[throwaway5283]

This is absolutely true. I work at Giant Search and Advertising Company, and joining was a huge mistake. I thought I would be working interesting technical problems with a high degree of autonomy — instead the work is extremely boring, and you get ahead by playing political games rather than by innovating. I’m one of the rare few here who managed to get through the interview without really preparing.

Before joining, I had endless enthusiasm for computer science and programming. Now I feel so unenthusiastic that I question my future in this industry.

[igetspam]

I worked there in the early 2000s. It was fun. Then it wasn't any more. I was much earlier in my career and when I left, having it on my resume meant a lot. Now I've done more and more interesting things. I told the FAANGs, in no unclear terms, I'm not interested. They seem to have gotten the message eventually. I like small companies. You work harder and have a lot more impact. The compensation is good too.

Leave. The grass is greener.

[bradlys]

> I like small companies. You work harder and have a lot more impact. The compensation is good too. Leave. The grass is greener.

What small company is regularly paying over $300k+/yr for senior software engineers and paying over $500k/yr for staff+?

The only people I see leaving the big companies are those who already got their riches and/or bought real estate earlier. The rest of us are either tied to them or trying to get in because the real estate market dictates you must earn that income to stick around the bay.

[probably_wrong]

> the real estate market dictates you must earn that income to stick around the bay.

Well, there's your problem right there.

There are plenty of smaller tech hubs around the world.

[khalilravanna]

Big +1. Leave the Bay Area. Heck, you could even get a Bay Area job that allows remote and then leave the Bay Area. I worked remote from ATX for 2 years for an SF startup and it was great!

[thefourthchime]

Hah, same! Love working from in ATX

[eropple]

Many of them don't feel particularly smaller, either. I've had literally no desire to move to San Francisco; senior+ jobs here in Boston pay more than enough to comfortably pay a mortgage somewhere nice.

[throwaway582]

That sucks that you've had that experience, I'm sorry. I hope it's the exception and not the rule. I work on the Advertising part of Giant Search and Advertising, and my experience has been pretty great—indeed, working on interesting problems with a high degree of autonomy. I do need to persuade others of my ideas sometimes, or let them persuade me against them, but this seems like a good thing, and doesn't feel political. Throughout my team and the other teams we work closely with, I find my co-workers and superiors to be thoughtful, smart, open-minded, and really nice to work with.

[whatevah5982]

Some years ago I was unsatisfied with my pay and I accepted the interview of a Giant Search corp, getting to the on-site interview. The lunch with random employees was perhaps the best part of the experience for me, as it became abundantly clear that a good chunk of devs that I had some conversation with outlined in very generic terms the same basic stuff everybody else needs to do in software: maintenance, basic infrastructure, scripts, and so on. Which is, you know, totally expected.

I'm pretty sure that everything is at scale and so on, but I couldn't shake the feeling that up to that point the stuff I would be working on was not on the table and I could be switching from a place where I like what I'm doing [biotech] to just a highly paid but plainly boring SE job.

This curbed my enthusiasm instantly. Up to that point in my career I always considered available positions based on the actual function I would be doing in the company, never vice-versa.

The afternoon sessions didn't work as well, and although I could still have some extra interviews through phone calls I cancelled them a few days afterwards.

I cannot say for sure what did I miss, but I am certainly totally disillusioned for Big Search as a company today due to it's consumer attitude that I no longer wish for a position there.

[pansa2]

> I work on the Advertising part of Giant Search and Advertising [...] on interesting problems

Genuine question - what do you consider to be interesting problems in advertising?

[busterarm]

Having worked on the spend side of things and at high stakes (9 figure budgets), targeting and how to improve it is extremely intellectually stimulating. More than anything else I've done in my career, even. This is especially true when you have constraints, like being in a regulated industry such as legal marketing.

The only problem is that it's hard to command a salary commensurate with how good you are at it unless you're in business for yourself AND the one spending the money.

[blub]

"targeting and how to improve it is extremely intellectually stimulating"

I thought the answer to that was a rather bland "by gobbling up even more information about everyone"?

[busterarm]

Not all data points are useful. Different pools have different profitability advertised in different ways.

Some highly useful data is hard to get directly or requires significant and/or stealthy spend.

[arez]

[flagged]

[throwaway582]

I work on infrastructure. Security, privacy, speed, reliability—all of these are complex challenges, especially at our scale.

And it's a reasonable question. Thanks for asking.

[Ygg2]

The only interesting problem in advertising - How to part people from their money :P

[toohotatopic]

Move? You got in without preparing. You can make it anywhere. Nothing is more precious than your enthusiasm.

[cbHXBY1D]

Similar experience and similar feelings here :/

[jonathankoren]

You joined a giant megacorp. They’re all like that. There’s very little difference between Google and Oracle in this regard.

[AlexCoventry]

From what I've read, Google is a much more humane and pleasant environment to develop software in.

[monoideism]

That's what I hear, but then I see comments from folks like User5283 above. I have the impression it may be changing into something much more similar to a typical corporation after years of avoiding that fate.

[hutzlibu]

Beware though, that he or she used a throwaway. Comments can be made by anyone, also a marketing company contracted by oracle who still want talent and have to shame competitors with better image.

(but the comment did seem legit and it is obvious for posting that anonymous)

[monoideism]

Yeah, I agree we should be cautious. But it does comport with what I've heard recently from actual Google employees, or (more often) ex-Googlers.

[eropple]

HN doesn't remotely begin to matter enough for companies to waste money on propaganda efforts.

[hutzlibu]

Why do you think that?

There is lots of IT folks around posting or just lurking and it would be very cheap to do some postings on Agenda XY here and there. I doubt it does not get tried.

[nitrogen]

That is probably not true, but it's also probably not worth worrying about unless you are an HN mod.

[notyourday]

Much higher pay has a tendency to color the everything better

[jfkebwjsbx]

That was a decade ago.