
My Time at Snap - tsm
https://medium.com/@marko_tupper/my-time-at-snap-83134da32e01
======
paxys
We have all worked for a "John" in the industry. The big systematic problem is
that after being fired from Snap (probably after already collecting massive
paychecks and a hefty chunk of equity), he will go to another big tech company
and impress them with his resume and bullshitting skills. They will hire him
and deal with his antics for a few years, while he ruins more people's
careers, then he will move on. Rinse and repeat.

Also a 10/20/30/40 vesting schedule immediately stands out as a red flag for
me. 25%/year vested quarterly (with a 1 year cliff) has been standard in the
industry for a very long time. I would't trust a company to have my best
interests at heart when it is massively beneficial for them if employees quit
after 1-2 years (which is already about the average tenure at most companies
of that size).

~~~
ordinaryperson
> We have all worked for a "John" in the industry.

Agreed. But since so many middle managers are twits isn't it incumbent on the
employee to learn a set of skills to deal with Johns?

Managing people is hard. Being a good manager is really hard, which is why
there are so few of them.

Rather than rail against how terrible Person X is as a manager I feel like
it's more productive to say, "Unless I start my own company there's always
going to be some clueless middle manager above me. How do I deal with him/her
effectively?"

~~~
johnmaguire2013
> Agreed. But since so many middle managers are twits isn't it incumbent on
> the employee to learn a set of skills to deal with Johns?

It's much easier to simply find a better job without a John, or where you're
shielded from John.

(My name breaks this analogy a bit.)

~~~
KKKKkkkk1
I don't think it's easier, because:

a) It's hard to identify a good manager ahead of time.

b) People change; circumstances change.

c) Your team and manager will change sooner than you expect, especially if
they are a good team or manager.

~~~
thothamon
d) Constantly changing jobs every time some jerk floats into your circle
doesn’t speak well of your character or look good on your resume.

~~~
croh
true if only you put real reasons on resumes.

------
thiscatis
On the one hand I recognise a lot of the teams and work issues this developer
had. But reading between the lines it seems like this dev wanted it all,
equity without commitment, weeks of remote work without formal agreement, a
quick cash out over adding value to the company...Seems very entitled to me.
It looks very one-sided as well. Everything had to come from the company and
its management, nothing from his side.

~~~
aedron
This does come across as an inexperienced developer with a high opinion of his
own worth, and rather clueless about how organizations work. I actually came
away with a good impression of Snap from the description. Even the supposedly
nightmarish engineering director could, from another angle, possibly be seen
in a good light: Insisting on proper analysis and design before a project
commences, taking a deep interest in the technical part of the project. The
author disagreed with a bunch of points and that might have been enough for
him to lose all respect for him.

In the end he gets bored with his actual work and lets himself be hijacked by
some line function to develop internal tools for them, outside of the purview
of any manager. Unsurprisingly he ends up an organizational orphan. Which
means no one goes to bat for him to squeeze in several weeks of remote work,
which sounds like a pretty outlandish demand to my ears. To think that the
fact that some random person once 'approved' it makes any difference just goes
to show the naïvety. Obviously he didn't get it in writing from someone able
to make that decision, and that's the only thing that matters.

~~~
kalkin
> Even the supposedly nightmarish engineering director could, from another
> angle, possibly be seen in a good light: Insisting on proper analysis and
> design before a project commences, taking a deep interest in the technical
> part of the project.

In what world is it a good idea for an engineering director to take a deep
interest in technical details of a project? Suppose that the director was
right and author was wrong in ~all of their disagreements, but just that the
author was simply telling the truth about two things: the director spending
two weeks doing design mockups, and intervening to specify the type of a
database column. This makes the director somebody who is (a) not doing their
actual job, and (b) probably nightmarish to work for no matter whether you are
a "low performer" or a superstar.

You cannot be an effective manager and simultaneously maintain enough
engineering context to make good technical decisions. If you want to be
involved in detailed technical design, you need to switch your career track
back to IC. And if you are running a company and you want either good
technical decisions or high morale among your engineers, you can't tolerate
managers playing at being engineers instead of doing their actual jobs. (With
something like a manager maintaining a small low-priority internal tool, or
doing a rotation onto an engineering team for a week to refresh their
intuitive handle on the state of the codebase & tooling but no expectation of
being a net-positive contributor, being the exceptions that prove the rule.)

