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A word of warning: mediocre places can have stellar Glassdoor reviews because they encourage / incentivize their employees to leave 5 star reviews. Glassdoor seems like a good place to find negative reviews, but I'm going to start being a lot more wary about positive reviews.
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Jul 26, 2017 21:54
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Iverron posted:A word of warning: mediocre places can have stellar Glassdoor reviews because they encourage / incentivize their employees to leave 5 star reviews. Yeah, this one has negative reviews stretching back to 2015 and earlier, with a few clearly trumped up 5s here and there with no substance. I'm gonna decline this one.
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Jul 26, 2017 22:03
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I once had somebody point out their high Glassdoor reviews. Then they handed me an employment agreement with a nondisparagement clause.
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Jul 26, 2017 22:15
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Fake Glassdoor reviews are easy to spot. It's always like, "Pros: fast paced environment and lots of money! Cons: some people can't handle the fast paced environment and making so much money!"
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Jul 26, 2017 22:32
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Some companies also just skip the whole "encouraging employees to leave good reviews" and "discouraging bad reviews" part and skip straight to astroturfing fake reviews. I assume lots of companies do this, which makes it hard to trust Glassdoor. You can probably use the negative reviews to get a good idea of what's wrong with a company, but the overall star rating and ratio of good/bad reviews is probably worthless. On the other hand, a disgruntled employee or competitor could always grind out a bunch of fake negative reviews as well.
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Jul 26, 2017 22:33
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The real cons are generally easy to spot because even positive reviews will mention them but just not treat them as big of a deal. Fake reviews either positive or negative are the ones that don't mention anything positive or negative to balance the review.
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Jul 26, 2017 22:41
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"Management, keep doing what you're doing" is my trigger phrase for fake employer reviews. I think all corpo HR scumbags went to the same training where they learned how to astroturf Glassdoor. Reviews with honest, non-superficial cons are usually the most valuable, because, honestly, no job is without its downsides. Any review that states otherwise is either some Pollyannish dope, a fake review, or an employee afraid of retribution. All are red flags.
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Jul 26, 2017 22:45
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leper khan posted:This is definitely a thing. Working with external recruiters is usually really bad. That's not true at all. Even large, stable awesome companies will use external recruiters to augment their own internal efforts.
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Jul 27, 2017 01:07
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There are some external recruiters who are very good. There are a lot more who aren't.
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Jul 27, 2017 01:09
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The thing to do about Glassdoor reviews is to ask about them. Especially if there's concrete particulars in the review; ask employees "I read reviews saying this company has a real problem with X; what do you say about that?" Remember that it's just as easy for disgruntled employees (and competitors!) to leave fake negative reviews as it is for the company to leave fake positive reviews.
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Jul 27, 2017 01:19
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I usually just check for reviews that might deal with recent management changes or shakeups. Seeing that a company was just bought, the CEO cashed out and new management is ruining things trying to save as much money before they turnover the company is a huge red flag for me. A recruiter that was looking for me last year gave me two leads that both had these issues. I did a phone screen with one of them and the guy I talked to just kept trying to change the subject when I brought it up.
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Jul 27, 2017 01:42
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With any online rating system I find it's only worth reading the bottom half of ratings/reviews This is based on the idea that happy reviews are either fake or will all be the same if genuine, while unhappy will mostly be unhappy about different things. If they don't have any bad reviews at all, I pass. Glassdoor tends to be useless imo because they almost never have developer reviews, and in every org I've worked in, development was treated radically different than everyone else, good or bad.
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Jul 27, 2017 02:34
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metztli posted:With any online rating system I find it's only worth reading the bottom half of ratings/reviews This is based on the idea that happy reviews are either fake or will all be the same if genuine, while unhappy will mostly be unhappy about different things. If they don't have any bad reviews at all, I pass. Because people don't say anything about a product, service or their place of employment unless they either feel strongly one way or another or they're "incentivised" to do so. There are rare places where a lot of people are over-the-top happy with their place of employment for them to voice their positive opinion on a public forum. Therefore, what you're left with are unhappy people or those that are paid to say something. That's why you're never going to have many reviews of a place/product that's OK. And, for places of employment, OK is good. Not perfect, not amazing, but fine.
