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The New York Times put out a pretty scathing article about Amazon's work practices, which is well worth a read if you work in the Tech sector. It highlights how far a large company can go trying to achieve the highest possible quality and productivity from its employees. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html Couple this with some other recent articles about how badly some famous tech companies treat employees (Tesla) and how competition for tech workers is pretty high, and it brings up an interesting point for discussion. Is what Amazon's doing the new normal for the tech sector? Is it correct to do that? What would be the antithesis of that, and how well does that work? There's been a response from an Amazonian: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/amazonians-response-inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-nick-ciubotariu And it's started to go recursive! There's been a response to the response: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ex-amazonians-reply-all-those-amazonian-replies-times-mehal-shah turn it up TURN ME ON fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Aug 17, 2015 |
# ? Aug 17, 2015 16:41 |
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# ? Apr 28, 2024 13:18 |
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Amazon intentionally chooses not to make a profit, so their employees are poo poo out of luck. If you're worth a drat then you don't loving work at Amazon you work at Google or Apple if you want to earn. If we're talking small-employees, there is zero pressure on technology companies to ever treat them right, because tech basically saved the US consumer economy.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 16:43 |
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There's a glut of tech workers right? And they themselves don't seem to want to unionize. Perfect conditions for exploitation.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 16:47 |
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Relin posted:There's a glut of tech workers right? And they themselves don't seem to want to unionize. Perfect conditions for exploitation. And they tend to be paid well enough that they don't see how a union would benefit them, which is funny because even with their high salaries, the top developers are probably undercompensated compared to the value they create for the big tech firms. Of course, the threat of that is why all the tech companies are so big on opening the visa worker floodgates, so they can have an endless stream of South/East Asian developers to depress wages to almost nothing.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 16:51 |
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TheBalor posted:And they tend to be paid well enough that they don't see how a union would benefit them, which is funny because even with their high salaries, the top developers are probably undercompensated compared to the value they create for the big tech firms. Under compensation is motivation to prove you deserve to be paid at all.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 16:52 |
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TheBalor posted:And they tend to be paid well enough that they don't see how a union would benefit them, which is funny because even with their high salaries, the top developers are probably undercompensated compared to the value they create for the big tech firms. Probably. Though the "value" (valuation) for tech firms is unrealistically and unsustainably crazy to begin with though. I suspect in actual valuation, it might not be that out of balance.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 16:56 |
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Xaris posted:Probably. Though the "value" (valuation) for tech firms is unrealistically and unsustainably crazy to begin with though. I suspect in actual valuation, it might not be that out of balance. Sure, sure. But that disparity is probably why so many jump on the startup lottery. Why work at a job that's grinding you dry when you can be your own boss and at least have a chance at being king of your own little overvalued kingdom? Actually, since it came up: can anyone explain what is the likely future of the current tech valuation issue? I've been hearing for years that companies like Twitter are immensely overvalued, but the other shoe never seems to drop. I'm getting china stock market blue balls here.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 17:02 |
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I wouldn't want any kind of market correction on tech companies as I do not desire another deep recession.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 17:05 |
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TheBalor posted:Actually, since it came up: can anyone explain what is the likely future of the current tech valuation issue? I've been hearing for years that companies like Twitter are immensely overvalued, but the other shoe never seems to drop. I'm getting china stock market blue balls here. First it's important to differentiate between startups (like Twitter) and more established companies like Amazon, Google, and the like. The latter probably won't have many issues when this bubble pops. Currently, startups are funded by venture capitalists (VCs), which are basically rich guys that give you money in the hopes that you become the next Google or whatever. The status quo for the past few years has been venture capitalists dumping money at anything tech related because everyone else was doing it (thus continuing the cycle). This is how you get things like Uber having revenue of $420 million and having expenses of twice that amount. These days, there has been a slow and quiet drawdown of the VC money, because it turns out barely any of these companies actually make tangible revenue (Facebook is a notable exception, as are a few others). Once the money really runs out you're going to see Uber et all close, and a whole bunch of coders are going to flood the market looking for jobs. Nonsense posted:I wouldn't want any kind of market correction on tech companies as I do not desire another deep recession. Actually the great thing about tech companies is that there are relatively small numbers of people actually working at these companies. Like, 10% of the number of people working at them during the Dot Com bubble of 15 years ago.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 17:11 |
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To me, by far the most interesting part about that article was the Anytime Feedback Tool (basically a system that literally encourages you to snitch on anyone at any time to their boss). This seems like an insanely naive thing that some libertarian would implement without understanding the social and human dynamics behind it, am I completely off base about that?
