I find these rankings to be really arbitrary. They should really have them split into categories like they have them for types of schools people like to go to (engineering schools, big city schools, hipster schools, ivies, facing-saving schools for ivy rejects etc.),
Perfect Places for A Personality People also Like Cults (Amazon, Bridgewater Associates)
Places for people who like to Chillax and Still Get Paid (Lucrative BigCo with flex-time, summer hours, no morning standups, WFH)
Places for parents (BigCo with generous maternal leaves, daycare or benefits for families)
Places for brogrammers (Genius formerly known as RapGenius)
Places for 'Silicon Valley' Show Lovers (Company mission statement that includes the phrase "change the world," Nerf Guns part of office deco, uncompromising nature to adopt the latest cool tech like Node.js)
Places for introverts (Places with offices for employees, not open office plans, WFH options; in fields that are less sales-oriented and more academic, niche research companies)
Curious if anyone else has any ideas on the 'ecology' of tech companies and what 'animals' are best fit for which one!
We here at Lucrative BigCo are always looking for paradigm changing talent to accelerate our dynamic synergy efforts. Please submit your resume to our jobs portal. This will require manually typing all of the info on your resume by hand into individual fields. Resume itself may only by in .txt format. We look forward to not responding for 6 to 12 months!
This a funny and a sad reality - come join our innovative company and solve interesting problems yet please submit your cv via jobvite/taleo or some other completely horrid job tracking system. Seems like that would be a place one could "disrupt."
Uggh was just going through this process a few hours ago .. dealing with those horrible enter your cover letter and resume systems for X big company. I even just encountered this when applying for a job thru StackOverflow.
Overall those systems frustrate me to the point of finding the hiring managers name and their email address (just google for example @xcompany.com to see how their work email address is formatted) and sending them a personal message with my resume attached. This works at times, while other times it doesnt. But, either way I dont have to deal with those horrible CV/resume data entry systems. Also, since not many are using this hack Im sure the recruiting manager saw my resume vs. it going into a black hole.
No issues and now I realize after writing the above your system was only two windows. Create cover letter and upload resume ... easy stuff compared to the annoying/frustrating Big corp CV/resume data entry systems.
I was applying for a job via one of these portals earlier in the year. I got so frustrated at the process that I started including bug reports for the portal as part of my job application.
Needless to say, I didn't even get an interview. But I'm in a fortunate position where I can choose the company I want to work for and that business, with their buggy application process, failed to impress me.
Well, not exactly what the parent describe but you have "laid-back" lucrative companies. In France it's banks, insurances, etc. You can't necessarily WFH easily but with more than 7 weeks of PTO it's more like "no work from home" when you feel like it.
They're lucrative because they have money to throw around, you don't have to work very hard because they don't like risk anyway so everything moves slowly.
The downside is that work is boring, slow-paced with old tech. Think J2EE stuck on Java 6, on the front you have to use jQuery 1.7 and they need a committee to decide to validate usage of jQuery 1.8. Sometimes you might get to write a cool prototype with recent tech but they'll just say "yeah it's cool but we can't integrate it with our legacy code", etc. Once in a while they pick a shiny new tech for their "new platform" (like Angular) but by the time their whole codebase is migrated the "new platform" is obsolete ("Angular 1 sucks I want to use Angular 2/React!")
Yes. I have 30 days off a year, free lunch, opportunity to travel abroad on business, morale type party events in office, I get to "ship things", and I solve challenging technical problems in a true full stack role. This is the first job I've had where I actually had to be up on algorithms as we use a ton of graph theory.
Where do I work? A big wall street bank most people in this thread would never bother replying to if recruited. This situation may be unique...I don't know, but you can't find out without exploring the opportunity.
I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday who went into detail about the exceedingly generous PTO packages offered by her employers when she worked in the banking industry. I was very impressed.
I work at at a big co: I'm given about 2 months off per year, flexible hours and a work from home option.
Of course, I'm selling this year's PTO back to the company because I was under pressure not to use it, and since every week is crunch time, required working hours are 8:30-6 Mon-Sat in the office.
Point being, offerings are meaningless unless corporate culture allows you to use them.