~~~
corebit
Good managers are good leaders, which means they sometimes need to teach.
There's nothing wrong with an engineering manager teaching someone about the
proper type for a database column as an exercise in actual leadership and
mentorship of their development team.

~~~
Topgamer7
But forcing you to change tests from using sqlite to mysql because of int vs
smallint is an overreaction. If I was to prioritize moving tests from sqlite
to mysql, over getting functional requirements done, I'd be nuts. Especially
if the tests catch 99.9999999% of issues. Its very unlikely to have an issue
with this type of thing. That's not a good manager, that's a moron.

------
eternalny1
Great read ... but the one thing that stood out to me is a LOT of remote time
that doesn't seem to have been agreed upon in advance, such as in the hiring
contract.

At first I just read that time was needed "around the holidays", then that
somehow was 5 WEEKS of remote time, then there was Easter time in Florida,
then there was additional "weeks" during the annual summer trip to Florida,
then there was an anniversary trip ... etc

Unless this is specified in the contract I can't see justifying what there
alone amounts to ~11 (?) weeks of remote work.

I'm only saying this as someone who has been through many on-site jobs with
remote-allowed, and is currently working as a fully remote senior engineer.

~~~
whynaut
It says in a few parts that this was agreed on at hiring. Should probably also
be in writing, but that doesn’t excuse them from deciding not to honor one
day.

~~~
bluesign
Actual it seems like, he agreed with customer ops manager about conditions,
but HR didn't assign him to customer ops, but to another engineering
department.

So basically, such an important thing for him, he should have confirmed about
the conditions with the new manager at least.

~~~
wastedhours
Once again highlighting the importance of getting anything important written
down in a verified document. After a conversation with anyone about this sort
of thing, send an email outlining your understanding to the decider and push
for confirmation it's accurate.

They might still not honour it, but at least you'll have some sort of leg to
stand on.

------
markbnj
I've had one or two horrible work experiences like the author's. The last time
it happened was bad enough that I sat down and wrote a long article very
similar to this one, explaining all the things the employer had done wrong,
and all the ways in which they'd made my life difficult. It made me feel much
better to write it, and I read it through several times, nodding to myself at
all the important points. Then I deleted it and got another job.

------
librish
There seems to be a valuable lesson for OP about the cost of not playing ball
here.

Assuming OPs side of things is mostly true it sounds like:

\- OP was working for a bad director, one so bad that they eventually got
fired \- Instead of placating this director and pretending to take their
concerns into consideration, OP fights back more than other teammates (reading
between the lines of the quote "However, given that I was far from John’s
favorite (we never openly came into conflict, but I didn’t put the requisite
amount of enthusiasm into jumping through his hoops to really get onto his
good side)" here) \- The director gives him a very poor performance review,
that seems to have had serious impact on OPs career, team selection
possibility, and personal finances, despite the director eventually getting
fired

It just seems like a very high price to pay just to be able to tell yourself
that you're not putting up with bullshit.

~~~
kgwgk
The philosopher Diogenes was sitting on a curbstone, eating bread and lentils
for his supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived
comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, "If you would learn to be
subservient to the king, you would not have to live on lentils." Said
Diogenes, "Learn to live on lentils, and you will not have to cultivate the
king."

~~~
oarsinsync
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is largely based around this topic as well.

Giving up who you really are can be a very high price to pay just to be able
to receive some (more) money.

~~~
fhbdukfrh
People are both complex and can change though. Maybe we should give up our
worst aspects as we grow and learn. Figure out your core essence and protect
it; identify the accidental and be open to alternatives.

I know that as my experience has accumulated i care about a few things more
and all things a lot less. O also better understand life is a spectrum of many
different perspectives, versus the black or white zealot i was in my younger
days...

------
DoubleGlazing
"The problem with John was not just that he was misinformed, but that he was
misinformed and highly motivated."

Oh yes! This rings so true with me.

One of my biggest bug-bears in IT are the leaders who have the gift of the gab
and know how to BS their way through life. They have that personality that
allows them to talk about any subject and people will listen assuming that
they now what they are talking about.

If they know how to use those skills for the betterment of a project then they
are fantastic people. In other words listening to the devs and using their
skills to manipulate the higher ups to get more time and resources. Usually it
works the other way round though by ignoring what the devs say and forcing
their own will upon them.

For example by insisting on switching to Scrum 9 months in to a 12 month
project that had been happily running on waterfall up to that point.

~~~
gherkinnn
> One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be
> entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only
> mischief.

Perfectly describes our friend John.

The rest of the quote is quite interesting too:

[https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-
Equord](https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord)

------
privateSFacct
‘Foundational promise’

I love these as a new mgr - new guy shows up, I know nothing of their unique
‘foundational promise’, I have no idea if they can contribute or work well
with team, I put some effort in to get them going, then they start sending
long (they are always WAY too long) emails about being special cased over 20
people who I’ve known longer and have worked harder for me. I check with HR
and a hard pass. I’m not considered humane for failing to give someone I’m
paying lots of money to lots of remote work time. And I know what remote work
time is like when an employee is visiting family - even though they are
“working“ it takes them hours to respond to slack.

I don’t mean to be harsh, but if you look at compensation rates - your manager
does get to call the shots at least a little in return for money they are
throwing at you.