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 17:18 |
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Radbot posted:To me, by far the most interesting part about that article was the Anytime Feedback Tool (basically a system that literally encourages you to snitch on anyone at any time to their boss). This seems like an insanely naive thing that some libertarian would implement without understanding the social and human dynamics behind it, am I completely off base about that? It certainly fits, and seems perfectly reasonable if you treat your workforce as a collection of drones with unpredictable levels of imperfection rather than as people.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 17:24 |
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Relin posted:There's a glut of tech workers right? And they themselves don't seem to want to unionize. Perfect conditions for exploitation. There's a glut, sort of. There's a shortage of experienced people in general (because of the early to mid-2000's labor contractions) and experienced people willing to work for not-so-good wages at lovely companies rather than going to work at (decent) startups. There's a glut of ok-to-mediocre people for a variety of reasons, plus an absolutely fuckton of foreign workers that have immigrated over the last decade. During a slowdown those two things are going to be more of a problem and push wages down dramatically for most people, as well as renewing the call to curb visa abuse and somehow deal with all the visa holders that now no longer have a job and are sorta expected to leave after being here a decade. Lots of good people will be lost who will go and start companies in China/India, while lots of not so good people will stay around to depress wages at companies who aren't quick to adapt and have been riding that train for a long time. I expect that the rampant outsourcing/insourcing/H1-B abuse will come back to bite all the businesses in the rear end who've been abusing it, hard, as smart companies snap up all the good employees with good compensation packages and play the long game, while the bad ones just try to maintain or increase profits by focusing on labor costs (since most executives will be able to get rich that way, regardless of how well the company fares afterwards). That's pretty much what happened during the bubble and the economic slowdowns in the 2000's. computer parts posted:Currently, startups are funded by venture capitalists (VCs), which are basically rich guys that give you money in the hopes that you become the next Google or whatever. The status quo for the past few years has been venture capitalists dumping money at anything tech related because everyone else was doing it (thus continuing the cycle). This is how you get things like Uber having revenue of $420 million and having expenses of twice that amount. Adding to this, VC's all hope to have an exit plan for their investments, either by startups getting bought by Google/Facebook/etc, or by going public, and there's limits to how many startups can realistically be bought or IPO and actually deliver to shareholders. Eventually both companies and the stock market will sour on purchasing startups, especially as more and more startups are just get-rich-quick schemes with no real business longevity (like, much worse than what we already see). VC's see the writing on the wall and don't want to get caught holding the bag, since people aren't nearly as stupid as during the last bubble.. yet. All that said, the market overall is still going to grow as things shift to mobile and the internet evolves in to whatever and continues to eat up other industries. Lots of services that were impossible to run business-wise 10 years ago are plausible now thanks to improvements in technology. quote:Actually the great thing about tech companies is that there are relatively small numbers of people actually working at these companies. Like, 10% of the number of people working at them during the Dot Com bubble of 15 years ago. Yeah, while we're in a bubble of sorts, it's nothing close to the insanity of the last bubble in terms of hiring anyone with a pulse and vast amounts of executives. The level of nepotism back then was absolutely staggering. There's actual, no poo poo revenue nowadays, though not to the degree necessary for a lot of these companies to continue to function well during a slowdown. The downside is that while the labor market is really good right now for those with the right experience and connections, it's not good for the rest of the populace, unlike last time. I think that's more about the general American and Global economy than the industry though. Ideally the bubble doesn't pop hard like in the DotCom days, and is just a slowdown/correction. That being said, I expect that just like in the early 2000's companies will be very quick to push wages downwards as a group, and continue to beat the visa drum as hard as possible. It's a very easy way to prop up profits in the face of a slowdown. Generally self-defeating though, as there will still be startups and whatnot going, and those will attract the best people if their stable employers are loving around.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 17:52 |
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Radbot posted:This seems like an insanely naive thing that some libertarian would implement without understanding the social and human dynamics behind it, am I completely off base about that? It was almost funny, considering the part earlier in the article that talked about Amazon wanting to avoid "office politics". And then they add a system to vote out people like in a reality TV show. Consistent!