This article looks like the functional equivalent of writers at a travel magazine perusing Yelp for highest-rated restaurants, then writing a full article based on those rating but never actually dining at those establishments.
Sure, np. But don't want to say them out aloud because it's not nice to stereotype in public.
Instead look up the list of the most expensive undergraduate tuition in US, filter for schools that has the (largest price tag * (1 - percentage of demonstrated financial aid met)) / academic rigor ratio.
Just look at the top 20 colleges in US News and World Reports and remove all the ivies (and the top engineering schools if you're an engineering student).
In my experience, "summer hours" mean half-day Fridays over the summer. I'd never heard the term until I moved to NYC.
To elaborate: Apparently the idea is that people could use it as travel time for weekend trips. Drive up to the Hamptons on Friday after lunch, have a full Saturday/Sunday to relax at the beach. Though I use it primarily for afternoon naps.
Summer hours could also mean that the expectation that employees have the option of taking the entire Friday off during the summer, provided that you schedule into your work Mon-Thurs. to make for the lost "eight hours unit" across those four days of work (e.g., WFH, come in an hour earlier).
Summer hour to me always meant it wasn't uncouth to leave an hour early during the week or take a full day or half day on Friday. Really it's just more relaxed hours.
I know that HN User kokev wanted to do this (since he himself had a particular set of preferences for employer characteristics) but idk what became of it.
Wait, hey, that last category of companies sounded really nice. Especially the closed offices. Can you list of some companies like that, so I know where to look?
The problem is that Airbnb has about two thousand employees, all of whom for the most part, are on the cusp of getting a very nice payout from an IPO. So I would say company vigor and enthusiasm is at peak levels.
Google on the other hand has like 60,000 employees and IPO'd over a decade ago. It almost goes without saying that, as a large, more mature company it's a lot harder to keep employees happy.
I'm not sure it's true that a larger, more mature company has a harder time keeping employees happy.
I get that pre IPO companies have that advantage, but a company like Google which makes absurd amounts of money also has its advantages, like being able to afford giving their employees high salaries and also better work life balance. I am not sure that Google gives its employees that though, at least not the latter. Plus, a more mature company should have its processes already ironed out and no more growing pains.
> I am not sure that Google gives its employees that though, at least not the latter.
I've been at Google for over a year, and I'd say that you get as much "work-life balance" as you can be bothered to make for yourself. As far as I can tell there's no penalty for choosing to do that, but not everybody does.
I've read your post history. It's fairly clear that you're either a troll or have a serious axe to grind.
What you have said here is simply not true. I know MANY people who maintain an extremely solid work life balance and are doing just fine, career wise. I would include myself on this list. I work a 9-5, I take all of my vacation, and avoid opening my laptop outside of the office. I don't keep my corporate account on my phone. I'm well compensated, I've been promoted without incident, and never once received feedback that I wasn't showing enough leadership or working hard enough. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Please stop assuming that what you think you know about Google is true (or universal to the Google experience).
Is there any job at any company in any industry where "putting in your 8 hours" pushes you to the top?
There are anecdotes about amazing contractors who can work 8 hours a week showing up pointing out problems and offering smart solutions but almost all of them can do that because at some point they were putting in 100 hours a week.
If you care about moving upward yes you will need to do more than show up for 8 hours.
>Is there any job at any company in any industry where "putting in your 8 hours" pushes you to the top?
Upward, yes. The top, no
>If you care about moving upward yes you will need to do more than show up for 8 hours.
This is not true. If you need to show up for more than 8 hours at the bottom to move up, then you are working at a place where it is expected you will show up for more than 8 hours once you move upward. In my experience, there are companies where almost everyone does 8 hours or less, and there are companies where the work never stops. It's an office culture and it doesn't change with titles, from my experience.
There is a difference between "do more than show up for 8 hours" and "show up for more than 8 hours". You usually have to do the former to move up, it may or may not involve the latter.
What's the top? Sr. Management sometimes has to work that long. You can definitely move up with 8 hours a day. You need to do more than just show up though.
Showing leadership doesn't have to be outside the 8 hours expected of an employee. If you're good enough you'll do both of those and have proper time outside of work.
