The OP basically called into question the quality and stability of Unbabel's platform ("The code was a tangled mess of mindless duplication, half-implemented features and misleading comments. Of the few automated tests that existed, most didn't even run anymore") and the competence of the people behind it ("The team lead was the only one who knew anything about the system and he was either busy trying to patch things up by himself or working with the other person they had hired for my position before I got there"). The subtle implication of the post: the OP may have been terminated because he recognized these things.

Are the OP's claims true? Who knows, but the response here doesn't directly address them at all. Instead, there's ambiguous language like "terrible fit", corporate-speak like "we believe that the culture of the company is extremely important" and a poorly-timed "A position just opened up :)"

Frankly, if I was the founder of a tech company and I made the decision to respond publicly to a situation like this, the claims about my platform and the competence of my team would be my focus and I'd address them head on. After all, such claims could become very harmful when encountered by prospective employees, customers and partners. Given that, it's curious they were completely ignored.

In my experience, a lot of code is like this, and the majority of startup code is like this. I have found there's almost zero correlation between startup success and good coding practices. I have no data, but I suspect there's a negative correlation.

Before you protest, I know that your code is a shining example of clarity. But if you consider all the incentives for a startup, there's much more value in being experimental, and highly responsive to customer demands, than there is in charting a stable, long term course. People celebrate pivots like it's cool, but this is what it does to the code.

Just a forewarning for anyone who is going from a more corporate world into startupland.

The idea here is that you do the best you can within the constraints, not that you use your start-uppishness as an excuse to be sloppy or to produce crap.

In fact, the majority of the real messes I see are not in start-ups but in more established companies where the original developers have long since moved on. Large codebases where very few people (if any!) have an idea of what is really going on.

I have been at startups where it's a total mess that will never be cleaned, and I've been at startups where the code is always tip-top because everyone knows you get big B2B points for implementing their dream feature right after a regular "how are you liking our service" followup.

I haven't worked at mega-corps, but I've seen bits of code that is so much worse than imaginable that I expect there are places that scrape pretty far below the bottom of the barrel, but that might just be a volume issue (the worst 1% of code will be mostly mega-corp code because most of _all_ code is in mega-corps).

If the founder made an in-depth reply explaining that "No, we don't suck, we use language X, framework Y and methodology Z", then that just opens up a pointless side discussion about whether the X+Y+Z stack sucks, and how much exactly.

All that will remain in search engines, so in a few years' time the company will appear in public searches as a company that uses X+Y+Z even if they have moved on.

Note that this wasn't a debate about languages, frameworks or methodologies. The OP flat out referred to the company's code as "tangled mess of mindless duplication, half-implemented features and misleading comments" and claimed that only one employee "knew anything about the system." The response here mentions surfing on Wednesday but doesn't dispute any of the OP's claims about the state of the company's technology and technology organization. That looks horrible.

As a company you want to shut this sort of discussion down as quickly as you can. A detailed rebuttal may appear to do that but doesn't - the more you say, the more you raise questions, invite rebuttals and encourage further debate.

Maybe this doesn't answer some claims and they suffer some very slight damage because of that, but far worse damage is often (possibly even usually) done by detailed replies which keep the story going and fuel the fire.

He wouldn't be the first one.

I had a bunch of jobs, where I had to work with crappy code and have seen many people getting "terminated" because they prefered to complain about it.

I complained too, but I worked with what was given, when it didn't change after a few years (most of these "the whole system is fucked up changes don't come easy) I just quit.

These things are self evident to any programmer who isn't in their first year of work. I can't see anyone being fired over recognizing what their experience allows, especially since you hired them for that experience.

Why? A former employee criticizes the company they were fired from -- that carries essentially zero weight to pretty much anyone, and you seem to be among very, very few who took it at face value. Heck, even if they weren't fired and didn't have the axe to grind, people complain about "spaghetti" code with such vigor and frequency in this industry that it has become essentially meaningless: It's the standard fall-back when someone is in over their head -- attack others, malign their code and technology, and try to pull up yourself by tearing down others.

Further, how in the world can you complain about them commenting on a "personal" matter, when they are responding to a guy who posted a highly-critical extortion rant. I call it an extortion rant because he even claims that if he warned them that they need to pay up or face his public flailing.

That's incredibly lame.

First, hiring people based on interviews is known to be a bad procedure. To determine if a person fits a company, you have to let them do some actual work first. Working remote for a period of time is good, but if you're looking for an on-site employee: fly them out, pay them and cover all their expenses for a week, and have them work at least three days. Both sides could have figured out so much about each other if you had only done this.