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 17:52 |
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Kassad posted:It was almost funny, considering the part earlier in the article that talked about Amazon wanting to avoid "office politics". And then they add a system to vote out people like in a reality TV show. Consistent! I thought the same exact thing. Office politics is when people try to cut each other's throats and generally do things that distract from actually getting things done. It seems to me like the anytime feedback tool is pretty much going to guarantee you have an increase in politics. I think Amazon basically just wants to get insanely "engaged" employees through a brute force methodology, right? They hire thousands of people and weed out anyone who isn't willing to dedicate 100% of their life to working there, and they motivate those people... somehow? Do they just pay a shitload more than other companies in the area? Meanwhile, real sustainable engagement is difficult to do. If you ask talented tech people why they stay at a company, you'll find that it's hard to really define.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 17:57 |
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There was a big discussion on this in SH/SC in the working in IT thread, it'd be worth skimming the last few pages if you want an industry perspective. One thing, Amazon's profitability is deceptive. They're in growth mode right now, all their profit is reinvested into trying to win the Cloud Services war.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:01 |
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Reading articles like this, it amazes me that tech companies don't get firebombed every other week.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:01 |
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Klaus88 posted:Reading articles like this, it amazes me that tech companies don't get firebombed every other week. That's the kind of attitude that results in an anonymous complaint to a manager.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:08 |
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SquadronROE posted:
To answer this, Amazon has a... reputation in Seattle for being a lovely place to work. Lots of money to start, terrible raises, no life. So much of the hiring is done out of state, by heavily recruiting fresh graduates from flyover states. I work in tech and used to work with(not for) amazon, and I would never take a job with them.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:11 |
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Klaus88 posted:Reading articles like this, it amazes me that tech companies don't get firebombed every other week. It's surprised me just how vehemently against unionization tech workers are. Compared to the value a good developer or engineer can bring to the company (literally millions of dollars in some cases) they generally put up with terrible work conditions. Long hours are generally the norm, especially at companies in growth mode. A lot of engineers just see this as normal though, and management has gotten really great at manipulating their sense of worth to encourage long hours. For example, they'll give someone a problem that's intellectually interesting to their field (we need a better search algorithm, this one isn't fast enough!) and watch as they burn away their entire life trying to solve the problem. EDIT: Interesting, I didn't know they had such a bad reputation. I know about 5 of our engineers (from SC) have left to go work for them, so the recruiting efforts make sense. I wonder if they're going to realize they can't just keep doing that eternally? I wonder how much time and money is wasted having to ramp up new developers.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:12 |
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Part of the shortage of tech workers are dumb hiring requirements, as well. No one wants to run some company's entire everything for 25-30 grand a year.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:18 |
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SquadronROE posted:EDIT: Interesting, I didn't know they had such a bad reputation. I know about 5 of our engineers (from SC) have left to go work for them, so the recruiting efforts make sense. I wonder if they're going to realize they can't just keep doing that eternally? The sad thing is, they probably could
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:21 |
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Much like how America is full of temporarily embarrassed millionaires, tech workers are temporarily embarrassed CEOs in the gig economy. People are taught to pay their dues and gain experience until they can find their passion and be their own boss or whatever. Nobody is going to dream of starting the next Uber while simultaneously pushing for unionization.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:26 |
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nachos posted:Much like how America is full of temporarily embarrassed millionaires, tech workers are temporarily embarrassed CEOs in the gig economy. People are taught to pay their dues and gain experience until they can find their passion and be their own boss or whatever. Nobody is going to dream of starting the next Uber while simultaneously pushing for unionization. What about an uber-like app, but for unionization? Maybe an app to get around card check?
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:28 |
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-Troika- posted:Part of the shortage of tech workers are dumb hiring requirements, as well. No one wants to run some company's entire everything for 25-30 grand a year. Uh, yeah they do, they're called "everyone living in a third world country that has IT skills". Hence H1-Bs. nachos posted:Much like how America is full of temporarily embarrassed millionaires, tech workers are temporarily embarrassed CEOs in the gig economy. People are taught to pay their dues and gain experience until they can find their passion and be their own boss or whatever. Nobody is going to dream of starting the next Uber while simultaneously pushing for unionization. Exactly, unionization is the literal complete antithesis of lottery startup culture - it means admitting that you'll never "make it". Unionization will never happen in the tech industry until that aspect is removed (lol).