Most people who stay longer at offices do so of their own volition, yet mentally count those hours as work even if they aren't exactly working on a task delegated to them.
This is a good point, I think the better point to make is that when you have a big company that's been around a while there have been a lot more opportunities for things to go wrong, which leads to unhappy current or former employees, and then bad reviews on sites like glassdoor.
A company like Airbnb hasn't gone through like 1/100000 of the pains that Google has gone through. Think of all the products Google has built (some successful and some not), think of all the economic environments Google has had to go through (2000 meltdown, 2008 meltdown), think of all the employees who have worked there (there's 60k now, but google has probable cycled through 5x that amount).
Airbnb has made like, one product? Through a relatively small stretch of time, while probably still using most of their original employees. It's an electric time to be at Airbnb no doubt, but I wouldn't trumpeted them as the best place to work just yet.
at a $25B valuation, you need 0.004% ownership of the company for your shares to be worth $1M. Even discounting for strike price, it's reasonable that 10~15% of the employees would have a basis point ownership or more.
I'd say the opposite. While Airbnb is on the cusp of a payout, Google's an established and quite profitable company. They have plenty of money that they can use to make people happy. Airbnb has the promise of money, which will almost certainly be diluted to hell and back when all is said and done.
It's the promise of something better -- just about to arrive -- that has the biggest impact on happiness. Seriously.
"We're going to have a baby!"
"I just got engaged."
"We just hired this great engineer."
"We're going to Hawaii for Christmas."
I could go on, but you get the point. Once you've had Google's free food and other perks for a while, they become baseline. They're just part of what's normal.
This is absolutely true. The promise of a big purchase (the anticipation) makes people way more happy than the purchase itself and even being able to enjoy the fruits of the purchase.
Glassdoor reviews -- like all reviews posted online -- should be taken with a generous helping of salt. A general reason is that most people post reviews to sites like these to either rant or rave, and the employees who had neither a great nor a bad experience (the majority of employees) have little to no incentive to post thoughtful reviews. Arguably, however, companies that a higher proportion of stellar reviews are clearly doing a better job keeping employees happy, so the overall rating may be worth trusting. But heed this warning: I know of one company that has a policy of posting positive reviews on Glassdoor. And they're clever enough to always populate the "Cons" section (and avoid overly glowing reviews) so that they won't give themselves away. Apparently they were having a hard time recruiting new employees, and one of the reasons was negative reviews on Glassdoor. Because Glassdoor wouldn't take the reviews down, they decided to post fake reviews. After learning about this (through a former recruiter at that company) I have a hard time trusting Glassdoor reviews. Who knows how many other companies do the same thing to attract talent?
The problem is many startups, especially those trying to "double engineer headcount within this year", encourage new hires to write good reviews during orientations when those employees barely know the working environment at the company.
Can attest. Worked with a company that was going through some serious shit in terms of senior employee departures and had a pretty opaque culture. But Glassdoor reviews were filled with 'Silicon Valley Dream' and 'Making it Big' reviews. The handful of reviews that really told the truth were minuscule to affect the ratings.
I visited Airbnb's headquarters this past summer, and they are very impressive. For example, their conference rooms are themed off actual listings. So you have the African hut meeting room, the elegant Milan room, and the tiny Japanese stress relief space. On top of that, their hallways tell stories. For example, one describes the origins of their logo in beautiful, exquisite detail. Overall, I have yet to see a more creative workspace.
They are the company's private offices. What type of credit are they expected to give the designers? If I see an interior design online and redesign my living room to match it, do I have to hang a sign that says "special thanks to the designers at myinteriordesigns.com"?
I don't know how copyright works for interior design, but if it were a book she wrote, and then someone else rewrote without permission, there'd clearly be room for claiming a violation.
Theres no such thing as "plagiarized" interior design. Certain elements (like a painting) could be plagiarized or reproductions of photos or wall artwork could be a copyright violation, but the overall design and "look and feel" isn't really afforded any copyright protection. Same with things like recipes. If you can figure out how someone makes their "secret sauce" you are free to produce and sell it at will. Trademarks and such are afforded protection, but the food product itself is not.
