Ask HN: Engineering team consists of all friends | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Engineering team consists of all friends

52 points0918201738 comments

Hello HN,

A company I've recently had the opportunity to interview has a small engineering team consisting of "best friends". My first reaction is that this seems to be a red flag because of the way in which friends interact with each other isn't always professional. How would one deal with working on a team consisting of friends where you're not part of the friend group?

Also, can anyone relate to this type of culture, and if so, what did you think, and how did you react?

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Unless you feel like you are also going to become best friends I suggest you be aware that it’s highly likely your opinion will matter the least, mistakes by team members will be difficult to highlight, you will be unlikely to get promoted or be acknowledged as being as valuable as the friends. It does depend how many people there are currently; if it’s more than four I’d stay away if it’s less than four you can say to them and think like you are employee number 1.

I’d ask them about the things I’ve suggested might be problematic and if their reaction is anything but thoughtful comments on how to fix such things for you run away.

Finally for me it’d be about the idea, if I was passionate about it I’d find a way to make it work probably but then I care more about the product that’s made than even the people.

>you will be unlikely to get promoted

Doesn't matter as long as I get a paycheck - the promotion path is through job-hopping these days.

It looks like you are getting downvoted, but there is a lot of truth in what you are saying. I have lots of anecdotal evidence of my peers leaving their jobs for new ones that pay a lot more. The very senior/principal engineers have even been offered large amounts of money/stock to stay, but by that point it's too late. The best path to getting raises starting from a junior engineer is to leave for a new company. There are many benefits I can list to stay at one company (network, growth as an engineer, etc.), but promotions and pay raises aren't part of that list with few exceptions.

There's game-theory stuff too. Job market is a lot like an auction, so if the winner doesn't correct for things they'll usually end up paying for their winning overestimates of candidate value.

I think the distinction needs to be made on whether or not they started together as best friends or if they became close through work. My reaction would be different for each situation.

I'd echo most of the commenters here, but instead of saying run away, I'd ask what the lead is like. If there's no lead, keep far away. You'd have to get into the friend group before they'll really listen. If there is a lead, then that's who you need to evaluate, not the team as a whole. I've been line manager for friends before, and I've always made it clear: work is work. If they screw up I'm going to treat them as employees first and friends last. However, not everyone can make that distinction, so be very careful and if you take the job, be ready to leave if it doesn't look like the position is going to pan out fairly.

I would generally agree more along there lines. I've had a manager (not lead but enough to say this) where favorites were played (friends for like 20+ years) and it is frustrating in many ways (e.g. lobbying for your friends to get different benefits within the company during their hiring, first person to seek opinion from and then move in that direction regardless of others, etc.)

I would happily work amongst a set of friends but not where it goes into leadership.

I would also ask them questions about this during the interview. Ask them to describe how they resolve disputes (with examples), and maybe give an example of a recent production failure/problem and the postmortem process they went through.

Oddly enough, the biggest challenge I've seen for engineering teams and leadership groups that have a long term association outside of work is communication.

I believe this arises out of a natural tendency between long term friends to form a sort of verbal short hand to communicate. That and unspoken expectations like "of course Bob was going to write the test plan, he likes to do that sort of thing and will take care of it." If you're trying to operate in that environment your own attempt to understand the communications can be perceived differently than you intend.

Additionally if they have a lot of opportunities (or a regular opportunity) to get together as friends, often critical communications will happen there completely innocuously (and sometimes not so innocuously) which will leave you out of the loop and so open to doing something "wrong" simply because you didn't get the non-existent memo that the friends shared over a beer.

A good manager will recognize the risks and take steps to avoid them like debriefing members of the friends group to insure that all communication is correctly flowing and accurately assessing fault when miscommunication happens.

Wow, interesting question but I don't share the negative interpretation of some commenters. I think this could literally go any direction and its really subjective and hard to give you advice on. It's very possible you'll join them and become one of the group. I work for a very small company and the SRE team I am on is quite tight, as they were before I joined, but our interviewing process included enough interaction with the team that we all knew we'd hit it off before they made me an offer.

From 2007 until 2016 my main source of income came from working as a software developer for startup companies. During that time I worked for about 8 or 9 companies. Some of those companies provided a great working environment, but most of them were terrible. The #1 factor that made a working environment terrible is the founders being friends before the company started. About 80% of the companies I worked for were "friend companies". Just about every post in this thread nails it. You, being not one of the friends, will always be on the outside and will never be treated the same way the friends are.

If they became best friends on the job that's one thing (but a long term problem)

If they became friends before and then hired each other it's a red flag

     Cronyism is the practice of partiality in awarding jobs
     and other advantages to friends or trusted colleagues,
     especially in politics and between politicians and 
     supportive organizations. For instance, this includes 
     appointing "cronies" to positions of authority, 
     regardless of their qualifications.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronyism

( essentially a variation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepotism )

The important part is the "...regardless of their qualifications". There is nothing wrong with hiring friends, or family as long as the person is qualified. OP didn't mention anything about qualifications, so I think it's a bit early to jump the gun and proclaim Nepotism.

In reality it's very common to get a job because a friend or a family member referred you.

Yes there is, especially when qualifications are subjective or hard to measure.

Being friends with someone makes you more likely to look past their flaws, give them the benefit of the doubt. If you don't do the same for non-friends, you will miss out on some qualified people.