And yes, if a top performer keeping you is pretty high up on list. 20 reports
is too many though - def not a great sign in my book.

~~~
throwaway713
> even though they are “working“ it takes them hours to respond to slack.

Interesting, I feel the opposite. The longer it takes me to respond to
someone’s messages, the more real work I am actually getting done because I’m
deeply focused. The days where I quickly reply to everyone are usually the
most unproductive.

~~~
nilkn
I think it depends on the team and your role. In many cases, much of your
value comes from being a team member, not a lone wolf, which extends beyond
your personal git commits. Sometimes being available to answer questions,
remove blockers, review a proposal, etc., is simply more valuable to the team
than you plugging away on a ticket for four hours in isolation. In other
words, while you might feel more productive because your personal output in
git is higher, your impact on the team's progress might actually be lower. Of
course, this can also be taken too far to the point where you're always being
distracted and can't do any substantial coding. The right balance depends on
what the team is trying to accomplish.

------
meuk
> When I say that it was a bedroom, I don’t just mean that it would be
> identified as a bedroom on the condo’s floor plan, I mean that this room had
> a fully made up bed crammed into it next to the conference table and video
> conferencing unit.

That's hilarious.

~~~
joejerryronnie
I would make it a point to sleep for the first 30 minutes of any meeting.

~~~
paxys
Seriously, that thing would be booked 24x7 at my company. Being able to lie
down while on a call would make things so much more relaxing and productive.

~~~
leni536
Too risky for falling asleep.

~~~
bestest
I believe the fact that you might fall asleep when you simply lie on a bed at
work indicates that there are some timing issues in your daily lifecycle.

~~~
whynaut
Normally i’d agree, but they had 2 hour sprint plannings.. for a sub-team..

------
throwaway713
I find it interesting how split the HN comments on this story are. Half seem
to think this guy is an entitled low performer chasing high compensation, and
the other half relate to him and feel that he was treated unfairly by Snap.

I’m not sure what that means.

~~~
nilkn
I suspect this is a story of two low performers colliding and causing problems
for each other. "John", the director of engineering, was fired, probably for
some of the reasons the author points out. But there are also many signs here
that the author wasn't performing up to standards, was difficult to manage,
and had very high expectations and wanted special treatment.

------
dangwu
> ...the workload we had mostly kept us working separately on our own tasks
> with little room for interaction. It wasn’t uncommon, for the first part of
> my time at Snap, to get up in the morning, drive to the office, go through
> the work-day in the same room as two other people but rarely speaking to
> each other, and then drive home...

Sadly, I find this to be all too common in the industry. It’s super isolating
and depressing when you work alone on projects and aren’t in an environment
that fosters socialization and team-building. Forming those bonds is what
makes people happy to go to work everyday and work hard. Managers should do
more to prioritize interaction and teaming up on projects when it makes sense.

~~~
huhtenberg
This actually sounds like a near-perfect setup to me. Get it, program, get
out. If I want to socialize, I'll do it outside of work.

~~~
sanderdlm
It may sound like it but I can assure you that it's not. Humans are social
animals and when you have to spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week in a setting
with little to no peer interaction, it'll start to wear on you.

The first month is awesome. Complete freedom & autonomy, then the depression
starts kicking in.

~~~
huhtenberg
You certainly can assure me, but that won't do much.

I've been doing it for 30 years, I know how I like it.

~~~
saalweachter
The distinction is going to be whether you have a rich social network outside
of work. Stack up immediate family, extended family, a handful of close
longtime friends, church, a softball team, a couple of hobbyist groups, and a
volunteer board, and your half dozen colleagues you were randomly assigned to
work near can seem rather superfluous.

On the other hand, you take a bunch of young people straight out of college,
collect them from around the country and the world, drop them in a new city
without any social network, lean on them to work 50, 60 hour weeks, and
suddenly socializing with your coworkers becomes very important, especially if
you're single, not very religious, and not very outgoing. The alternative is
complete isolation and sad phone calls with friends and family thousands of
miles away.

~~~
Konnstann
Man, this really resonates with me, basically my situation right now. I love
my job and my colleagues, but I basically have no close friends outside of
work in my city since moving.

~~~
saalweachter
One piece of advice is to not focus on making close friends. They're
important, and it's really nice having some nearby, but it's not really any
easier to make a new close friend than to start any other long-term
relationship.

Instead, just focus on (a) _meeting_ as many people as you can bear and (b)
establishing membership in a few groups with regular activities.

The latter is more straight forward, and can accomplish the former. There are
lots of options: signing up for a sports league, taking classes (art classes,
exercise classes, continuing education classes, whatever), going to a board
games meetup group, joining a volunteer organization, join a church (or
whatever) if you're even mildly religious. Friendships, like all
relationships, are built on shared interests and repeat interactions.

