

Ask HN: What do you wish you knew about your company before you took the job? - redmattred

Most of us have been in the position before where you&#x27;ve taken a job, only to discover aspects of the job or company you weren&#x27;t expecting. There is good and bad to almost every company, but in an ideal world you would be able to discover the tradeoffs upfront.<p>- What&#x27;s your job role?<p>- What do you wish you had known about a current or former company before you worked there?<p>- How do you try to vet companies and job opportunities today?
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partisan
I am a technical lead.

I received a really good entrepreneurial offer through a recommendation and
after meeting with the owner of the company, accepted it. The company was in a
constant state of firing and hiring. It all seemed so reactionary, almost tied
to month-to-month earnings. One bad month could lead to a department
restructuring. During a growth period in which they were building up the IT
team, there was a lot of optimism about how the company was going to really
start investing in it's future. Only a few people were able to attest to the
fact that they had seen a similar growth cycle years ago and that those people
were gone too.

I checked their Glassdoor reviews, but only as an afterthought and after
accepting the offer. It turned out that the consistent negative reviews were
pretty much a foretelling of what I would see in my tenure there. I also
ignored feedback I had received from people who had worked there and had been
unceremoniously dismissed, again, after I had already accepted. Had I went
with my gut, I would have backed out. Still, I have no regrets, but I will do
this research BEFORE considering applying to a position, no matter how good
the offer sounds.

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kyllo
I wish I had known more about the legacy tech stack I'm working with, when I
was interviewing. I would have still taken the job but it would have been nice
to know about the extent of the COBOL horrors ahead of time in order to
mentally prepare myself!

~~~
redmattred
I've heard a lot of horror stories about people taking jobs which advertise a
sexy/modern technology, but then when you get in the door, 90% of the code is
in an older technology.

Anyone else run in to this issue?

~~~
chinmay185
Happened with me for some of the projects I have worked on.

