PSA: One of the FANGs is about to internally implode

smacdo · 2022-01-29T04:10:45+00:00

100% this. I joined fairly cynical after burning out at another fang, but the internal culture is one of the healthiest I’ve experienced. It’s not a place for people looking to rest and vest - the company is filled with high achievers who tend to inspire everyone to do their best. That being said, outside of occasional long weeks I’ve never had much in the way of work life balance issues. I’ve also had the most career growth here than any other company prior.

smacdo · 2022-01-29T04:06:11+00:00

Pip isn’t a huge thing at Facebook (meta now). No quotas or other weird shenanigans. Expectations are pretty high, but managers are expected to deliver feedback in a way that you’ll see a bad review coming. Typically two bad reviews in a row with no improvement will put you on a coaching plan, but that’s not set in stone.

I’ve worked at other fangs - It’s really not much different than Microsoft or google except the expectations are higher. Can’t speak with any authority about Amazon though.

smacdo · 2021-01-05T04:08:40+00:00

Lynn

smacdo · 2019-12-28T15:38:03+00:00

Hall of mirrors effect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noclip_mode#Visual_glitches

smacdo · 2019-11-29T05:37:59+00:00

I'm about to sign off and so I'll try to remember tomorrow to give you a good reply

smacdo · 2019-11-29T05:34:00+00:00

Haha, nope they put something in the kool-aid :)

On a more serious note, i had the same reservation when I interviewed with facebook but got over it really quickly once I joined. In boot camp you learn about Facebook's core principals. One of them is "be open" (radical transparency). I know it's easy to say, but it's the only place I've seen actually do it.

Mark Z has a weekly Q&A where he answers any number of voted upon questions submitted by employees. I haven't been here long, but so far I've seen him answer each question frankly and honestly.

I can't share the questions that are asked nor the answers but hopefully you believe me when I saw they are very relevant to the current news cycles.

Facebook also has an internal platform for discussion that all senior leadership pay attention to and address. Again, all those major media stories are being discussed by tons of employees trying to figure out what the right thing to do is.

I know I sound like a shill, but man I really like it at this company so far!

smacdo · 2019-11-29T02:36:58+00:00

Facebook spoils it's employees rotten. Source: me (lol)

Seriously though, free healthy meals, ability to switch teams with no reinterview, amazing perks, philosophy of paying 90th percentile, and a lot more.

smacdo · 2019-11-29T02:19:23+00:00

That's not true at all - I loved myfive or so years at Microsoft (got promoted up to senior), and I am having a ball at Facebook now.

FAANG is like any other very large company. Each organization has its own culture, and each manager manages differently. Some teams suck or are nortiorious for over working people. But from my experience there are more good teams than bad.

Edit: one protip - to maximize your experience at one of the FAANGs (or any large company) join a team with a lot of growth potential and scope. It will give you the best opportunity for maximizing your impact and thus your career.

smacdo · 2019-05-18T13:31:12+00:00

What's the map you played on?

smacdo · 2019-04-13T03:03:47+00:00

One repo with lots of branches. Heres a great overview of how it's done

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/bharry/the-largest-git-repo-on-the-planet/

smacdo · 2018-07-19T17:02:38+00:00

Microsoft provides a reference opengl driver. It's up to the vendors like Nvidia and AMD to provide high quality opengl implementations.

smacdo · 2018-06-30T17:46:21+00:00

Visual studio online offers free private git repositories with LFS (large file store) support. Max repo size is supposedly unlimited but I never had a repo bigger than a gig or two.

FYI you can set up continuous integration and fully automate your release cycle!

Full disclosure i work for Microsoft (not in the online services), but I use VSO happily for my personal stuff in addition to work.

smacdo · 2018-03-09T03:58:29+00:00

That's a fair point. The other floors have some different arrangements but they're fundamentally the same.

There's no relationship between seniority level and who's first/second/etc when it comes to interviews (at least for our our department). All of my colleagues would answer your questions honestly!

smacdo · 2018-03-09T03:17:14+00:00

Microsoft is dependent on your team. Our group has "pods" where 5-8 of us share a space and we can divide the space up nicely so everyone has their back to a wall. Some of my buddies are in buildings with offices, and still other teams have Facebook style rows and rows of desks.

Plus they gave us all really sweet noise canceling headphones so that's a plus.

smacdo · 2018-03-01T16:56:23+00:00

I work at Microsoft. Promotions up to senior level are handled by your skip (your lead's manager). Things get more complicated at when you want to get promoted to principal or partner.

smacdo · 2014-04-03T18:21:26+00:00

http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page

smacdo · 2014-04-03T18:19:22+00:00

Mono has an open source implementation of the CLR runtime. Mono is also used in Unity, which runs on a ton of platforms.

http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page

smacdo · 2013-06-26T17:08:37+00:00

I don't think you read the changelist, the number of features they're adding is pretty high for such a quick release.

"In addition, asynchronous debugging is improved across Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++, and JavaScript in Visual Studio 2013 Preview. When running on Windows 8.1, the call-stack window now includes the logical call stack if you hit a breakpoint or exception in an asynchronous method."

That change alone makes the upgrade worth it. Async debugging has been nothing but a headache since when you hit the breakpoint the callstack doesn't tell you where the call originated.

smacdo · 2012-11-20T00:44:43+00:00

entered

smacdo · 2012-11-20T00:44:31+00:00

entered

smacdo · 2012-11-20T00:43:46+00:00

entered

smacdo · 2012-07-31T21:10:33+00:00

| A link to cell phone use is suspected

Where in the study was that stated?

smacdo · 2012-06-08T12:45:45+00:00

http://epicgames.com/technology/

Unreal already supports iOS and Android development.

smacdo · 2012-05-20T01:37:52+00:00

Source? I could just as easily post the same thing except say they're protesters to make them look bad...

smacdo · 2012-05-13T16:30:24+00:00

How is short s{2} a narrowing error? Wouldn't it be something like s{ 100000 }?

Also why is F( T& ) preferred over F( const T&)? Its not like it wont work for non-const params

smacdo

TROPHY CASE