Then, if someone still turns out to be a bad fit long-term, firing that person is a good decision. Both as a CEO and as the company, you have to take the high road, and make sure you're way more generous than you need to be (especially if that employee moved to another country for you). Clearly you went a step in the right direction there as you stated, but it's still not enough. You should have sat down with that guy and figured out together what it would take to get him back home as smoothly as possible.

Finally, your communication style. It's hard to come out on top when you're faced with this kind of criticism. But keep in mind that you allowed this situation to develop in the first place. While it's certainly your responsibility to raise buzz and sound enthusiastic on behalf of your own company, don't fall into the trap of congratulating yourself too much. We're here because something went wrong, not because everything is beyond awesome over there. Acknowledge that. Implement measures to avoid this in the future. And "a position just opened up :)" is certainly not the right tone at the moment.

Most inappropriate HN job posting, ever.

Is it perhaps a culture/language barrier? Do they even realize how callous their little segue is?

Interesting! I will need to be more careful in my own writing... :)

All that to say, props on making the difficult decision early.

Maybe I'm reading too much into your comment, but are you saying that enjoying surfing is a necessary part of your company's “culture fit”?

If someone is physically or otherwise disabled or unable to participate, does that preclude them from being a part of your company?

I'm not at your company to have fun. Beyond a paycheck, job satisfaction and personal growth would be nice, but surfing, nerf guns, pinball etc are things I'd prefer to do in my spare time with friends and family, thanks.

Sure, the annual company retreat or Christmas party are expected, but there's nothing worse than a bunch of co-workers trying to have "fun" because it's an unspoken requirement of the company culture.

What I'm asking about is ”De facto”. If practically, you are letting go of people who can't or won't surf with you on the weekends because of ”culture fit issues”, surfing becomes a de facto (but not de jure) requirement of the job. And the reason I'm asking about it is that it has been mentioned as one of the four points related to letting this employee go. Otherwise, why is it even in the response? Notice that it is not part of the advertisement (which comes later, outside the points).

In Asia on the other hand, it literally is mandatory to socialize with your employer.

It sounds like exactly what you said: OP was a bad fit for this company. Rather than sour grapes and trying to publicly shame Unbabel (for what? Recognizing a bad fit and acting on it?), OP should take this as a lesson learned.

((

EDIT: In light of gamblor956 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8259687)'s response, I should clarify that what I found tasteless and possibly illegal was the posting of this personal information, not the arrangement itself (about which I think it is wisest to offer no opinion).

))

I agree with bkeroack (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8259618) that Andreas's posting this rant publically may not have been desireable (although the poster says that your company was given some warning about the content appearing), but I think that does not give you the ethical right to compound the wrong by complaining about the poster ("he was a terrible fit"), or the ethical or legal right to post sensitive and private information about an employee.

Without commenting on the merits of the situation (I have no idea who is in the right, and think that this kind of unpleasantness should probably not have made the front page), I think that it would have sufficed to say that his allegations are demonstrably untrue, but that you cannot provide documentation due to privacy concerns, without giving personal information about his performance and salary details.

http://www.portugalglobal.pt/EN/Biblioteca/Documents/Portuga...

This is not a complaint. I agree that "terrible" may be a bad word, but not being a correct fit is not wrong.

Not all people are great for all jobs. Even if they have the technical qualities.

A basketball player runs a lot on a game, but that doesn't mean he/she would be a great sprinter, as an example.

Culture fit is needed as much as a technical match

.oO(What's with the code quality though?)

There needs to be great care addressing company culture. It may be clear what those values are when the team is small and made from people with similar backgrounds and life experiences. But how do you expect those values to be transmitted to others? If you don't clearly state your mission, vision and values, then you are going to have a hard time justifying any decisions based on company culture.

I was in the military were they have a thing called mandatory fun time. basically, you are required to go to a bbq or some other "fun" thing. I hated it. I'm one of those people who draw a hard line between work and the rest of my life. when I'm at work, I'm working crazy hard to get the job done. period. when I'm not at work, I'm doing my own thing. period. I have no desire to mix the two.

> beers on Friday afternoon

again, this is a negative, from my perspective. I would much rather be home relaxing or out drinking with my friends then forced to go out with coworkers. I like my coworkers, and we are friends, but the minute you try to take my Fridays away is the minute I start looking for a new job.

I'm an good employee. I work hard and over deliver compared to what I'm payed. but I will not give up my freedom for my job. no way.

and it doesn't matter of you say it isn't mandatory. if you hold company events, they are mandatory. a rose by any other name it's still a rose.

IMO, the obsession with culture fit and team bonding is really just a way to trick engineers into devoting more of their life, mindshare, and personal freedom to laboring for your startup.

For instance, not hiring someone because they don't want to go for beers on a Friday can accidentally become a proxy for excluding certain religions at which point you can be in all sorts of bother legally.