There is also a negative effect in morale when people even suspect nepotism, rightly or wrongly.

I somewhat disagree with the idea that being friends with someone makes you more likely to look past their flaws. If anything, you are more aware of your friends flaws, and can plan accordingly. Hiring the wrong person for the job is obviously not productive, but not hiring the right person because you know them too well seems down right foolish.

I don't think this gives you enough information to judge, to be honest. If your gut is telling you this is a red flag, then you should probably heed that feeling, but what you describe is not necessarily a red flag, there are pros and cons. A team of "best friends" may be preferable to a team of cutthroat assholes for example.

Having worked with best friends before, working for a team of best friends who are actually cut throat assholes is not a fun job.

A big part of team cohesion is everybody being on the same page at any given time.

If they are socializing a lot outside of work without you, you will never be in the loop.

In real terms: you will be working on death march projects, your code will be thrown away, you will not be consulted about adopting new techs, etc.

Also: groupthink will be very strong and debate will take place very rarely, leading to hasty decision making and stubborn unwillingness to change.

I experienced this first hand recently. It became an issue I pretty much had to leave the company. Not much you can do if your not in the clique.

Run, you'll be there just for the work; fun will be elsewhere and you'll likely end up being a scapegoat when something goes south. Even worse is the combination of best friends and family, i.e. completely clueless people deciding on things by the virtue of being close to somebody.

> you'll be there just for the work; fun will be elsewhere

This is as work should be.

> you'll likely end up being a scapegoat when something goes south.

Have seen this first hand.

The problem is more accute at later stages of growth as the friend circle rises collectively, regardless of actual qualification, and various types of organizational debt is inevitably accrued and probability p of things going south approaches 1.

I have had two experiences in which teams of friends proved to be an absolute pleasure to join. In one case, the company consisted of two brothers and their two college friends before I joined. They had lots of inside jokes and stuff, but they worked well together and welcomed me with open arms.

I think one question is: do these people seem like people you want to socialize with? Or only work with? If the answer is the latter, you do probably run the risk of feeling like an outsider, at least some of the time.

I mean, I feel like this needs to be handled on a case by case basis.

What is the company? What is the team working on? How serious is it?

I wouldn't think it is inherently negative situation until proven otherwise.

If they make a big deal out of the fact that they're all friends, it's definitely a red flag.

Agreed, it's almost like they're telling you that you won't succeed unless you're "one of them."

Your ability to be treated as equal member of the team will be highly dependent on whether you are able to become best friend with them. Chances are, you wont be able to achieve that unless you socialize with them a lot. If you fail at that, chances are you will have hard time push for ideas you have, architecture meeting being done during beer you are not at, important decisions not being told to you cause they forgot and so on and so forth.

Definitely red flag, un less you are ok with the above.

Why speculate? If you're unsure but still curious, ask for a short term contract to make sure you're a good fit for each other. That gives you an easy out in the end (and for them as well) if things don't work out.

It depends.

If they have a good leadership, I would totally go for it. If the leadership is weak, I wouldn't.

Truth being said, and it has been said here more than once, you'll be the scapegoat and the last in the queue to get a promotion if the leadership is weak and care mostly about the happiness of their friends, rather than the success of the company.

But it could be different, so analyze and think for yourself. Also, you don't need to get promoted there, you can move jobs. It depends more on what you want and how is the current situation, even with friends and you being a scapegoat, it could be good.

Think and decide.

I've personally witnessed a startup where the founders were very close friends and it didn't pan out well in the beginning. The Lead was disciplined and very methodical but one of the cofounders just floundered about creating havoc at every opportunity. It got to that point where the Lead had to drawn a line between work and brotherhood. Everything fixed itself after

So i'll chip this in. You've got to ask whether these people know where to draw the line between work and friendship. If the answer is no, Run for it

Being able to answer that question may not be easy (as maybe everything goes well UNTIL some critical issue arises - and at that point it could be too late). That being said, I have some colleagues that are good friends outside of work, but they are extremely professional and productive in the office. So I think it ultimately depends on the personalities of the people involved.

FWIW "professional" environments can be pretty boring, though they're also less likely to have death marches and social problems.

It really depends on your analysis. Did they seem friendly and interested in including you in their group? Are you looking for "just a job", or would you enjoy the social aspect also? Are they planning on hiring more people, which would help make you feel more comfortable.

I experienced sort of the reverse of this situation and it wasn't bad. I guess I'd have the same negative expectation (as do most of the commenters), but it may work out.

My entire team was fired save for me. We brought in some friends of another employee who had worked with these new hires at his previous company. I managed to fit in fine and things are going well.

I joined a team where everyone had been there for a while and were friends. They had jokes and banter constantly and I didn't understand the in-jokes, the references to jokes that referenced their past history and I felt isolated and did not enjoy being part of the 'team'. I reacted by looking to move teams.

That really sounds dreadful. I'd avoid.

Are they friends because they've been brought together by work or were they friends beforehand.

The former would be a very strong positive signal to me. The latter would be neutral or weakly negative.

Also consider the nature of the work. Shared adversity is good at creating friendships.

not a chance. they will make you the red-headed stepchild. anyone with a shred of business sense would know not to reveal this to candidates. the fact they are flaunting it is a HUGE red flag.

what you are really worried about is the culture, but it's hard to make a judgement just because they are "best friends"

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