Американский программист | Стартап или Palantir | Почему американец ушел из крупной компании?

Am i doing it now if someone gives your company millions of dollars they want to be very close by so that they can walk into your office and like see what you're doing. Simply. Their developers, Allah with McConnell probe locked away acclaimed me with the Limu minister putin iike the Adam Sandler am drew on. American, its previous, telegram, is not. A virus for whiskey no savonia, my burger, him I bore about him if it varies Spanglish, key images, that nothing, would of, our spook it beautifully and Ava's Mesa winning very message to its own whiskey to appreciate you soup tea tray yeah, should, I say Oh Skippy, River. Almost. Four years you, was working for Pawlenty, right and I, think, three or four it is a big company but now you're. Working for start-up, mm-hm and. Why. Why. Oh why why, did I leave the the safety of the yeah. Of the mothership. The. Nest to sort of go off into this wilderness of sort, of insanity. There's a point as an, engineer while. You're progressing through, learning about different technologies, learning about different techniques you. Get to a point where you want to understand, something beyond, just sort of the code in front of you I mean once you've gotten to a certain point in understanding that code you feel comfortable with it enough that you, want to start like maybe picking up some other interests. Along the way and so, I became interested in understanding a bit, more about how the organization operates as a whole, I wanted to understand how, recruiting works like. On the inside I wanted to understand a hiring works how, pricing. A contract, for hiring someone works to understand more about the, sales pipeline how. Customers, are acquired what, the contract negotiation, with customers looks like how, you design, proof of concept like, sort. Of like, pilots. With customers, how. The marketing, pipeline works how, you develop a social media campaign all. Of these different aspects of a business. What. The different, particular. Aspects, are between. The work that a person who's an engineer does as an individual contributor and the work that say a CTO, or director of engineering does, and the, Palantir the organization, was large enough that I would never really be exposed, to those facets, I wouldn't be exposed to the people in those positions in, that organization, enough, to understand, more about like what actually is happening there I wanted to sort of break out of that safe. Place and go into this place that's like kind of like dangerous and uncertain and interesting, to understand.

More About that and when. I was looking for a company I chose, the one that I ended, up at based on the, people being. People that I thought I could work with the compensation, being enough that I felt like I could live with it and. The product being something that I actually believed, could work so. I, felt. Like I have. The right sort of construction, of a startup to feel, comfortable working there, but at the same time I'm gaining, all these other things so I'm achieving these other goals while I have this structure that like works for me and so, even though my you, know health insurance systems as good as it was before I don't get free food three times a day I have. Like way fewer benefits in other aspects, like I don't have a free gym I don't have like all these other things I still. Feel pretty comfortable, in. My day-to-day life and the. Pressure is a little higher and the. Workload is a little warm working longer hours but, I'm, okay with that kind of I feel like I'm gaining some good understanding. Of how the industry operates as a whole and I think I can use that down the road either to maybe start, my own business or. Potentially. Just use that to increase. My impact at any other company I can because I understand more about how the business operates as a whole maybe I can use. That to guide that my engineering decisions a little better towards, an optimal outcome for both like the engineering side of the house and the sales side of the house they, say both what's important, for you let's talk about initiation. I, mean. It's. A, very interesting thing. Because when, you. Want. To start with, a big company like you. Can-. Celery. And, maybe signing bonus and. Turn. Up oh I, just, start up I think you can still negotiate I, think. They. Will tend, to be a little more. Resistant. To it in the sense that I mean. A starving, man is less. Willing to give you food right so, like a startup that is. They. Don't necessarily need to be starving but. They do have like a limited amount of money, the. Company may only have enough money to continue operating, for two years or one year even at that point right before they have to go and get more funding so, for, them to agree to give you more money is kind of like a little bit hard for them they're. Probably more willing to give you more equity. I think. Early-ish. Stage engineers, tend to get like. 0.15. To 0.2 percent of the, company if. You get in really early in the company and you're one of like the most critical, engineers for the whole like project, you might be able to get you know a couple percent I think it's pretty hard unless one of the founders to get more than a few percent of a, start-up I think. That, in. Terms of negotiation, I think you can negotiate I think, that you can always negotiate what does this, star have to do what, do we do, so. We make a software product that, helps. Smaller, companies, and medium-sized. Companies and, potentially. Someday, larger. Companies who. Don't. Want to build themselves. This particular, product, we. Help them to do a thing called experimentation. Which. If you. Think of companies like Google Amazon Facebook. Linkedin. These. Companies all have a ton of users, when, they release a new feature a change, to some part of their product like, maybe how ads are displayed or, the. Color of a button, they. Don't want to release it to all of the customers at once because, if that has a problem with it that prevents, you know the website from working on maybe, you know some particular, browser or something then. They could end up impacting. Maybe. 30% of the customers and that, would really really impact, the reputation the. Profitability, I, mean, this is this is a huge problem right and with thousands of engineers working on your product every day you, really can't release, a feature. From. You know each of these engineers, every, day that.