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Jul 27, 2017 02:51
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One place where I worked, they'd send you a series of emails at 30, 60, 90 days post hire. They'd have reminders like "by now, you and your manager should be looking at goals for the next 12 months," and surveys to find out if new hires were missing stuff that should've been covered in orientation. The 30 or 60 day checkpoint mail also included a request to leave a company review on Glassdoor. That's when you're still totally smack in the honeymoon period with the job, and the only bad thing is that the free blackberry Hint water in the kitchen doesn't get restocked as often as the pamplemousse La Croix. Employee turnover in engineering was extremely high during the last year I worked there. Their Glassdoor page had a constant stream of fresh, positive reviews from new hires, while not many of them would bother to update their reviews when they got fed up and quit.
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Jul 27, 2017 02:53
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kitten smoothie posted:the only bad thing is that the free blackberry Hint water in the kitchen doesn't get restocked as often as the pamplemousse La Croix. Did you work at Oculus or Facebook or something
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Jul 27, 2017 04:56
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Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:Did you work at Oculus or Facebook or something Or at my company. Suddenly La Croix is the thing in our fridge. 
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Jul 27, 2017 05:00
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I used to hate them and hint, then I realized once I was almost prediabetic that it wasn't supposed to taste good, it was supposed to have enough taste to make me not feel like drinking sugarwater.
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Jul 27, 2017 05:03
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Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:I used to hate them and hint, then I realized once I was almost prediabetic that it wasn't supposed to taste good, it was supposed to have enough taste to make me not feel like drinking sugarwater. I try to stay away from the fizzy drinks, but I have a softspot for good ginger ale. I usually bring a gallon of Trop50 to the office each week to drink just so I know I have an alternative to water. We have a small enough office that even if others drink it, it lasts the entire week.
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Jul 27, 2017 05:16
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Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:Did you work at Oculus or Facebook or something no just random palo alto tech company #65535. I was remote and only went into the office once every three months or so, the rest of the time I had to stock my own refrigerator and on a software engineer salary that can be quite a hardship
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Jul 27, 2017 06:42
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kitten smoothie posted:no just random palo alto tech company #65535. "blackberry hint water and pamplemousse La Croix described my office MK to such a tee I got very  for a while. Then I realized it's probably like a hundred different companies too. Also for some reason all the Bay Area offices I've seen get that sparkling Dasani garbage. NYC supremacy.
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Jul 27, 2017 13:11
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Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:I used to hate them and hint, then I realized once I was almost prediabetic that it wasn't supposed to taste good, it was supposed to have enough taste to make me not feel like drinking sugarwater. Once I made it to that realization I just pushed on through to drinking water and I adjusted pretty quickly. Made it easier to start drinking / appreciating black coffee too. It's so much easier to diet casually when you're not chugging sugar water or sugar coffee.
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Jul 27, 2017 14:06
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Iverron posted:Once I made it to that realization I just pushed on through to drinking water and I adjusted pretty quickly. Add a little salt to your coffee if you need more flavor. Brings out the goodness without turning it into a cloying syrup.
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Jul 27, 2017 14:52
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I keep a water bottle at my desk, and just kind of unconsciously drink from it whenever I stop to think. Consequently I'm never thirsty and I have an incentive to leave my desk for a bit fairly frequently, to refill one container and empty another. 
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Jul 27, 2017 15:36
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Blackberry Hint is pretty good. Apple Pear Hint is the best though. I tried a La Croix one time and it was gross
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Jul 27, 2017 15:57
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I keep a water bottle at my desk, and just kind of unconsciously drink from it whenever I stop to think. Consequently I'm never thirsty and I have an incentive to leave my desk for a bit fairly frequently, to refill one container and empty another. I started doing this in 2010 and it's a heavily ingrained habit now, to the point where I'll probably never notice the inevitable onset of diabetes.
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Jul 27, 2017 17:00
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https://twitter.com/SFGate/status/885766217180381184
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Jul 27, 2017 19:53
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Is La Croix actually a thing outside of the MKs of tech companies? I've never seen anyone drink a La Croix outside of work and I hadn't even heard of it until February when I started this job.
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Jul 27, 2017 20:03
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Jose Valasquez posted:Is La Croix actually a thing outside of the MKs of tech companies? My wife never worked at a tech company and drinks it with dinner.
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Jul 27, 2017 20:08
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Boston tap water ftw.
