

Signs not to Work for a Software Company or Startup - alrex021
http://codemonkeyism.com/7-signs-work-software-company/

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plinkplonk
Strangely enough, one of the worst companies I worked for (Intuit) passes
these "signs" test with flying colours. They have plenty of money, a huge
customer base (thanks to a near monopoly on users who have years of financial
data their data locked in to their apps. the desktops apps are decent. The web
apps suck.), version control (Perforce), low turnover (no one leaves unless
they are kicked out -- there is little real work to do and very high salaries,
which attracts a certain type of developer). Intuit doesn't "get" the web and
is desperately afraid of someone developing a web app to compete with their
desktop apps(their own web apps are very sub par).

PG said in his "Ideas we'd like to fund" essay.

"21. Finance software for individuals and small businesses. Intuit seems ripe
for picking off. The difficulty is that they've got data connections with all
the banks. That's hard for a small startup to match. But if you can start in a
neighboring area and gradually expand into their territory, you could displace
them. "

On the positive side they did crush Microsoft (Money). Ok I am rambling. Back
to work.

~~~
stuff4ben
I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that Intuit doesn't get the web when
their TurboTax web app is pretty good. Then again I didn't work there so maybe
their tax software was handled by a different division than their Quicken
products.

~~~
plinkplonk
"I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that Intuit doesn't get the web when
their TurboTax web app is pretty good. Then again I didn't work there so maybe
their tax software was handled by a different division than their Quicken
products."

I based my statements on (a) what I saw within Intuit about how the webapp is
made/maintained (b) the customer complaint calls I heard (c) knowledge of the
expected and actual revenue from the web app (the desktop app was acquired
btw, the webapp built inhouse) and (d) the "strategy" meetings I attended. No
"disengunous"ness intended.

For more than a decade INTU was a desktop company and that mindset pervades
the company including their technical people. The web _is_ deeply
disconcerting to Intuit and their nightmare is that two guys in a garage will
come up with something that takes their cash cows away. It maybe an unsual
idea for people outside Intuit, but the top management is _not_ laughing. (I
guess something to this effect was what PG meant by "Intuit seems ripe for
picking off". I agree. They are. Very.)

Another thing they haven't got a grip on is the success of the IPhone. There
are a bunch of people who have been working for the last two _years_ on
getting native IPhone versions of various Intuit apps to work. they aren't
having much success. Again I know this from working there, attending very high
level strategy meetings and so on.

My post above was(is) just my opinion, worth exactly what anonymous opinions
on the web are worth. It was an off the cuff post posted while my code was
building and deploying, which I thought might be of interest to people on this
forum. I don't want to get into a debate on the merits of TT or Intuit.

Pax.

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stuff4ben
Not much more information than the Joel Test. I disagree with the statement
about hardware, "bonus points for Macs". As a daily Mac user and Java/RoR
developer I am just as productive on my Ubuntu box as I am on my Mac. Having a
Mac is nice, but not something I would choose a job over. IMHO, bonus points
should only be awarded for something rare, like a tech gadget allowance.

~~~
albemuth
Bonus points because it means that they will let you work on the platform of
your choice regardless of the hardware being more expensive. Starting my
current job I was very happy when they asked me if I preferred Mac or PC.

~~~
apotheon
Having Macs doesn't mean you get to use the platform of your choice. Is
_everyone_ using Macs, or just the people who want them?

What about the people whose platform preferences aren't so trite as "Mac or
PC"?

