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Comment by spoon16 | Hacker News Reader

I worked in two different groups while I was at Netflix. I loved it. The engineers on their team are consistently good and there is low tolerance for under performers. They take their culture seriously and their leadership is very strong. I'd be happy to work for them again in the future.

Re: expectations about excess work. It's your own responsibility to set expectations about what you can get done and how quickly you can get it done. I was reasonably successful at this and took lots of time off the last year I was there, m wife had our first baby. Since I was able to set reasonable expectations I got a great raise that year, despite the time that I took off.

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> low tolerance for under performers

I panic whenever I read stuff like this. What is an under performer? How do I know if I'm one? How can it be expected that everyone in an environment is a spectacular code ninja that does utterly awesome stuff all the time?

I would like to know how they gauge performance too. Some cultures are about the perception of productivity, some are about actual productivity. Taken to an extreme, either case can make for a miserable work environment.

> How can it be expected that everyone in an environment is a spectacular code ninja that does utterly awesome stuff all the time?

it's not. you just have to find a range of tasks that you are able to perform at a high level at, and then make sure that your job is doing it, with confidence, day in and day out.

if the link in the other comment is true, it seems like their senior salary range is 200-300k/year. in that range, the excuses stop, and the results begin, or you're fired, have a nice life.

in the real world it actually begins at 100k but technology skews this figure much higher since basically anyone with a pulse and a keyboard can make 100k in this industry.

And sometimes they may not even have a keyboard.

If you are an under performer and you don't know your management is failing you badly. I had three different managers while I was at Netflix (I switched teams once). 2 were great, 1 underperformed. The underperforming manager was not at Netflix for very long, which I appreciated.

Underperforming means whatever your manager wants it to mean. That is why it is bullshit. For instance, after I closed some wide open security holes (0.0.0.0/0 open, no authentication or access control to our $$$ stuff) after several days fair warning the team. My manager called that underperforming because some people don't read their email. I also got hit for doing extra work after hours because it was "not authorized" even though it saved thousands in identifying idle instances. Turns out my manager who recently transplanted from India was just trying to force me to work under another engineer who was still in India. Presumably once that guy had enough manufacture responsibility over here maybe the company would give him a visa.

So shit like this is why so called performance management is bullshit. Performance is not doing what is in the best interest of the team or company. It is whatever is in the best interest for your manager.

Thank you! May I ask why you decided to eventually leave? And do you regret leaving?

I don't regret leaving. I've had a lot of fun working outside of Netflix. I do still hold Netflix in very high regard though and have a number of good friends still working there. If the conditions were right, I'd go back in a heartbeat.

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