We also have frequent issues with diversity in our industry, because it turns out that “You will have no time for relationships, human interaction, or family” appeals a heck of a lot more to young single guys than it does to e.g. married folks with children. Do we seriously care about diversity in this industry?
Good read on the startup culture and the pressure to work overtime.
during monthly cross-team meetings, the engineers are the ones who present progress reports. product marketing and product management attend these meetings, but if they are particularly outspoken, there is actually feedback to the leadership that “product spoke too much at the last meeting.
So, you thought that working for Google is a cool gig? Welcome to nerd's dream.
The article very well explains why Facebook is now such a great company to work for.
Lesson Three is this: five-day weeks of eight-hour days maximize long-term output in every industry that has been studied over the past century. What makes us think that our industry is somehow exempt from this rule?
Excellent article on impact of overtime work on productivity. People regularly working long hours aren't heroes, they're slackers. I'd love every manager to read it.
None of these strategies work if you're not really an excellent contributor. If you don't write good code, and lots of it, you're just going to be resented for messing around with bug databases when you "should be" writing code. There's nothing more deadly to your career than having a reputation of being so concerned with process that you don't accomplish anything.
You work in a horrible software house? Leave it. Or change it, starting from yourself. Joel's guide to improving workplace.
Akkammadam thinks that smoking breaks allow him to meet people who aren't on his team, that they encourage cross-departmental collaboration that wouldn't otherwise occur, and give him time to brainstorm work ideas. Smoking, the way Akkammadam sees it, is a lot like a really cheap off-site meeting.
On smokers, one of the most prosecuted group of workers in US.
Forget the free coffee and drinks. Sure they're free at Microsoft... who wants to be like Microsoft?
Joel's article on broken ideas for a workplace. Now they seem even more obviously stupid, but are still widely applied.
“Sure, but does it scale?” I can't escape the feeling that these ideas are great, but could work only in the small organization like 37signals. Sure, companies of this kind are great and productive, but they will never able to produce anything more than narrow, focused products. For that you need more mass and with mass comes friction, like management and hierarchies.