You can also meet a lot of people without joining any groups, although it's
easier if you're the sort of naturally sociable person who can strike up a
conversation with anyone you're around for more than two minutes. Besides the
obvious (go to places there are people, talk to them), or the "run for
political office" strategy (it gives you a reason to go and introduce yourself
to a few thousand people in your area), there's also the reverse strategy,
where you establish a _routine_.

Pick a few activities to do yourself, and do them on a regular, predictable
basis in public. Go for a walk or a run every day at the same time, on the
same route. Go read at the library or a park a coffee shop at the same time
every week. Go to a farmer's market every weekend. You don't need to schedule
your entire life on a recurring basis, but by just keeping a regular schedule
you will make yourself more visible, familiar and approachable to the people
around you, and they'll feel comfortable saying "hi" or introducing
themselves.

While meeting lots of people and joining a few groups can lead to finding a
few close friends, it's also a big help in itself in alleviating the isolation
which comes with moving to a new place. You'll be surprised at even the
difference that just introducing yourself to a couple hundred people makes.
Suddenly, everyone around you isn't just one flavor or another of "stranger";
you know their names (or at least, some of them, depending on your memory for
names and faces), and they know yours. You've been introduced, so now you can
wave or say "hi" or comment on the weather without it being weird.

------
teen
Tough break. I also spoke w/ a Snap Recruiter around the same time as you, and
was offered that ridic amount of equity- they were talking about 600k for L5,
or over 1m for L6. I felt like this was a huge red flag that their equity was
bullshit. And that vesting schedule is an obvious scam. Reading Glassdoor is
nothing but stories like this one. Sorry you went through it. None of this
surprises me, Snap Leadership seems like nothing but jerks.

~~~
jkp56
1M per year?

~~~
anonsnap
1m over 4 years in RSU

~~~
jkp56
So 250k per year in stocks + up to 200k in salary + 40k annual bonus. 500k
total. That's a really solid result for someone with 10yoe in the big tech
companies, top performer. Solid, but nothing to shout about.

------
Touche
There are many types of "John"s out there. I worked for a John who was a
highly accomplished engineer. It doesn't make it any better to have someone
constantly micromanage you knowing that they are technical, it only makes it
worse because you have to think to yourself "he might be right". But the thing
about micromanagement is that it doesn't matter if the micromanager is right
or not, it simply kills employee motivation to know that any energy and
thought they put into their work is likely to be overruled based on a whim.

~~~
vemv
> it only makes it worse because you have to think to yourself "he might be
> right"

Seems a self-defeating statement. Thinking isn't wrong. Neither it is that
someone _else_ is right.

~~~
Touche
I didn't say either of those things.

------
curiousgal
Tangent. How is it logical to deprive people from access to a booth just
because people in a wheelchair can't access it? That's like banning computer
screens because blind people can't see them.

~~~
onion2k
I'm making a website that gives free kittens and Bitcoins to anyone who has a
HN username starting with a letter in the second half of the alphabet. You
can't use it, which is a shame, but it would be wrong to deprive half of HN
free kittens and Bitcoins, right? I mean, fairness is all well and good, but
_everyone_ likes a free kitten. I'm really sorry I can't make a website that
everyone can access, but that would cost more so I'm not going to bother.

~~~
sincerely
I think I can guess the point you're trying to make, but you did a pretty bad
job making it. There's literally nothing wrong with your example.

~~~
onion2k
_There 's literally nothing wrong with your example._

You may believe there's nothing wrong with arbitrary discrimination but I
don't.

~~~
icebraining
Your posts discriminate against everyone who can't read English.
_Unreasonable_ discrimination is the problem.

EDIT: granted, writing posts in English isn't _arbitrary_ , but neither is
installing small booths, there are good space-utilization benefits to it; it's
_unreasonable_ , because those benefits don't trump accessibility to people in
wheelchairs.

------
untog
And this is why companies offer you stock on a vesting schedule that keeps you
around.

The author knew it would be a shitshow before they even started. But took the
job because of the stock. Started at the job, found it to be terrible. Stuck
around... because of the stock. And so on. Meanwhile, your bet rests on the
company, which you now know to be a badly run shitshow, beating estimates and
turning a healthy profit. Surely you know that isn't going to happen. At a
certain point you're making a life decision based around the hope that stock
market investors are too stupid to see the obvious. Then scale that thought
process up to an entire company, and you wonder why the place isn't
functional.

I do have sympathy for the author, no-one deserves to work in a miserable job.
But that's why we have the option of quitting. Stock vesting fundamentally
affects that.

------
Waterluvian
Regarding the attractive stock vestments: in my opinion you need to avoid like
the plague, anything that makes it hard to walk away from your job at any
time. You need to be in the driver's seat for your life and career. Otherwise
you're just going to become miserable FAANG engineer cattle through one
mechanism or another.

Good on this person to walk away like that.