Is Going. To impact all of those people simultaneously, you. You will find bugs where two features interact, in a way that's negative right that, you couldn't find in test and so the products that we provide allows, people allows. Companies to release. New features in their software to, a small, percentage of the. Total group, of their. Their customers, their users of their website and then, on top of that we, will measure lots, of different data about, those customers, and how they use the site for. You and you, can using, this data understand, more about whether this feature improves. The profitability, of your product or if it decreases the profitability, of your product so, an example of this is if you add more ads to, maybe Google search you. May find that after you know six, months of this. New feature being deployed your, users have learned. To be more blind, to ads they, see they, don't look at the ads anymore completely. And. So as a consequence, you've actually reduced, the click-through rate for. Ads on your search engine which. Is your primary source of revenue you may find that reducing, the ads actually. Has a beneficial, effect of increasing. People's awareness, of. Them because there's fewer, ads in more like maybe random locations, they're not expecting them there so, they actually see the ad and maybe, they recognize that it's something they want and they end up clicking on it and and, you know you get this higher click-through rate so very often the features that we produce, that we write as engineers it's. Difficult, to measure if they had a beneficial impact for the company so we provide a tool that allows companies to do that so they don't have to build this technology internally. At the company the goal the book mission the total mission of the company as a whole is to actually power like the world's decisions. Software. Based decisions using. This data so, it's. Kind of like a pretty. Like high-minded. Sort of like glorious, kind. Of goal but the. The day to day work of the company is, selling, a software product to, other companies that they use to release features, safely. And also. In a way that they can measure the performance of those features not not performance, like. Speed. Or performance, in terms of the. Profitability of the company let's, talk about a difference. Between. Working. Process, in big, company, in and, a, start-up oh wow yeah. It's so different, in. A larger company I think. It's. A little slower there's less pressure add. Pounds here the deadlines. Kind of all seemed a little bit made-up. Like. There wasn't like a real pressure, from the outside to, deliver something. Unless. You were working more on like the front lines of the company. Sometimes. There was some pressure but if. The deadlines still felt a little bit made-up whereas, in a startup I think, you. Have much more real deadlines, you. Might have customers, that are waiting on a feature to be finished so that they'll buy your product like, maybe they've told you like once you have this feature in your platform we want to we want to start, buying your product and if, you, are the engineer that's writing that feature because. Your engineering team is very small and you can't, assign more than one person to it.

That. Means there are you know potentially, thousands of dollars of revenue. For the company that, are waiting on your work so the faster, you get it done the faster you produce that work the. More money your company kits and it's very real it's I mean it's right there in front of you you can like calculate, on a piece of paper exactly, how much money is, being produced by the work you're doing it's quite different I'd say the day-to-day work is very different at a start-up you have much more input on all kinds, of decisions like. One. Thing that I had, a little bit of input into recently. Was the decision of which 401k. Provider to go with. I'm. Realizing. Now that in your. Audience might not be familiar with what a 401k is so that's, like a it's. A financial plan that a company provides you that allows. You to, save. For, retirement kind of like a personally. Managed, pension, plan and private. Companies sell, these to companies so, I actually, had some input on a decision like that which is obviously not a software decision at the company right I've talked I've been able to talk with people about which office we're moving to next things like this so, I feel like I have a voice. And an opinion that I, can, sort of provide, in. Decisions. That aren't related at all the software which I would never have a pounds here I mean can you imagine you. Know somebody, at Facebook an engineer saying yeah. I think we should move to this building like next year it wouldn't really their voice wouldn't would have no it would be just a giant like Hall of silence right like no one has a voice except for the team yeah. Yeah, I mean you have way more impact, it feels really cool I like that what do you think about. Silicon. Valley as a as, a place. Tech. Mecca why. Am, it, became. That's, a history question I'm not I don't think I'm well equipped to answer it I don't, know why it. Became a, technology. A lot of startups. Want. To start a business to develop a business here ah today, yeah, okay. That the. Investors are here I mean that's really what it is if. Someone, gives your company millions, of dollars they want to be very close by so that they can walk into your office and like see what you're doing and they, can come in and like talk to you the founder if, they have a question or if they, want to have a board meeting they don't wanna have to travel very far for it and they want it to be like in person so, I think a big motivating, factor for many, companies being, here in Silicon Valley is that the investors are here another.

