Worked there in the 90s. Probably the most professional engineering environment I've ever seen. And compared to what you might expect of the time and place, quite egalitarian. My boss and half the team were women, and there were several people from unusual backgrounds that would be considered economically disadvantaged these days. Everyone had an office. No politics. Just GSD.
There is no fairness in hiring (nor anywhere else). I once saw a hiring manager pull a resume out of the stack and throw it away because it was printed on cream-colored paper. I glanced at it--it was impressive in general. Certainly a plausible hire at a place like Google.
That's okay. You're not writing a resume to get hired. You're writing a resume to interest the places you'd like to work and repel the places you'd be miserable at.
This is a good point. Unless you are desperate for a job, you can be strategic. You could even list things that are a turn off for you. Companies that bin your CV because of honesty and trying to get a good fit are probably not a good fit.
Unless you are going against an entire culture, for example you want Fridays off but applying to high frequency trading companies.
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” --Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
I did. My places were wealthy (endowments), which means good offices and equipment. But, it also means that bad apples can cause a lot of trouble without getting fired.
Money not quite FAANG, but solid, and didn't depend on employer stock prices, which is a big plus. Some tech was cutting edge; some was many years out of date.
As always, the devil is in the particulars of position. If possible, don't move your family, sell your house, etc., until you're six to twelve months in. It's like one of those Sherlock Holmes stories--it can take a while to realize just how bad a bad situation is.
Dear ChatGPT: Please produce a spam filter that differentially filters out emails from party X (vs party Y) and yet seems in all regards to be intended to produce only neutral results (at least with respect to human-comprehensible analyses).
You might not be bothered by the value of X and the effect in this case, but extrapolating to society as a whole, this is about to become a huge problem.
I briefly tried (and paid for) OkCupid. Not many matches. Initially seemed like zero. Turns out it was one--someone I could never have met in real life. Perfect fit, and we're now happily married.
You have my sympathies. I did this once (see my other comment). In my case, finding the next job without having an existing one was unusually difficult. (Yes, everyone says this.) Employers strongly avoid the unemployed. And as it happens, it cut my comp in half.
It's a tradeoff, but there's more to life than money.
Yes, but the alternative in my case probably would have involved suicide. Unfortunately, that's not something you can tell prospective employers, as an explanation for taking a break. (I'm not at all suicidal these days, so worry not.)
My suggestion there is to think of a plausible fib that won't raise flags. You could make up a consulting jaunt or maybe a dying relative you had to take care of. Or just say you needed a sabbatical. This might seem unethical, but my read is that employers really _want_ to see you "act normal", which in our society means lying about certain things in a professional context.
I’m very glad to read this, as I am feeling in a similar boat, and the strong impetus to move was getting close to suicide. Thankfully, I am making progress and I have committed to the changes, which lifts my spirits.
I'm near the end of my (paying) career and have had about ten jobs. Most I eventually left just to "see more of the world" of tech work. (Two went bankrupt.)
I've only had one job that I quit "for cause". It looked like the best job I ever had, and would have been, except that my boss was a psychopath. It wasn't a close call, and I was seriously interviewing within three months of starting.
Except for unusual cases, all jobs are about the same. Any given job might be a bad fit for you personally.
Limited advice: If you're working with or for someone evil, leave ASAP. As for discretionary quits, keep in mind that your new job could be a lot worse, and you won't know until it's too late.
The first one was on my starting day. While showing me around the systems, he sat down at my PC and sent a vicious email, using _my_ account, to another group that I'd need to be on good terms with. I immediately had to go to them and diplomatically explain that I was not the one that wrote the email.
There were many other such instances, most worse and that were direct attacks against me. I probably could have won a lawsuit, but that's foolishness. If you're in a situation like that, run away as fast as you can!