~~~
TomVDB
Attractive stock vestments are potentially what will make it possible in the
futures to walk away at any time...

------
albatruss
>He did tell us to use the word “epoch,” but not before explaining what the
word meant and that it was not, in fact, the same word as “epic,” to a room
full of native English speakers. He then proceeded to opine on what he thought
the Latin roots of the word might be, which I’m convinced to this day he was
making up on the spot.

"epoch" actually comes from Greek :)

~~~
fouc
It would've been lovely if someone had directly interrupted this "John"
anytime he attempted to expound extensively after being asked a minor
clarifying question. This sort of person shouldn't be tolerated, not even by
employees.

~~~
haasted
Trouble is has that he seems to be in charge of their bi-annual reviews, which
is actually rather solid leverage.

------
ram_rar
There are enough threads comparing the OP and john mentioned in the article.
I'll not get into details on that. OPs experience does echo a few of my
colleagues, who kinda got screwed in the end. A few things I have learnt from
other peoples mishaps is that

1\. Always be Coding. Keep solving interview / LeetCode problems if you want
to pursue SE role. You never know, when shit hits the fan and you're asked to
leave. Not being prepared to give interview in a short notice will hurt a lot
in the future.

2\. Spend the first 90 days understanding team dynamics, culture, execution. I
rather observer the first few days and play dumb as apposed to show off my
skills, even though I know I could do a hell of a better job that the other
guy.

3\. If I dont like things going smoothly in first 90 days you should gtfo. I
was in teams before, where there were soo many gaming types folks (I
personally dont play video games that much) and barely a culture of reading or
discussing tech papers. I pretty much realized its not my place and I need to
gtfo.

------
iamsb
Sadly we have all worked with John. In my first job, 15 years ago, I was
preparing for a test for masters program. The test was on a Saturday at 8am in
a town 4 hours away. My manager thought Friday night 7pm is a good time to
schedule a meeting about what we are going to deliver in next 6 months.
Meeting went on for 2 hours!

~~~
driverdan
Why would you agree to participate in a 7pm Friday meeting?

~~~
iamsb
This was when I was 22, just out of college at my first job, so did not
realised at the time that you can say no to requests like these. Now a days I
follow a short Friday routine, get in early (7am) and leave by 1 or 2pm as
after that most people tend not to work and I would rather be home.

------
blt
> _trying to figure out how to rework my long-term financial plans around the
> hole Snap had just blown in my projected income made me feel ill._

Maybe don't make long-term financial plans around a company that's obviously
unstable?

~~~
sct202
Yeah buying a house in Florida, years before he was planning to actually move
there was an interesting choice.

------
somishere
Wow, nothing like a massive whinge to start the day! Don't take a lot of
pleasure in saying it, but am highly suspicious of the author's role in all
this. While there's no doubt John plagued our friend's life (as are Johns'
wont); how said friend played everything else, the relationship handling, the
motivation (!) ... culminating in this ego-driven, embittered rant. I mean,
the situation definitely sucks. But my biggest takeout was how stacked with
shit hires the whole big tech scene must be. It sounds like a bureaucratic hr
tetris nightmare, where all you're getting is these equity-driven, self-
absorbed shapeshifters that don't stack together because its not in the job
description. And then it all implodes. I don't know, maybe there was something
constructive between the lines in there. I just couldn't find it.

~~~
elbrian
I'm just amazed that developers have the confidence to lambaste former
employers in such a public, toxic and hostile manner.

If I was hiring for a developer position and Google'd Marko Tupper's name, I
wouldn't even agree to meet with him based on this article alone. Why would I
want someone so ego and drama-driven on my team?