As a related aside, this is why designers splash their logos all over clothing and accessories. The name and logo are protectable on their own, the rest of the "look and feel" of the article is not, but the whole article is protectable when combined.
> The Employees’ Choice Awards is based on the input of employees who choose to provide feedback on their job, work environment, and company via an anonymous online company review survey. Glassdoor then uses a “proprietary algorithm” to determine an overall ranking “based on the quantity, quality, and consistency of reviews.”
What does that mean? The "algorithm" could be anything, possibly not even an algorithm.
It means their results are utter and complete bullshit and that their "rankings" shouldn't even be considered as anything close to any kind of credible research.
Even assuming a perfect, fair algorithm with perfect input (not like fake reviews you can find on Amazon/Yelp posted by your PR team or your concurrents).
The fact venturebeat only shows Tech company makes it a bit better than the original ranking since it's at least comparing Apples to Apples: On the original ranking the fast food chain In-N-Out, or grocery store HEB is a better place to work at than Apple, or Microsoft (not even in the top 50 in that list)
But even, a startup and a tech giant shouldn't be on the same list.
EDIT: Also presenting best companies to work on 1 dimension is somewhat useless. Glassdoor probably weighted Salary, Flexibility of hours, career opportunities, etc. their own way. A better ranking would let you weight the different options yourself, or at least give you the option of a few presets weights: Best place for 'workaholics', best place for family people, best place for career growth, etc.
I like you idea for allowing tweaking the ranking to personalize results. Kinda like the equalizer on a stereo. It's obviously subjective whether one enjoys more bass or more treble.
Glassdoor reviews are faked, at least at my company HR routinely writes tons of positive ones and when we purchase Glassdoor advertising suddenly our negative reviews vanish or get ranked lower and lower.
From some of the employee comments in the video, you would think that they are solving all of the worlds problems, rather than an accomodation booking site.
I'm continually surprised that Guidewire is up there near the top. If you look at the company itself, it's insurance software, yet they've managed to rank above Google and 3rd overall. I'm somewhat sad that the article doesn't mention them at all.
(full disclosure: I did work there previously, along with Google, but now work for neither)
> For some reason, Apple doesn’t do as well in these lists as we would think (it’s down to #25 from #22 last year). Once again, Microsoft didn’t make the list
curious why apple would be higher but microsoft doesn't seem to be a surprise.
Wikipedia tells me that of Apple's 43,000 U.S. employees, 30,000 work in Apple stores. That's probably an above-average retail experience, but it's retail. Customers get angry. Long hours. Pay is what it is. I'd expect that a blend of Apple's HQ talent (very satisfied) and its store employees (hmmn) is the explanation.
Clearly any Facebook employee that wants to jump in here would be welcomed. There seems to be a lot of interest in what might have motivated the above comment.
I'm an ex-employee too (former intern). Not saying that the company is perfect, but the tone of adrianlmm implied that Facebook was a such a bad place to work at ("even facebook"), which it really isn't.
Bloomberg had someone from Glasdoor on yesterday and they were asking them how they arrived at these results. He said they had an "algorithm", when pressed further about the criteria he mentioned the company had to have at least 75 reviews in the last year, seemed kind of laughable. Their site feels cheap and tacky, not sure how much credibility they have but I don't ever hear people talking about it. I don't doubt AirBnB might be a good work environment but it seems like this is a way for Glasdoor to ride someone else's coat tails to a headline.
Perfect Places for A Personality People also Like Cults (Amazon, Bridgewater Associates)
Places for people who like to Chillax and Still Get Paid (Lucrative BigCo with flex-time, summer hours, no morning standups, WFH)
Places for parents (BigCo with generous maternal leaves, daycare or benefits for families)
Places for brogrammers (Genius formerly known as RapGenius)
Places for 'Silicon Valley' Show Lovers (Company mission statement that includes the phrase "change the world," Nerf Guns part of office deco, uncompromising nature to adopt the latest cool tech like Node.js)
Places for introverts (Places with offices for employees, not open office plans, WFH options; in fields that are less sales-oriented and more academic, niche research companies)
Curious if anyone else has any ideas on the 'ecology' of tech companies and what 'animals' are best fit for which one!