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Yes, the interview is also for you to see if you want to work there.
Success is not having to work where you don't want to. Nevertheless keep your questions on discovering what the job is up to the point that you can credibly say if you are up to it or not. If you can't get to that point then you have encountered incoherence on their part or yours - it isn't going to work. You find out about toxic environments by listening and observing, not by asking questions that make you sound picky. Toxic bosses are very often fond of telling you so in the interview: 'I am a bit of a perfectionist' etc. Listen carefully to their spiel. You can smile politely as they say it but don't think that they don't mean it.
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I have, on a number of occasions been on job interviews that, during the interview, I decided I did not want the job. I then proceeded to shoot myself in the foot and lose the interview, sometimes regretting it.
The Interview is NEVER the time or place to decide whether or not you want the job. Always sell yourself throughout the process. Only when you have a firm offer in front of you is the time to decide whether or not you want the job.
Sometimes after thinking about it you may decide to give it a shot!
DonD
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Serious question, without trying to be too political. This isn't really about politics, but workplace quality.
I'm just asking you, as a developer, would you put up with working in that atmosphere?
By all appearances, from the little I've seen, I'd have been out the door before the ink was dry on Elon's buyout.
Not because of who he is or what he believes, but because of how he runs things.
My guess is his top talent has already fled.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Neither Musk's or Bezos' workplaces are humane. I also come from a country where work ethics is much more oriented towards well-being - our forefathers died on the streets under cannon fire to give us workers' rights, so my opinion on Tesla and Amazon's work practice is surely tinted.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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I live in the midwest US and over the many years of my career I've experienced a lot of the challenges of working in IT which have always been related to people having too much power & no accountability.
I've only seen short periods of time at any company where the environment is anything nice. When it gets real ugly, then you go to the next company. That part of the career has not been fun.
modified 2-Nov-22 13:14pm.
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In the 1920s our forefathers were shot with canister shots under order from the King beacause they were unionizing and striking. In the 1970s their descendants taught bosses to respect the workers with the help of machineguns, rifles and molotovs.
Now the situation is turning a bit for the worst thanks to imported 'work ethics' from abroad but we still have good workers laws.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Yes, I'm sure that the at-will worker conditions here are a lot of what creates these problems.
modified 2-Nov-22 13:15pm.
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Pretty much all problems in the workplace (and beyond) are "related to people having too much power & no accountability" - not just in IT.
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Not sure why they would still need SW developers. The coding work is done.
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I don't know where you work, but coding dies when the product does everywhere I've been.
I guarantee you Twitter has developers. Elon is busy abusing them as we speak, I think with his latest insane deadlines for his new pay-to-play video initiative from what I'm hearing.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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By "abusing", do you mean making them work more hours? Do you mean stopping the 'fact checks'?
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I mean the "make this (crazy) deadline or you're all fired" toxic workplace environment.
I honestly don't care about their "fact checks", one way or another because anyone stupid enough to do their "research" on facebook, twitter and youtube deserves what they get.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Unfortunately some of these ppl are smart enough to figure out how to vote, and they really like to do that.
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By all accounts the pre-Musk work ethic at Twitter was abysmal. Employees spent more time playing, socializing and politicizing than actually working / earning their pay.
Maybe I'm old school but I judge my co-workers by their productivity rather than their foosball prowess. My conscience requires me to put in a full day's work to earn a full day's pay.
I'd likely prefer working at post-Musk Twitter than pre-Musk Twitter.
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It sounds to me like he's demanding 80 hour weeks by producing ultimatums like "deliver this by the drop dead date or you're all fired"
An employer that thinks he could treat me like that would quickly find himself hitting the bricks looking for another senior dev or architect.
But then, I don't really have to look for work. It finds me.
I'm surprised anyone here would prefer working conditions like that.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I'm just not hearing about that level of demands.
I'm hearing pampered "little darlings" that are complaining that they are being held accountable for the very first time in their lives.
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Not sure where you get your news from, but here's one place discussing some of what CodeWitch is talking about.
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Regardless of the culture that was there prior, even if one video could tell the whole story (In my experience large companies vary widely in culture from department to department), it does not excuse poor management.
Look, I made a nice living doing consulting in a "project rescue" capacity, putting multimillion dollar implementations back on track.
You don't do that by issuing ultimatums and crazy deadlines and generally creating a toxic work environment. All Elon has done is chased out anyone that may have had the skills he needs right now. And people don't work well at gunpoint.
All he's doing is taking a situation he already didn't like the look of, and throwing gasoline and matches at it.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I don't base my opinion about Twitter culture from one video. I've been watching the cultures (from afar) at Twitter, FB, Google, Apple, etc... for many years. Even back when Musk was a mere millionaire... 
Poor management has been alive and well at Twitter from its start. Dorsey is a clown. Always has been. His pitiful management created the mess that Musk is trying to clean-up. I have no idea if Musk's fire and brimstone methods will work or not but "more of the same" never fixes the problem. Ever.
I predict we're going to see similar (albeit less public) issues at FB and Google in the coming months and years. Hell, we're already seeing them if you look closely. Spoiled employees who think they can work from home forever, whine constantly on company message boards, be less productive and still demand top tier money.
As for working well "at gunpoint"... some people can and do in small-ish doses. Most of us who've been in the game for more than a few years have "pulled a rabbit from the hat" on occasion when the pressure is on. Maybe Musk is merely trying to find his magicians?
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I can already tell you they won't work, because it's the first thing bad managers try when things aren't going their way.
Elon's approach has been done to death. It's an anti-pattern.
He'd save himself a ton of financial pain if he just read the book "Fish". It's brief.
It might save him billions. Seeing as how his personal wealth has been hemorrhaging since he took over twitter, he could probably stand to save a few bucks.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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What will be your litmus test on whether his current approach at Twitter works or fails?
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I think if Twitter maintains its dominance as a social media platform, and Elon remains in charge of that, then I'd be fine with conceding he pulled a rabbit out of a hat, given his approach. But it's still not an approach I'd ever adopt, because the odds are against it paying off.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
modified 2-Nov-22 20:07pm.
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I expect it to crash and burn at Twitter too, recovery might happen but not without a hell year and massive staff turnover first. And even then I'm doubtful due to the likely loss of institutional memory of how the codebase works.
Elon's managed to make it work at Telsa and SpaceX because they were open about expectations when hiring and there is a small subset of the population idealistic enough to work themselves to death for an opportunity to change the world. Most people won't put up with being ![Elephant | [mastadon]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/elephant.gif) ed that way; especially when the new slave driver is promising massive layoffs anyway. And when a company is hemoraging staff at all levels, finding ex/coworkers to give you references isn't a problem.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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fgs1963 wrote: Spoiled employees who think they can work from home forever, whine constantly on company message boards, be less productive and still demand top tier money.
The pool is going down and the demand is going up.
And Twitter HQ is in San Francisco. So even higher demand and very high cost of living. But with plenty of other employment alternatives.
So unless Musk has some extraterrestrials in his back pocket he is going to find it hard to replace them.
fgs1963 wrote: Most of us who've been in the game for more than a few years have "pulled a rabbit from the hat" on occasion when the pressure is on. Maybe Musk is merely trying to find his magicians?
Yes. Because management did not know what they were doing and they decided that development need to fix a problem that management made.
Myself I don't play that game anymore.
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