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caffeine
OK, a huge one for me is "No serious technical questions in the interview."
Seriously - if you don't show me code in the interview (preferably code from
your products), then I don't really want to work for you. If we don't have at
least one good argument about why language X is better than Y, I don't really
want to work for you. Or, at the very least, if you don't stress to me _at
least_ one difficult technical problem that I'll face, I don't really want to
work for you. Why? Because if you don't ask me these things, you've told me
that my job is going to be deadly boring, and honestly I'd prefer minimum wage
to a boring job.

~~~
geebee
I'm with you on the "no serious technical questions" thing. It's a really bad
sign.

However, it's also a really bad sign when all they seem to do is ask difficult
technical questions. About a year ago, I went on an interview where I was
asked to:

-create the dual of the primal (linear programming) -calculate the long term state of a markov chain -recursively and then iteratively traverse a binary tree -code a singleton -write a query that eliminates all dups (sql) -find a way to rewrite a query as a set of binary indicators (wierd) -find a way to swap two integers without creating a third integer ... and more stuff that I forget now

at the end of 7 hours of technical grilling, I knew nothing more about what
this company's products actually _did_ than I had gleaned from my own web
research prior to the interview.

They didn't end up wanting me. But I can't say I really wanted them either.
When this happens, I get the feeling that they're looking for, and probably
getting, highly talented technical people, but I have doubts as to whether
these programmers are actually innovating on the product itself, and that kind
of creativity is very important to my enjoyment of a job.

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geebee
I agree with this list (though yes, it is much like the Joel test). However, I
make a big distinction between organizational and technical deficiencies.

A lack of source control, build tools, unit testing, and so forth is much more
forgivable to me than bad working conditions for developers, provided that the
organization is committed to change.

Suppose a hiring manager said to you: "we want to be a great place for
developers to work. We'll give dev's autonomy, latitude, a quiet work
environment with offices. Unfortunately, our tech abilities are pretty poor
right now. Most of our coding has been done badly up to know, and we know it.
We're trying to hire the sort of people who can get this done right. Unit
testing, source control, automated builds, we know we're screwed without
them... you're a good developer and we know you make make this happen for us.
It's your show if you want to join on."

Well, there are still reasons to avoid a place like that, and it may be a
challenge, but I wouldn't necessarily run.

Whereas if they said "here's your cubicle, we expect you to be here from 9 to
5, managers will be watching you from their corner offices..." well then, of
course, the finger goes up.

~~~
nickelplate
"However, I make a big distinction between organizational and technical
deficiencies."

I make that distinction too. One of my previous employers scored a 4 or 5 on
the Joel test, but the work was extremely interesting, the technical staff was
top notch and we actually had power to change things. My last employer in
contrast probably scores more like a 9 or 10. The management was just mind
bogglingly incompetent.

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kolya3
If the founder/ceo has been in his industry for a while yet all the people
working with him at the startup have never worked with him before. Huge red
flag. Ask yourself: why can't this guy attract people from his network? Why
don't they want to work with him ever again?

~~~
evgen
Depending on the nature of the startup this is not necessarily a red flag.
From my first startup, of the four original employees two went to google (one
joined pre-IPO and has since gone to grad school and one is still there), one
started his own company, and the fourth is working for the third; it would be
hard for me to lure them back to being employees at a scrappy little startup.
If the founder is doing something completely different than previous ventures
then past employees may also be poor matches for the technology or product.

It is worth asking for a reference or two from previous ventures, but be
prepared for "I didn't realize how important getting A-level talent was back
then and will not make that mistake twice" as the answer to your question.

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kevindication
_2\. No top tools or only home brewed ones (IDE, Build System, …):_

Well, emacs should be available on most platforms. ;-)

~~~
jacoblyles
What about when you're working with Java? Do you still use emacs?

~~~
kevindication
I don't generally work with Java, but I reexamined Eclipse when playing around
with Android apps. I find that it still gets in my way, but at least this time
around I had enough RAM to run it well.

------
markkanof
Number 5 High Turnover can work in reverse as well, especially in software
development. If all the staff have been there for a long time they may have
gotten too comfortable with their jobs and no longer keep their skills up to
date.

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aerique
A good list until he had to put in "Bonus points for Macs". I'd rather have a
company let me choose my own hardware and development environment (unless I
agreed to use their specific environment in an interview).

~~~
silentbicycle
That means that they're letting people choose, and that's what some people
chose.

~~~
aerique
It's a nonsensical metric.

If company A and company B were equal except that in company A some people
chose a Mac that would mean it would suddenly be a better place to work at?

~~~
gaius
The relevant point is not _what_ they chose but that a choice exists.

Interestingly at my place we have a choice (Red Hat/CentOS, OS X, Windows XP,
Solaris, Windows 7) and people, even full-time Unix sysadmins, are choosing
Windows 7. Make of that what you will.

~~~
wildwood
My first guess would be that the admins are using their desktop boxes mostly
as dumb terminals to the unix servers, and chose Windows because of easy
integration with email and calendaring.

As to why Windows 7 instead of XP, maybe it's getting good word of mouth? Or
maybe getting a fresh install of XP is more of a pain than going with Windows
7, and they just can't be bothered?

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biohacker42
Management, management, management! Do they a have a proven history of
success? If it's the founder, does he/she look like they can get shit done? I
don't mean are they smart, do they have Ph.Ds, but are they focused and do
they finish things?

~~~
huhtenberg
I'll give an counter-example. A local company here in Vancouver, Canada that
services real-estate market. Not a very big one, but probably not a start-up
either. Basically an office suite for a real-estate agents with the hook-up
into MLS. Excellent management, astounding sales, absolutely and utterly
fucked up development. I know several people who worked for them in different
capacities, and all of them were basically ashamed of the quality of the
product, but always said the goal was to produce something that sales could
sell.

