometime in the last 2 years I think where some new kid was hired and was lamenting about how little gets done at his new job. And then all the commenters were giving their experience of do nothing jobs at FAANG. Anyone still have a link? I can't seem to find it.

12 comments

[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 48.2 ms ] thread
_jdzr
Might be an old thread but still very relevant. Just left Twitch for very similar reasons + some extras.
booboofixer
What did you do at Twitch? Where are you off to?
_jdzr
Worked on the team that put Twitch on consoles. Not sure where I'm off to yet... Taking some time off to figure out how I want to navigate the mess of the recruiting scene at the moment.
jsiaajdsdaa
I am tormented by the fact that at almost every company, there is so much amazing work that could be done, but everyone sits around blocking it or being lazy.
runnerup
a lot of the people sitting around being lazy were initially trying to learn to do great work but kept getting blocked and gave up.
datavirtue
I'm one of these people. Used to be an absolute workaholic, now I work as slow as is humanly possible. It works for software development since it has this weird property of not really improving much if you speed up. Someone can be really fast and not get much more done than someone who purposefully takes their time.

My brain tells me when to quit each day and it has helped tremendously with preventing burnout. I might code for two-four hours per day. However, I don't try to avoid work or block projects or steal credit and I'm always game for a new project--though I hate building greenfield apps because it seems like the devs are the only ones into it and I thrive on being part of a cross functional team.

I'm on a project right now where we developers are driving out every requirement. The business is very behind, hasn't really driven any requirements. I warned everyone at the beginning that we were going to outrun them. A few devs were pumping out code like crazy and I tried to just chill. Now we're scrambling for work--well, I'm not.

jsiaajdsdaa
If you've implemented every requirement, you should focus on refactoring, documentation, performance, cost reduction, fault tolerance...
MaxPengwing
in my experience this is because larger organisations have incentive structures that counter act each other at different levels, usually related to budgetary constraints and... getting the credit for doing something good.

I spoke with a friend who has done the manager track and every time he rises up one step on the ladder he's befuddled on what he's actually measured on in forms of metrics. Moving from Moderation to QA was at least somewhat related, but then going in to TL he found that his teams performance has NOTHING to do with how he's evaluated. it has more to do with what extra projects he has taken on that gives him and his department more visibility and credit in the company.

I know people dislike Jordan Peterson, but he does touch on this briefly in one lecture on performance prediction from 2017 (When he was still teaching) https://youtu.be/Q7GKmznaqsQ?t=1296

David Gerber did a more in depth anthropological investigation of bullshit jobs and found that there are 5 types https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kehnIQ41y2o

Most of us might find ourselves in that. Im in IT Support and 95 times of a 100 I just read the help document that is published on our website out loud to customers.... and Im in a very large B2B SaaS Tech Support...

mettamage
Not all of us do. JP is one of my designated YouTubers to break my filter bubble. I can tell he is making the effort for a good faith discussion. I even agree with him on a thing or two.
MaxPengwing
Agree, he's good to have as a bubble popper, and he is right a bout a few things, and some things he's just not well suited to talk on.... like most humans who are outside their expertise.

What got me is that he seems to genuinely care about helping people and if one listens to what he is actually saying he is describing the world as it is working right now and how to navigate that. Not how it ought to be working as so many others like to fixate on, which is good, but might not help some people navigate life right now.