Reason. For that is that the. Industry, here the the, tech industry here has a lot of momentum already and what. I mean by momentum is that if, you. Have tons. Of engineers working. For companies in an area. Companies. Want to start their company. There because, there's, a larger, availability, of Engineers in that area because engineers, are trying to go there because, they want to be in the tech Mecca your, engineers will tend to perform I think a little better than engineers, in other areas because on weekends, if they go out to the bar they, might overhear, a conversation of. Two people talking about some technology. You. Know what I'm trying to say with that anecdote, is that the, engineering, culture is, so. Dense, in that, area, that, they're, constantly they. Have inputs, from other engineers. Other organizations. Other signals, that provide them with information and learning about the thing that they're doing for work every day and so, because, they're exposed to so much more this cross-pollination. Happens, between organizations, so Facebook develops a new technology, I'll probably hear about it before the guys on the East Coast will if I do hear about it before the guys. On the East Coast and I'm competing with them then, maybe I can implement, this new technology, at my company and. As, a consequence, be able to drive revenue at my company faster, than the company on the East Coast can and out-compete them in the market it is say that Americans, are very good tuned and. Presenting. And selling, themselves in, the intervening oh yeah. As an American. Am. I doing it now. For. Example I am, recruiter. And, I call, you and say, Andrew please, tell me about yourself, hmm I don't know if this is true for all Americans but I would tend to want to present like sort of the best version of myself in, a conversation, like that so if they say tell me about yourself, I'm. Not going to tell them bad things obviously I'm. Not going to say well, I'm good at this but you. Know all of these problems I'm, probably just gonna say well you know I'm person that's interested in these things I like this and this is what I do with most of my time I'm gonna try to be honest but. Presenting. Really the things that are like beneficial, I think I, mean, it's can. Be like let's conduct a master class for. Example we, could you want to, change your job right now okay, and what. I'm. Going to say, to recruiter. If I wanted to be, recruited, by another company the. First thing I would do is I would go and I would update my LinkedIn with what I think the, company that, I want to recruit me is looking for so. I would go and I would read their job postings, and then, I would use information from their job postings to sort of update my LinkedIn to just, be a little bit more tailored, for that audience. I'd probably update my resume in a similar fashion so I do like a little bit of preliminary work to make sure that like the version of me I'm presenting, is, the version that suits what they're looking for. Following, that I might, spend some time. Reading. More about the company's products how it works to, understand, the, kinds of problems that a person, in that role at that company would face and. So to understand, more about maybe. What. Their challenges are when, I understand their challenges I might try and go read up on the cutting edge of like the current solutions for those challenges if. I can an ideal, sort. Of thing. To have in that situation is a friend, who works at a similar company that produces something similar that I can talk to at length about their, company, and the challenges they face it. May not line up perfectly but it'll give you more context. To understand, the other company, phone and then sort of at the end of this sort of long process, of. Analysis. I would, I would then take this step to, either. Contact. Them, directly or, try. And get their recruiter, to contact me it's, not ideal if you reach out to them first I think if they reach out to you it's ideal because, from their perspective, it looks more random.