So, yeah, there was a founder who can get the shit done. But he didn't see
quality product development as a priority :)

~~~
biohacker42
That's absolutely true. Obviously I was speaking from the view point of a semi
decent developer :)

------
nickelplate
One important thing is to find out during the interview whether the company
has a plan and they are not just hiring you to perform monotonous, undemanding
tasks. They should be able to tell you what upcoming projects you are most
likely to work on in the near future. Also thoroughly research the company and
its business domain, and make sure it is a fit before accepting an offer. Fog
Creek scores a 12 on the Joel test, and it is not a bad place to work, but a
lot of people would be bored out of their skull working there.

Management is also very, very important. There is not much use having rock
stars as colleagues if the people at the top making the decisions are not
competent. That's a situation I found myself in at my last job, and it was
very demoralizing.

------
MikeMacMan
I look for evidence that they really know what's going on in their target
market (especially if it's a narrow vertical), are engaged in that market, and
that they're not just a bunch of technologists with a cool product in search
of a market.

------
edw519
Here's a simple but critical one that I got burnt on:

They demo their new top secret product but won't let you touch the keyboard or
mouse for "proprietary reasons".

It was really slick and exactly what the market needed. I remember gasping
several times during the demo. I really wanted to be part of that!

Big mistake.

What I didn't realize at the time was that it took an incredible effort just
to make it demoable and only certain people knew how to demo it without
breaking it.

The software never worked and never could. It had to be scrapped.

If you can't actually use some part of what they're building before you
commit, move on.

~~~
timmaah
Are you not being hired to build it?

I guess it would come down to them letting you know how far along they are or
does that even matter?

~~~
edw519
Even for the stuff I've been hired to build, there was _something_ there when
I got there. It's your responsibility to insure that they have properly
represented what they already have. Deception in the recruitment process is a
real turn-off.

~~~
apotheon
I agree, regarding deception. As for _something_ being there -- that's kinda
the point with a startup: there's quite possibly nothing there yet, but you
get to help build it. _Someone_ has to start the process. Just don't hire on
with someone that expects you to do that _and lies about it_.

------
hamidp
Only 7 bad signs?

What about the work environment? Working in a cube farm with the cheapest kind
of free coffee is a lot worse than working for a company that has free
Starbucks/drinks/food and that gives you a private office and lets you work
from home whenever you want.

What about the interview process? I would rather work for a company that puts
me through interview hell than one that just says "you've got the job."

The problem with these authoritative lists is that they're anything but.

~~~
apotheon
What about a startup that only has room (and money) for cubes or a bunch of
desks shoved together in the main room of the rented space, but provides free
Starbucks and donuts and lets you work from home whenever you want?

> The problem with these authoritative lists is that they're anything but.

I think an "authoritative" list (by which I take it you mean "comprehensive",
too) is pretty much a pipe dream. If you come away from such a list with two
things to think about during the interview process you weren't already
thinking about, though, it's pure win -- and if you come away with just one,
it at least wasn't a waste of your time.

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electronslave
It's amusing to see all the nitpicking here. Heh. At the end of the day, it's
about the people. Does this company actually care about the people working for
it? Do you care about them? Honestly, all these "warning signs" seem like a
guide to common sense for people without it.

As in, if you don't like the place and your interview process makes you feel
bad, there's probably something wrong and you shouldn't work there. (Of
course, if you're desperate, no number of signals will be able to turn you
away from the flame.)

Yeah, my company's still hiring.

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erikb85
Absolutely good points. Especially the points 2 and 7.

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jsonscripter
That font is beautiful.

~~~
apotheon
Are you sarcastically suggesting that the best thing about the article is the
font -- and since the font is nothing special, there's nothing special about
the article? If so, that's hilarious and you deserve upvotes.

Are you just using a computer that happens to have the right font installed so
that you see the beautiful, but unfortunately not universal, font the article
uses? If so, it might be useful to realize that fonts are only visible when
you have the installed on your computer. It looks (from the stylesheet) like
the site uses Helvetica Neue, degrading to Arial, Helvetica, and finally to
sans-serif. Helvetica Neue is basically just a marginal improvement on
Helvetica; good, but hardly what I'd call "beautiful" in a breathless tone.
It's also far from a universally available font.

Are you just really that naive about commonly available fonts? If so, I'm
afraid your comment is a waste of time.

~~~
jsonscripter
Well, sorry. Maybe I don't have the font that I'm supposed to have installed,
but the default that came up is stunning. I was being truthful with my
comment.