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:38 |
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When I brought up Unionization to my friends, they didn't object to it because they felt like they could achieve more on their own. They mostly objected to it because they didn't feel like they were underpaid or overworked. Meanwhile one of them works most weekends, and another is on call just about every other week.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:46 |
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This job posting is infamous in the IT industry: I think that if you wanted to unionize IT workers you'd have to change the terminology to sound like it came out of Warhammer 40K. Union? No, we're the local 207 Techno-Artificers Guild. Based on my seniority, I'll be promoted to Adeptus-Sysadminus in less than a year!
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:47 |
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Mischief, mayhem and chaos are like the three things that should never ever come from an IT department.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:51 |
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:This job posting is infamous in the IT industry: Holy poo poo that's awful. "Yeah we'll work you super hard and you won't have a life at all because you need to be there NOW but we have banned buzzwords." Not for CORPORATE.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:51 |
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:This job posting is infamous in the IT industry:
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:53 |
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Do the people that post these things ever step back and say "now, why would someone want to work here based on what I just wrote"?
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 18:57 |
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Radbot posted:Do the people that post these things ever step back and say "now, why would someone want to work here based on what I just wrote"? No, because there are enough idiots with sufficient IT skills that want to ~-live the dream~ (of being a glorified computer janitor)
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 19:07 |
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Radbot posted:Do the people that post these things ever step back and say "now, why would someone want to work here based on what I just wrote"? No, see the occasion serious posting of them in the SH/SC job thread.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 19:07 |
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Amazon's "harsher and less forgiving" means whiter and less opportunities to fail upward.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 19:13 |
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:This job posting is infamous in the IT industry: There's a post that accompanies this talking about how all of their lines are moldy as gently caress and how the CEO fires everyone and then makes them beg for their jobs back.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 19:13 |
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:This job posting is infamous in the IT industry: Oh, I thought that was the Penny Arcade one. quote:Job description
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 19:13 |
computer parts posted:Oh, I thought that was the Penny Arcade one. That sounds like a cult.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 19:15 |
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:This job posting is infamous in the IT industry: Phone posted:There's a post that accompanies this talking about how all of their lines are moldy as gently caress and how the CEO fires everyone and then makes them beg for their jobs back. Lets be fair, the tech-priests at least value their workers slightly more then your average tech company.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 19:15 |
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:This job posting is infamous in the IT industry: Rogue is pretty notorious for being terrible, both for abusing their employees and producing a subpar product in a saturated market (Oregonian brewing). Horror stories coming from current/former employees seems to be pretty common. They more or less get by with their marketing and distribution access. (edit:) Also, to add to their list of atrocities, they were the ones produces that horrible "Voodoo Doughnuts" line of beer (Voodoo Doughnuts also treats their employees like poo poo). It would be great if they (either company) crash and burned, and their properties and equipment were bought up to do something else worthwhile. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Aug 17, 2015 |
# ? Aug 17, 2015 19:16 |
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Ardennes posted:Rogue is pretty notorious for being terrible, both by basically abusing their employees but producing a subpar product in a saturated market (Oregonian brewing). They more or less get by with their marketing and distribution access. Too be fair, the moldy beer business isn't terribly saturated because it's mostly just Guinness.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 19:19 |
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# ? Apr 28, 2024 13:18 |
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The experience is pretty variable for devs at Amazon. I worked there for two and a half years and was definitely not overworked, nor did anyone on my team or related teams at Seattle seem to be overworked. Occasionally there'd be some crunch prior to launch, maybe a couple times a year, but an average week I'd work 8 hours a day including lunch. Part of that may have been being a device team (Android stuff) because that means there aren't any servers to constantly manage, if there's a big problem the best you can do is push out a fix with the next patch. There were a few people who consistently worked overtime, but it seemed to be because they were ambitious or really cared about their product, not because they were pushed to. Now, the devs in India did seem to work insane hours, and people who had to coordinate with India often had to do phone meetings at awful times, but I'm not sure how fixable of a problem the latter is given the time zone difference.
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# ? Aug 17, 2015 19:20 |