It Looks more like they've found you and not that you've come looking for them because, if they think that they've found you but you know all this stuff about their, industry and their company and like all this you know related, context, for, them they feel like they've found a really great candidate and. I, think that that lubricates. The interview, just a little better it creates, a smoother, transition from, the. Initial, contact, with a recruiter into. The idea that maybe this person is a good candidate a good fit for this company what do you think, Americans. Are so, good in self presentation, hmm. Do you have any classes, it's cool quick, no. No. Not, really, because. Russian is not good in self, presentation, yeah. I think hmm. It's. A good question I don't know. I've. Heard, so, in my travels abroad, in, China. Russia. Or wherever I've. Sort of heard that Americans, are very kind, of like. Energetic. That, we sort of like like are kind of like a little bit crazy, even that we stand out a little bit because, our behavior is a little bit strange. Or like maybe we're too happy things. Like this I don't, know maybe, the culture just like encourages, that and so. We. Just have this maybe. This this energy I guess all the time. Maybe, we we learn it from a very young age where, do we learn it why do we learn it I don't know you know it's it's strange I don't really I don't really understand it myself. Yeah. It might just be a part of our culture I. Mean. They put fluoride in our water so. And I mean this entirely as a joke of course but they put fluoride in the water because. It helps with like the health of your teeth you. Know maybe it's that maybe it's fluoride in the water maybe it makes us all like a little crazy. Okay. I certainly don't would, you imagine that you work for, Russian. Tech company, in Russia I'm not here so I've considered it actually I've, not considered any specific, company but I've considered, the idea, of it just because. One. It would be interesting for me to I would get to work on my Russian which is very bad and I'd really like the opportunity to sort of like become very. Good at that because, you. Know I mean I'll have kids and stuff someday and anyway, my wife's parents live in Russia and, so I thought about maybe going, and working somewhere in or around their city. To. Just. Sort of be closer to them which would be cool for me cool for cartoon but. Also because it would be interesting for me for a lot of other reasons so again this is kind of like a breaking outside of your comfort zone to experience something that's, really interesting and different that. You can use to sort of improve yourself I guess, I've considered it I don't. Know if I could actually do it. I'd. Have to get a working visa a bunch of other things I don't, know where the Russian tech companies are I don't, know how, their salaries line up with like the cost of living in those areas you know I don't know what, that would look like, long term let's say I do that at the end of that time period if I want to come back to America, if. I've saved up less money over that time period then my savings when I'm back here in America might be like much reduced, from what they would be if I was living if. I'd lived here the whole time working the whole time so it's. It's a difficult, it's. A difficult thing to justify, from a financial standpoint because, I think the salary would probably be lower but, maybe there's like a job at some. Russian. Company in Russia where. I'm acting as sort of like a liaison, between like, the, American. Inside of the company and like the Russian side of the company but that's probably not software related I don't know it doesn't seem like there's a good role. That I would fit into that. Would satisfy all these different concerns but I have considered. It's, a difficult choice in, the end of, this. Interview could, you recommend, some. Sides. For, learning, something that, you use so, I know. Yeahmaybe website, so maybe Brooks yeah. Yeah. So I, think it, depends on what you want to learn it. Always depends on what you want could you do. You have any. Communication. About no but learn to, work and oh. Yeah so a, lot of the software, engineering skills that I learned I learned, actually. Not, through. Courses. At my university because, I want to be clear that I didn't major in a, computer like the thing I studied at my university was not a computer science degree so, I didn't actually spend, very. Much time at any of my classes writing, the software I wrote, a little bit of, software, during.

My Undergrad I did, go out of my way to sort of like kind of learn, on the side some software engineering I hung out with some people who were studying software engineering and. I spent some time online on. MIT. Has a website called, OpenCourseWare so MIT. OCW. Where. You can take, their. Classes, essentially, for free online anytime, you want they, just have all the lectures as videos they, have the books that are recommended for the course they, have the homework that's recommended the syllabus sometimes. They have the answers sometimes, they have the tests as well so. You can basically take, that course, as if it was taught by an MIT professor. Online. For free in your own time and the only thing that you don't have is access, to that human that professor that you can ask questions to when, you don't understand something but because we have the internet which is like this like, second brain that we all share, you. Can sort of like use the internet to find a place to answer that question so I think MIT. OpenCourseWare, if you're trying to learn something, about software engineering is probably. The best without, question, the best place to learn very, strong fundamental, skills for writing software if you want to go beyond fundamentals, and get more into. Something. A bit industrial, like. Skills that might be. Not. More relevant, for working, as a software engineer but. More, targeted, for that kind of situation. There. Are some courses on core Sarah that, are a little more practical so. They tend to be things like we're going to do you know laboratory, exercises throughout, the entire semester working. On one specific topic to. Develop, one specific, outcome so that you understand, how to do one type of like workflow I think that those courses, can be useful in specific context but I think if you're learning fundamentals, like MIT OpenCourseWare, is the best if you need to brush up on like really basic, skills like lower. Level education like mathematics, or maybe. Just basic. Trigonometry. Or financial skills or something like this. I think. Salman, Khan made, this thing called Khan Academy which, breaks, everything down into, very easy language it's very easy to understand, so, it really depends on what you're looking to learn about. Yeah. Thank you thank, you and you're for the interview, yeah, thank. You for anything receiver. And the receiver. Sympathy. Tibia. Or tibia on a PCB tibia, it. Spasibo bombs at establishment, relative eto unity, stone open driveways. Structure. Idea of commentary history was his khaki democracy at the must embrace to the SAG Lang year. Was much not just a, treat. Nathan. Stone practice, which is McConnell, simple, calm.

2018-07-08 23:12

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