I won't even leave negative reviews on Yelp or Google Maps out of fear of
reprisal or future employers finding them.

~~~
nwsm
"out of fear of reprisal"

You say this like the reprisal is unfair immediately after admitting you would
do the same.

------
ranman
One day, when the vests run out, I’ll write an article about my time at AWS...

It’s not nearly this bad but there are some stories that are worth telling.

------
fs111
Can we please stop calling publicly traded companies "startups", because they
are not.

------
vijucat
Oh, John, there you are again! How do you manage to be in so many places at
once? Which reminds me to ask: which firms have implemented the "No Asshole
Rule" well?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule)

Here's a list by the author from 2012, FYI:
[https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/02/the_no_assho...](https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/02/the_no_asshole_.html)

------
ankit219
Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. And a mandatory disclaimer that I
have not walked in the author's shoes, and that I am considering his
description as what happened.

Two things that stood out for me:

1/ If a director of engineering is not able to run a sprint planning meeting
or is grossly inefficient at that, what was the reaction of other devs at Snap
who were part of the same meeting. More than likely, if they see that as the
state of the managements, were they looking for jobs too?

2/ Is there a point in having engineering teams where there is no regular
interaction with the manager?

------
filmgirlcw
Although it certainly sounds like this guy had a really negative experience --
for lots of reasons that were not under his control -- I'm smacking my head at
some of the stuff.

First -- when it comes to stuff like remote work (especially since he was
first told "no, you can't do that" when he first explored switching teams),
that's all stuff that needs to be in writing. Period. I don't even think this
is a hard concept or something you need to learn from experience -- it's just
common sense. If you are promised something that is outside the norm or what
is official company/department policy, you get that in writing. If you can't
get it into your contract, it needs to be at least in email communication with
the hiring manager -- but you should really get that into your contract.

The second thing is the whole way he switched teams. Obviously there was
something super sketchy going on there (and in retrospect, was the first sign
that Snap was trying to manage him out), but that's a massive, massive red
flag. For his own performance reviews/bonuses/reporting stuff, the idea that
he would technically report to someone else while actually working for a
totally different team just doesn't make sense. I understand needing to get
away from a bad manager, but this was maybe the worst way to go about doing
it, because it offers the employee little to no protection if something in
that super sketchy scenario breaks down (which is exactly what happened).

Third, although I'm not going to call this guy "entitled" \-- I do take issue
with some of the work ethic stuff. I understand the hell that is unproductive
meetings, especially meetings that don't involve you or that preclude you from
doing what you actually need to do to get done. I have significant experience
managing requests/meetings from higher ups that impede on getting your actual
work done.

If you're called into a last-minute 2 hour meeting and it means you can't
leave on time to avoid traffic, in my opinion (which may be unpopular), the
adult thing to do is to stay late and attend the meeting -- paying only as
much attention as is necessary. Yes, it sucks to have to leave the office late
(and potentially hours later if you need to avoid traffic) -- but barring any
sort of preset appointment or obligation, stay in the damn meeting and find a
way to avoid having to be in the next one. Not to belabor the point, but the
way you get a Low Performance review is to skulk out of a meeting and
literally hide from your boss as you sneak out of the building.

Anyway. I do hope the author has found a place that is a better fit for them.

------
mindfulplay
Remember, centi-medium posts often have two sides to the story.. this person
describes one incident with "John" based on a biased, self-reporting and
frankly not a great story either: actually seems to portray the author in a
bad light even with his one-sided story.

------
msteffen
I wonder if some of the disagreement in this thread over whether the narrator
was being reasonable is really disagreement over the productivity of remote
employees.

I saw the author's request for extended remote work as entirely reasonable,
but I work at a company that has an extremely generous and flexible remote
policy, which I love and take full advantage of (working from home several
days a week). I now believe that engineers can be at least as productive
remote as on-site. Thus, denying his request to work remotely felt, to me, a
little petty.

I've worked at companies in the past that discouraged remote work. I think
back then, before I'd tried it, I would've seen his insistance on working
remotely as a little lazy and entitled.

------
musicale
Hmm, the council thing sounds kind of cool actually - I wonder where they got
it from? The Venice Beach work location sounded kind of nice too.

On the other hand, I do share the frustration with being stuck doing "team-
building" stuff that you hate. In most of the cases when I've had "team-
building" or mandatory "fun" activities for work, I would have preferred to
stay home and sleep. It's also hard to let your hair down when there are
bosses around who have the power to fire you or determine your rate of pay.

The biggest problem seems to be bad/micromanaging boss "John."

I concur with the overall point about working remotely being great and often
much more productive than working in the office.

------
yannis7
> keeping an eye out for John like an awkward combination of James Bond and
> Pac Man.

instant classic

------
person_of_color
Life changing amount of money for dev tools and a smattering of HTML/CSS.
Right.

~~~
akhilcacharya
Money is more a function of algorithmic interviewing and negotiating ability
than technical stack.

------
duxup
>you could walk around miles of Venice Beach streets pointing out unmarked
office after unmarked office as you went along. A seemingly empty storefront
here, a nondescript house there, the top level of an apartment building over
that way.

Is that legal in that area?

I lived in a townhouse association where someone started the company out of
his house. Eventually he started hiring and it didn't take long for everyone
to notice his employees were taking all the parking. Fortunately the city had
zoning laws and he chose to move when push came to shove.

~~~
astura
No, they said the company was keeping a bed in the conference room to "comply"
with zoning regulations, essentially pretending the office was also someone's
house.

~~~
duxup
It seems like it would be pretty easy to sort of "discover" it wasn't true. In
my case the cops just parked outside and recorded people parking and going in
and out for a bit (only after the dude balked and denied he was running an
office).

