[pixelatedindex]

The work culture at Samsung being toxic is something I have some familiarity with, as I used to know some folks who were working there. It’s a very top down company and the lower tier folks aren’t necessarily encouraged to question things, but more of a “do as I say”.

The legislation aspect is really concerning but not surprising as chaebols have an iron grip on the Korean economy.

Tough times for Samsung, but in a lot of ways, you yield (pun intended) what you sow.

[bob1029]

I used to work at SAS and can corroborate the "top down" nature of the organization.

"We just need to copy Korea" is not a good narrative if you want to keep high-quality American engineers interested in a long term career path with you.

I lasted barely 3 years before the lack of volition got to me. Went to contract for a video game developer afterwards (huge pay cut) just to clear my mind and reconnect with reality.

[CamperBob2]

Went to contract for a video game developer to clear my mind and reconnect with reality.

Damn, that's really saying something about your former employer.

[pm90]

If you wrote about your experience, I (at least) would certainly read it.

[bob1029]

Honestly, the overall experience wasn't that bad. I did get a lot out of those 3 years.

To put things into perspective, not many people ever get to set foot inside of a leading-edge fab. I've been inside multiple, both in America & Korea. I've been able to sit in meetings with engineers across the entire spectrum and participate in multi-national system upgrade efforts.

The best way to describe the whole experience is like working inside a starship. Genuinely, it feels incredible to walk into that room and see billions of dollars of the most sophisticated hardware on earth all working together in relentless harmony. Simply sitting in the engineering offices and seeing the real-time logs scrolling gives you a sense for the monstrosity just a few firewalls over. The techniques & hardware are exotic by default everywhere. It almost never gets old.

But, just like all good things this experience fades with time. I wanted to build new amazing things and being one mere engineering pleb inside this gigantic organization makes that a difficult gambit. Perhaps if the organization was willing to explore more experimental / "internal startup" style work, I could be compelled to review future opportunities. There were plenty of problems to solve but getting a design meeting or a piece of IT infra to run something on were nearly impossible during my time there.

[sevensor]

I too worked at SAS early in my career, for about half a decade. It was a wild time; I learned a lot, rubbed shoulders with some incredibly bright people, got to visit the Kiheung fabs. I'm not at all surprised by the story, however, especially the scapegoating and fingerpointing when things go badly. The two things that ultimately made me leave were (1) there was no path to become an advanced IC, it was pretty well accepted that you'd burn out or go into management, and if you didn't you'd eventually get laid off and (2) being constantly told that American engineers were "not diligent" and that my 60+ hours per week, 24/7/365 pager carry, and mandatory weekend coverage, were not adequate. When your co-workers joke about taking PTO to leave early at 18:00, it's not a joke.

[xyzzy21]

This is where being a vendor (at a distance) tends to be as close as you want to get to some customers and their culture. Being a vendor is probably the best way to achieve that kind of "influence/innovation" in a company like Samsung.

[pm90]

> It’s a very top down company and the lower tier folks aren’t necessarily encouraged to question things, but more of a “do as I say”.

Asking as someone who has 0 experience with either, but this is how I’ve heard Apple works too? If so, why is Apple doing well while Samsung is not?

[simonh]

That’s not at all the impression I get from interviews and reports by former Apple employees (0)(1). They almost always have huge respect for the execs they worked for. Bear in mind all the Apple execs for engineering groups are themselves engineers. It’s a highly disciplined and focused organisation, but that’s not the same thing as top down and good engineering is highly prized.

Take Steve Jobs. He was infamous for his perfectionism. But on the other hand he trusted his team. When several of his execs insisted that they should build an App Store, which he initially opposed, he folded and let them do it. He once said there’s no point hiring A grade engineers and then telling them what to do and how to do it. I hire A grade engineers so they can tell me.

(0) https://donmelton.com/archives/ (1) https://youtu.be/N8Vz1BeymHE

[pm90]

Steve Jobs is an aberration. I wouldn’t count on anything related to him being true now that he’s gone.

I had a friend that was interviewing with Apple. Apparently the orgs are so siloed that the teams that wanted him didn’t know about each other. It appears to be a very rigid sort of organization.

[grumpyprole]

Apple has had significant hardware missteps too, such as the butterfly keyboard. Presumably some executive ordered "make it thinner" and did not accept any pushback!

[ThePowerOfFuet]

That executive's name was Jonathan Ive, and he should have owned his mistake.

[nebula8804]

They pushed him out(unofficially from what I heard)...the guy behind the iMac, iPod, iPhone and many other iconic devices. I'd gather that he has been forced to own the mistake.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

Owning something and being forced to own it are not the same thing.

[oriolid]

On the other hand, Apple is very good at reverting their mistakes and pretending they never happened. Who remembers the single button mouse, hockey puck mouse, iPod dock connector, emojibar without physical esc key, USB-C as the only connector and others?