Heh. I am a developer at Mozilla, so I guess you're addressing this (partly) to me.
Yes, I suspect I could find another job. I interview well—don't tell any of my potential future employers, but honestly I interview better than I do actual work. (I will say that the massive layoffs introduce some doubt. I haven't had to look seriously in a tough market, and just having recruiters still pinging me regularly doesn't mean much. Hopefully it still helps to be on the list of people who have turned down offers at $big_places?)
I'm not really feeling it hard to live with myself. Quite the opposite, really; one thing that keeps me here is the mission. It would be hard to switch to a place where I had to work to convince myself that I was net contributing to humanity. I'm not curing cancer or eliminating poverty, but I would probably be crap at those.
But I think you're specifically referring to working at a place where Marketing occasionally makes some boneheaded moves, ones that are sometimes counter to the things that keep me here? Yeah, it's hard when that happens. But (1) I still think that it's largely better here than most other places, and (2) we have this teeny little existential problem that absolutely requires marketing to do Stuff. Despite what a vocal contingent on HN thinks, Firefox's market share is not going to turn around based only on engineering work or pouring effort into improved addons and making nice with the community. Those are things that are near and dear to my heart, and I wish we lived in a world where those mattered more, but sadly I have to live in reality. And if you want marketing people to do marketing, you can't exactly tell them what to do and what not to do. Without the ability to screw things up they won't be able to find the things that will make a dent.
Mozilla is a relatively small company, but big enough that my day to day work really doesn't feel a whole lot like "...participating in crap like that". I don't feel that involved in marketing whether it's good or bad, not even when I'm complaining about or brainstorming marketing-related ideas on internal message boards (and yes, it bothers me that those conversations happen on internal boards). I'm in a different corner of the organization, writing code and doing things to hopefully make Firefox more secure, faster, and less memory-hungry. I don't feel personally responsible for what marketing or legal or HR or whoever is doing.
As for how I stand in front of the mirror... well, sometimes I do it naked, thanks for asking. I don't think either of us wants me to give you a picture.
> Marketing occasionally makes some boneheaded moves, ones that are sometimes counter to the things that keep me here? Yeah, it's hard when that happens
What's obnoxious is when the stupid infects the code itself.
As GP said:
> Somewhere in all of these companies exists the belligerent ** who orders the subordinates to inject inappropriate profit-seeking changes into the product.
I'm annoyed whenever I find a new pro-tracking, anti-privacy, or pro-spam setting which is ON by default and usually with a poorly documented setting hidden in about:config rather than a logical place in Settings.
I am sure that pocket and mozilla VPN are perfectly good things for some people, but abusing Firefox itself to push ads (especially when such ads are hard to turn off) is a dark pattern.
I'm sure that analytics can be helpful in some cases, but it's tracking and should be off and opt-in by default.
Marketing seems to corrupt the open source aspect as well, as pro-user changes that marketing disagrees with are rejected; when users submit issue reports complaining about the obnoxiousness and suggesting changes, they are closed because the dark pattern or obnoxiousness is an intentional feature that marketing wanted and refuses to give up on.
> Despite what a vocal contingent on HN thinks, Firefox's market share is not going to turn around based only on engineering work or pouring effort into improved addons and making nice with the community.
And how has this marketing worked out for FF market share exactly? FF grew when it focused on tech. It's in freefall now.
> And if you want marketing people to do marketing, you can't exactly tell them what to do and what not to do.
Why not? There are there to help not dictate the course of the company. Or at least they shouldn't be.
firefox and before that name firebird/phoenix did not gain explosive growth due to central marketing efforts, it did because it was a great product that worked for people.
also,
> It would be hard to switch to a place where I had to work to convince myself that I was net contributing to humanity.
Not sure you are now, but okay. a halfassed solution like what firefox is now, is allowed to live forever without addressing it properly. If it wasnt there anymore, perhaps a real solution would emerge
> a halfassed solution like what firefox is now, is allowed to live forever without addressing it properly. If it wasnt there anymore, perhaps a real solution would emerge
That's why Google keeps paying for it. Or at least part of it.
Yes, I suspect I could find another job. I interview well—don't tell any of my potential future employers, but honestly I interview better than I do actual work. (I will say that the massive layoffs introduce some doubt. I haven't had to look seriously in a tough market, and just having recruiters still pinging me regularly doesn't mean much. Hopefully it still helps to be on the list of people who have turned down offers at $big_places?)
I'm not really feeling it hard to live with myself. Quite the opposite, really; one thing that keeps me here is the mission. It would be hard to switch to a place where I had to work to convince myself that I was net contributing to humanity. I'm not curing cancer or eliminating poverty, but I would probably be crap at those.
But I think you're specifically referring to working at a place where Marketing occasionally makes some boneheaded moves, ones that are sometimes counter to the things that keep me here? Yeah, it's hard when that happens. But (1) I still think that it's largely better here than most other places, and (2) we have this teeny little existential problem that absolutely requires marketing to do Stuff. Despite what a vocal contingent on HN thinks, Firefox's market share is not going to turn around based only on engineering work or pouring effort into improved addons and making nice with the community. Those are things that are near and dear to my heart, and I wish we lived in a world where those mattered more, but sadly I have to live in reality. And if you want marketing people to do marketing, you can't exactly tell them what to do and what not to do. Without the ability to screw things up they won't be able to find the things that will make a dent.
Mozilla is a relatively small company, but big enough that my day to day work really doesn't feel a whole lot like "...participating in crap like that". I don't feel that involved in marketing whether it's good or bad, not even when I'm complaining about or brainstorming marketing-related ideas on internal message boards (and yes, it bothers me that those conversations happen on internal boards). I'm in a different corner of the organization, writing code and doing things to hopefully make Firefox more secure, faster, and less memory-hungry. I don't feel personally responsible for what marketing or legal or HR or whoever is doing.
As for how I stand in front of the mirror... well, sometimes I do it naked, thanks for asking. I don't think either of us wants me to give you a picture.