Fortunately the guy in question didn't put up a fight after that and promised
to move / did.

~~~
astura
Yeah, it's such a superficially obvious "hack" that zero regulators would fall
for it.

Zoning regulations might just be unenforced unless someone complains. I mean,
when was the last time the town just showed up at your house for a regular
audit to check you're using your house for it's zoned purpose? I've never
heard of that.

------
nwsm
I have not worked at a startup but I love the juxtaposition so many seem to
have of very developed culture practices (council) and otherwise very
undeveloped HR/facilities practices.

------
romanovcode
If you don't have something on paper you cannot expect it to be enforced. Next
time you should make sure you have your remote weeks written and signed.

------
codeisawesome
Wow, he stuck to his guns on not sacrificing his values over financial fear -
much respect!

> As someone who’s usually pretty good at chewing over a problem until I can
> find an acceptable solution, being trapped in a situation where there was no
> acceptable solution was miserable, and I still couldn’t stop chewing.

Eek, uncannily familiar with this feeling.

------
rodrigods
I see how the issues could be a "no deal" for the post writer. However, I have
the impression that software engineers forgot that we are exchanging labor for
money and it is normal to put our heads down sometimes. Let's stop with the
"drama" when every single of our requests are not attended.

------
qzx_pierri
I read quite a bit of the article, and a lot of it seems like ungrateful
whining. It seems like the author found something negative about everything.
It must be difficult living such a comfortable life.

------
sj3k
Why do engineers have such a hard time influencing or standing up to 'Johns'?

~~~
dmitrygr
cause he does the performance reviews, that determine your comp.

"Stand up to bullies!" is a cheerful thing to say from the safety of your
chair. Not so nice when you're the one the bully will pound into the dirt for
standing up

------
paulcole
TLDR: Rich man takes bad job to get richer. Shockingly discovers he’s unhappy.
Writes 2500 word medium blog post about it.

------
bot1
That was a really good read, consider writing more articles like this one, you
have talent to keep things interesting even for such a long text.

------
Four8Five
And then everybody clapped.

------
rvz
Act I - The Offer:

I knew what I was getting myself into. There were red flags, but I chose to
ignore them for the sake of a huge equity offer.

Act II - Council:

Snap starts every employee’s onboarding off with some real hippy type of shit.
The aforementioned hippy shit can continue into your regular employment if you
so desire, which I did not.

Act III - The First Months:

For the first ~1/2 year at Snap, I was mostly isolated on a handful of
projects where I became the sole maintainer, and rarely got to interact much
with other engineers or my manager.

Act IV - The Phantom Resident:

When I worked for Snap in Venice, we occupied a beach-front condominium with a
likely fictitious resident who supposedly slept in our “conference room” to
meet zoning requirements.

Act V - Moving to Santa Monica & ADA Semi-Compliance:

The Snap Santa Monica offices were pretty standard big tech office fare.
Miniature “phone booth” meeting rooms raised the ire of building inspectors
over ADA compliance, and the company implicitly encouraged employees to
continue using the non-compliant facilities while replacements were acquired.

Act VI - The John Months:

I needed to stay until at least the following February to vest the first 10%
of my stock grant, but it was proving difficult to keep going. A friend on the
customer ops team, Nate, offered to have me transfer over and work on their
projects full time, and after receiving assurances that I would be able to
travel around the holidays and work remotely I jumped on it.

Act VII - The Team Change Switcharoo:

I went through with the team change to customer ops, but for HR purposes I
ended up technically reporting to an engineering manager on a different team.
Nate, who was going to become my manager under the original plan, didn’t take
this news well, but I didn’t mind. The work on the new team proved enjoyable
and the stock price even started to recover as I began vesting my stock grant.

Act VIII - The Beginning of the End:

I got a hatchet job of a performance review from my time working for John, and
Nate left the company which put me in a tricky situation. I ended up truly
joining the team I was technically a member of, and began integrating more
into their work alongside my own.

Act XI - The End of the End:

Remember the agreement I made with customer ops about working remotely around
the holidays? My new team decided they weren’t going to honor it, and didn’t
let me know about that until just a few months before I was planning a trip.

Act X (The Finale) - Dealing With The Fallout:

I couldn’t find any way around the predicament I was in, and had to leave the
company. Despite some minor depression symptoms I managed to find a new job
and walked away from what would have been a life-changing amount of money.

------
Rainymood
My thoughts after reading roughly 75% of the article, I couldn't finish it:

I noticed three things:

* This developer is focused around me me me, everything has to revolve around him

* This developer is probably hell to work with

* There was a huge cultural mismatch between him/her and Snap

These were my thoughts while reading the article with some comments after
every tl;dr. I wasn't able to finish the article because it felt very whiny
and egocentric.

>tl;dr — I knew what I was getting myself into. There were red flags, but I
chose to ignore them for the sake of a huge equity offer.

At least the author has a lot of self-awareness.

>tl:dr — Snap starts every employee’s on-boarding off with some real hippy
type of shit. The aforementioned hippy shit can continue into your regular
employment if you so desire, which I did not.