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Jul 27, 2017 20:24
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Jose Valasquez posted:Is La Croix actually a thing outside of the MKs of tech companies? Florida Girls Are Pissed That Hipsters Stole LaCroix from Them
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Jul 27, 2017 20:41
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lifg posted:Fake Glassdoor reviews are easy to spot. It's always like, "Pros: fast paced environment and lots of money! Cons: some people can't handle the fast paced environment and making so much money!" It's amusing how true this is and how easy they are to spot.
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Jul 27, 2017 22:25
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"Fast paced environment" translates in my head to "we will shame you for working fewer than 90 hours a week or taking any days off ever."
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Jul 27, 2017 23:35
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Said recruiter emailed me back asking for an explanation, saying that he's placed 15 people there since 2010 including the engineering manager and the VP. I sent an email explaining that the reviews I see for the company on Glassdoor are very negative and are a pattern stretching back years, and I'm not cool with joining up. It's also got a really bad score with the Better Business Bureau (with which it is not accredited). Let's see if he gets pissy  In case you're wondering, it's Vista Higher Learning. Oops, gossip!
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Jul 28, 2017 00:43
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I'm leery of putting too much weight on the BBB; from what I hear they're pretty scummy. Like, members can get bad reviews removed kind of scummy.
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Jul 28, 2017 01:22
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I'm leery of putting too much weight on the BBB; from what I hear they're pretty scummy. Like, members can get bad reviews removed kind of scummy. Yeah, that was more of an afterthought type thing, but it still weirds me out.
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Jul 28, 2017 03:27
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Strange question, but in searching for companies to apply to, I came across this job posting: https://angel.co/diffeo/jobs/197313-information-retrieval-machine-learning-engineerquote:You have experience with search algorithms, natural language modeling, and massive text mining. You can dive into elaborate datasets and architect the algorithms behind modern search. You are excited to use your mathematical and algorithmic background to help us improve information retrieval. This sounds pretty cool and much more in line with what I want my career to be like, but I'm not sure whether I, as someone with mostly web development experience, would actually have any of my skills and experience transfer to that field. Machine learning is one thing, but it kind of feels like there's a large barrier/difference between web development and other kinds of application development (even on the back-end). Have other web developers had that kind of experience? Is this the kind of thing that a web developer isn't really useful for, and if so, what would I need to do to gain these skills and start qualifying for these positions? I see a lot of positions opening up for machine learning/data science around my area, and I want to get in on the field.
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Jul 28, 2017 18:27
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Apply and if you get an interview tinker with it enough to not seem completely foreign to the concepts. Nothing lost there. Some positions are okay with learning on the job, some aren't. You probably won't get a response from the later but that's fine too.
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Jul 28, 2017 18:59
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Just had a phone screen for a UI/front-end engineer position where the first question that was asked was "how much linear algebra do you know?". It only got worse from there. I can't decide if I'm angry because the interviewer clearly had no idea what my skills were or what my background was, or because it made me feel really, really loving dumb. EDIT: The interviewer just called me back and asked me if I was interested in interviewing with someone on the front-end team instead. Turns out he's entirely machine learning/algorithms focused and gave me the questions he usually gives algorithms people. Which I appreciate, I like challenges like those, just not as part of an interview for a loving web front-end position. I don't know what to make of this. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Jul 28, 2017 |
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Jul 28, 2017 22:17
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What you make of it is that either their interviewing process is bad, or their interviewing process had a temporary hitch (e.g. the intended interviewer was out sick, so they scrambled to find someone else). Either way I wouldn't take this single event as a sign you shouldn't interview again.
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Jul 28, 2017 22:25
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:What you make of it is that either their interviewing process is bad, or their interviewing process had a temporary hitch (e.g. the intended interviewer was out sick, so they scrambled to find someone else). Either way I wouldn't take this single event as a sign you shouldn't interview again. From what I could tell, it was intended to be that person from the beginning. Anyway, I was also really caught off guard by the initial question, which was about random line selection in a streaming file. It was basically "write this function over the phone please", and I've always found those kinds of questions to be really unwieldy when you're doing it live, especially over the phone. It also asked me to mathematically quantify the equal distribution of the function, and I'm sure there's a word for that, I just don't know it because I don't have a loving PhD in mathematics. There were also a few stranger questions like "tell me about all the request headers you've worked with" and "what's the name for the concept where " and a weird section where I was guided into re-creating TCP. Honestly, kinda 50/50 me loving up and the interview process being a little lopsided.
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Jul 28, 2017 22:34
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