<story><title>Ask HN: Who&apos;s not sucky to work for?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;ve moved around quite a bit these past several years and I feel like every company has been the same. Management don&amp;#x27;t know what they want the product to be. Project managers don&amp;#x27;t know anything about technology. There&amp;#x27;s an offshore team in Traansylvania busy making it a legacy codebase. They don&amp;#x27;t want to give developers raises...&lt;p&gt;I see &amp;quot;Who&amp;#x27;s Hiring?&amp;quot; threads and &amp;quot;Who Wants To Be Hired?&amp;quot; threads. How about a &amp;quot;Who Doesn&amp;#x27;t Suck To Work For?&amp;quot; thread?&lt;p&gt;Not sure if this will take off or get deleted ...but if it does take off, it would be great if developers --not recruiters-- replied to this. Tell us why your company is a good place to work so we can apply there :-)</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>ubermonkey</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve never worked for a big famous tech firm, but I will absolutely tell you how I&amp;#x27;ve managed to avoid hating work for 30 years:&lt;p&gt;Find a relatively small firm, still owner-run and controlled. Avoid public firms. A corporation cannot show loyalty, but a HUMAN can. A manager has no real control -- their manager can reverse them. When you work for the owner, you can trust things a bit more IF you&amp;#x27;re working for a trustworthy person.&lt;p&gt;This means small. But it doesn&amp;#x27;t mean cheap. ;)&lt;p&gt;That said, I&amp;#x27;ve probably left money on the table working this way, and I&amp;#x27;ll never get IPO stock or similar, but stability and ethical behavior in a workplace go a LONG way.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>itake</author><text>counter point: after working for small owner-run companies where the owner took everything personally, I will forever only work in big tech.&lt;p&gt;The owner ran the show and was emotional. Every time a competitor launched something new, they would change course and race to copy them. Ended up delivering nothing and eventually laid off after 1.5 years.&lt;p&gt;At a big company, everyone is spending someone else&amp;#x27;s money and the people at the top realize they can&amp;#x27;t (and shouldn&amp;#x27;t!) change course every 3 mo.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Who&apos;s not sucky to work for?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;ve moved around quite a bit these past several years and I feel like every company has been the same. Management don&amp;#x27;t know what they want the product to be. Project managers don&amp;#x27;t know anything about technology. There&amp;#x27;s an offshore team in Traansylvania busy making it a legacy codebase. They don&amp;#x27;t want to give developers raises...&lt;p&gt;I see &amp;quot;Who&amp;#x27;s Hiring?&amp;quot; threads and &amp;quot;Who Wants To Be Hired?&amp;quot; threads. How about a &amp;quot;Who Doesn&amp;#x27;t Suck To Work For?&amp;quot; thread?&lt;p&gt;Not sure if this will take off or get deleted ...but if it does take off, it would be great if developers --not recruiters-- replied to this. Tell us why your company is a good place to work so we can apply there :-)</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>ubermonkey</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve never worked for a big famous tech firm, but I will absolutely tell you how I&amp;#x27;ve managed to avoid hating work for 30 years:&lt;p&gt;Find a relatively small firm, still owner-run and controlled. Avoid public firms. A corporation cannot show loyalty, but a HUMAN can. A manager has no real control -- their manager can reverse them. When you work for the owner, you can trust things a bit more IF you&amp;#x27;re working for a trustworthy person.&lt;p&gt;This means small. But it doesn&amp;#x27;t mean cheap. ;)&lt;p&gt;That said, I&amp;#x27;ve probably left money on the table working this way, and I&amp;#x27;ll never get IPO stock or similar, but stability and ethical behavior in a workplace go a LONG way.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>yodsanklai</author><text>&amp;gt; Avoid public firms. A corporation cannot show loyalty, but a HUMAN can.&lt;p&gt;Counterpoint: I work in a FAANG and the first thing I noticed what that I was just a small piece in a big machine. Everyone is replaceable. People change teams all the time, some leave the company after 6 months, only to re-join 1 year later... But it&amp;#x27;s actually a good thing! I don&amp;#x27;t have the same amount of stress I had when working in a small company.</text></comment>