Comment by shaftway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shaftway | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

It was pretty awkward. I was given three teams to pick from and was told that if none of them were really a fit I could reject them all, but it was kind of frowned on. I had already given notice at my job (where my boss literally said "you'll never work in this town again"), so I felt a little forced. But that was probably my own biases. When I mentioned to my recruiter that the second option was literally a shill for the first, she seemed very happy to go find me another team. But I ended up selecting the third team.

Each of the teams dealt with problems that my background could help with (two in finance where I worked for 8 years and the third was C# which was my stack of choice), so they weren't random placements. Also, they're really big on mobility, but they strongly prefer that you stay in a role for 18 months before you transfer. If it's "transfer or I'm leaving the company," they'll usually let you (barring special circumstances), but it's a bit of a pain.

I suspect there's a tendency to push new hires towards less glamorous positions, but I've seen newcomers in all departments. I suspect that more glamorous positions are usually filled quicker and with a more valuable asset via internal transfers.

> where my boss literally said "you'll never work in this town again"

Oh, please tell. How long had you been working there? Was it a small town? That's a very odd thing to say!

It was in Silicon Valley. The company was owned by a huge conglomerate on the east coast, but was mostly left alone and entirely managed from Silicon Valley.

I had worked there for almost 2 years. I was originally hired at about 2/3 of my previous pay (it was a rough time to look for work), and they suspected I was looking around (it's stupid not to at least look once in a while). They tried to retain me by making me a lead over 2 other engineers (don't care) but not by modifying pay, though I made it clear that that would help.

When it was clear I was still looking around, boss called me in to try to get me to sign a "pledge" to stay at the company for 2 years. I refused.

A couple weeks later I got my offer and gave two weeks notice. There were a few meetings with management where they claimed they were going to make a counter offer, but they never actually offered me anything.

That meeting was the last one. Immediately afterward the lead counsel called me in for a meeting and apologized. He said that the other meeting was supposed to be a substantial cash offer (significantly more than Google was offering), but I declined pointing out that I wasn't ever going to be able to work in this town again; certainly not for him at least and the lead counsel said he didn't blame me.

I tried to help with transitions and stuff, but I was told that I'd be paid for my 2 weeks, but to not bother coming in. I hear it didn't go very well after I left.

> boss called me in to try to get me to sign a "pledge" to stay at the company for 2 years.

Wow, in return for what? It's so ridiculous someone would do something like that.

> I suspect there's a tendency to push new hires towards less glamorous positions

That was also my impression after talking to several people from there. No much flexibility and very hard to get into a team you want. And lol at your old boss, what the hell? :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com