To me this sounds pretty great? Who doesn't want to work in a team in which
there is "real" team bonding? People bond over time and shared experiences. I
feel like the author is really cynical and is unable to see the benefit from
this. I have worked in dysfunctional teams where it's every man for himself
and I prefer the opposite by a large margin.

This screams to me that there is a huge cultural mismatch between the author's
ideal place to work and Snap Inc.

>unfortunately the workload we had mostly kept us working separately on our
own tasks with little room for interaction. It wasn’t uncommon, for the first
part of my time at Snap, to get up in the morning, drive to the office, go
through the work-day in the same room as two other people but rarely speaking
to each other ...

Then maybe ... talk to each other? The author is literally blaming the
workload for being unable to socialise with this coworkers -- in the same
freaking room. Take out 10 minutes of your time and have coffee, there is a
reason those teambuilding activities exist. But I'm giving the author the
benefit of the doubt, so let's continue.

>tl;dr — For the first ~1/2 year at Snap, I was mostly isolated on a handful
of projects where I became the sole maintainer, and rarely got to interact
much with other engineers or my manager.

I empathise with the author because I too have been in the same situation.

>tl;dr — When I worked for Snap in Venice, we occupied a beach-front
condominium with a likely fictitious resident who supposedly slept in our
“conference room” to meet zoning requirements.

OK I have to admit, that is really weird and possibly illegal?

>tldr — The Snap Santa Monica offices were pretty standard big tech office
fare. Miniature “phone booth” meeting rooms raised the ire of building
inspectors over ADA compliance, and the company implicitly encouraged
employees to continue using the non-compliant facilities while replacements
were acquired.

Understandable but an annoying situation. I don't fault anyone for using the
booths even with an Out of order sign ... as a developer I would rather have
someone use the booth than not use it, phone calls suck.

>The first indications that something was amiss came from just getting
introduced to the project by the other engineer already working on it. After
showing me the Github repo where I could check out the code, he pointed me to
an enormous design document for what was, at the end of the day, not an overly
complicated project. When I asked him why he’d put so much effort writing out
an extensive design document for a project whose architecture would probably
change significantly by the time it wrapped up, he gave me what would become
an all-too-familiar reason: John insisted.

Author sounds like a hellish developer to work with. He is bouncing from "let
me just stay here for 4 years and cash out" to "I know this better than anyone
else". Engineering director writes big document to align everyone and this
developer wants to do everything on __his __terms.

------
arrty88
I’ve worked harder for less. Kids are so entitled these days.

------
alaskamiller
Prior to the first day of boot camp they flown us to an airport in San Diego,
everyone gathered at the USO lounge on the opposite end of the airport to wait
for everyone else flying in.

At midnight, a bus rolls in to the parking lot. Everyone was told to line up
in a formation, head forward, arms straight and down to the side.

The bus door opens and out pops a drill instructor with the vigor of a
tasmanian devil, barking out orders. Everyone got loaded into the bus in
orderly fashion and was told to to put our heads down, cradled between our
legs. The bus drove around for what seemed like an hour. Later I found out the
camp was next door to the airport.

Upon arrival, the bus stopped, the bus driver got out and the drill instructor
got out. We were left to our selves, with no instructions, no understanding
for ten minutes. Then came an imposing man with a wide brimmed hat with a
voice that sounds like a frog inhabited his throat.

He proceeded to say in a frank manner we are now to disembark off this bus and
make our way outside to find a pair of gold foot prints on the ground. We are
each to line up on them and wait for further instructions.

After the last person has gotten off the bus and when everyone was situated,
we are then told the meaning of those foot prints. It is a tradition passed on
through history, whereby someone before us had stepped on those foot prints
prior to starting boot camp and there will be people after us to step on those
foot prints.

From there we entered the gates thus began our journey to become United States
Marine Corps, an organization with a history of over 243 years.

tl;dr -- Every organization has whackadoo indoctrination.

~~~
untog
> Every organization has whackadoo indoctrination.

Nope. Just whackaddo organizations. I'd argue the Marine Corps is included in
that, but at least they have the excuse of needing soldiers to be able to
depend on each other for their lives. Snap... not so much.

------
ladberg
I applied to Snap a few months ago and was insta-rejected which was the first
time (and only) that has ever happened to me. I was interning at a FAANG for
the third time, going into my senior year at a top school with a good GPA, and
looking for a full time job. Not sure which requirement I didn't meet.

~~~
charlesju
It's probably because they were bleeding money at that moment and weren't
hiring anyone outside super unicorn seniors, but they didn't want to update
their job descriptions

~~~
dagw
Yea, I've worked at a place that had job ads out despite having no plans on
hiring on the grounds that "someone really amazing might apply". They never
did.

~~~
charlesju
There are a lot of strategic reasons to do this:

1\. Internally you'll feel like you're growing still even though you aren't

2\. Externally to investors same feeling

3\. You will collect resumes in case you want to fire up hiring again quickly

