My Time at Snap - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@marko_tupper/my-time-at-snap-83134da32e01 <comment><USER2> We have all worked for a "John" in the industry. The big systematic problem is that after being fired from Snap (probably after already collecting massive paychecks and a hefty chunk of equity), he will go to another big tech company and impress them with his resume and bullshitting skills. They will hire him and deal with his antics for a few years, while he ruins more people's careers, then he will move on. Rinse and repeat.

Also a 10/20/30/40 vesting schedule immediately stands out as a red flag for me. 25%/year vested quarterly (with a 1 year cliff) has been standard in the industry for a very long time. I would't trust a company to have my best interests at heart when it is massively beneficial for them if employees quit after 1-2 years (which is already about the average tenure at most companies of that size).

<comment><USER3> > We have all worked for a "John" in the industry.

Agreed. But since so many middle managers are twits isn't it incumbent on the employee to learn a set of skills to deal with Johns?

Managing people is hard. Being a good manager is really hard, which is why there are so few of them.

Rather than rail against how terrible Person X is as a manager I feel like it's more productive to say, "Unless I start my own company there's always going to be some clueless middle manager above me. How do I deal with him/her effectively?"

<comment><USER4> > Agreed. But since so many middle managers are twits isn't it incumbent on > the employee to learn a set of skills to deal with Johns?

It's much easier to simply find a better job without a John, or where you're shielded from John.

(My name breaks this analogy a bit.)

<comment><USER5> I don't think it's easier, because:

a) It's hard to identify a good manager ahead of time.

b) People change; circumstances change.

c) Your team and manager will change sooner than you expect, especially if they are a good team or manager.

<comment><USER6> d) Constantly changing jobs every time some jerk floats into your circle doesn't speak well of your character or look good on your resume.

<comment><USER7> true if only you put real reasons on resumes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> On the one hand I recognise a lot of the teams and work issues this developer had. But reading between the lines it seems like this dev wanted it all, equity without commitment, weeks of remote work without formal agreement, a quick cash out over adding value to the company...Seems very entitled to me. It looks very one-sided as well. Everything had to come from the company and its management, nothing from his side.

<comment><USER9> This does come across as an inexperienced developer with a high opinion of his own worth, and rather clueless about how organizations work. I actually came away with a good impression of Snap from the description. Even the supposedly nightmarish engineering director could, from another angle, possibly be seen in a good light: Insisting on proper analysis and design before a project commences, taking a deep interest in the technical part of the project. The author disagreed with a bunch of points and that might have been enough for him to lose all respect for him.

In the end he gets bored with his actual work and lets himself be hijacked by some line function to develop internal tools for them, outside of the purview of any manager. Unsurprisingly he ends up an organizational orphan. Which means no one goes to bat for him to squeeze in several weeks of remote work, which sounds like a pretty outlandish demand to my ears. To think that the fact that some random person once 'approved' it makes any difference just goes to show the naïvety. Obviously he didn't get it in writing from someone able to make that decision, and that's the only thing that matters.

<comment><USER10> > Even the supposedly nightmarish engineering director could, from another > angle, possibly be seen in a good light: Insisting on proper analysis and > design before a project commences, taking a deep interest in the technical > part of the project.

In what world is it a good idea for an engineering director to take a deep interest in technical details of a project? Suppose that the director was right and author was wrong in ~all of their disagreements, but just that the author was simply telling the truth about two things: the director spending two weeks doing design mockups, and intervening to specify the type of a database column. This makes the director somebody who is (a) not doing their actual job, and (b) probably nightmarish to work for no matter whether you are a "low performer" or a superstar.

You cannot be an effective manager and simultaneously maintain enough engineering context to make good technical decisions. If you want to be involved in detailed technical design, you need to switch your career track back to IC. And if you are running a company and you want either good technical decisions or high morale among your engineers, you can't tolerate managers playing at being engineers instead of doing their actual jobs. (With something like a manager maintaining a small low-priority internal tool, or doing a rotation onto an engineering team for a week to refresh their intuitive handle on the state of the codebase & tooling but no expectation of being a net-positive contributor, being the exceptions that prove the rule.)

<comment><USER11> Good managers are good leaders, which means they sometimes need to teach. There's nothing wrong with an engineering manager teaching someone about the proper type for a database column as an exercise in actual leadership and mentorship of their development team.

<comment><USER12> But forcing you to change tests from using sqlite to mysql because of int vs smallint is an overreaction. If I was to prioritize moving tests from sqlite to mysql, over getting functional requirements done, I'd be nuts. Especially if the tests catch 99.9999999% of issues. Its very unlikely to have an issue with this type of thing. That's not a good manager, that's a moron.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Great read ... but the one thing that stood out to me is a LOT of remote time that doesn't seem to have been agreed upon in advance, such as in the hiring contract.

At first I just read that time was needed "around the holidays", then that somehow was 5 WEEKS of remote time, then there was Easter time in Florida, then there was additional "weeks" during the annual summer trip to Florida, then there was an anniversary trip ... etc

Unless this is specified in the contract I can't see justifying what there alone amounts to ~11 (?) weeks of remote work.

I'm only saying this as someone who has been through many on-site jobs with remote-allowed, and is currently working as a fully remote senior engineer.

<comment><USER14> It says in a few parts that this was agreed on at hiring. Should probably also be in writing, but that doesn't excuse them from deciding not to honor one day.

<comment><USER15> Actual it seems like, he agreed with customer ops manager about conditions, but HR didn't assign him to customer ops, but to another engineering department.

So basically, such an important thing for him, he should have confirmed about the conditions with the new manager at least.

<comment><USER16> Once again highlighting the importance of getting anything important written down in a verified document. After a conversation with anyone about this sort of thing, send an email outlining your understanding to the decider and push for confirmation it's accurate.

They might still not honour it, but at least you'll have some sort of leg to stand on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've had one or two horrible work experiences like the author's. The last time it happened was bad enough that I sat down and wrote a long article very similar to this one, explaining all the things the employer had done wrong, and all the ways in which they'd made my life difficult. It made me feel much better to write it, and I read it through several times, nodding to myself at all the important points. Then I deleted it and got another job.

</comment><comment><USER18> There seems to be a valuable lesson for OP about the cost of not playing ball here.

Assuming OPs side of things is mostly true it sounds like:

\- OP was working for a bad director, one so bad that they eventually got fired \- Instead of placating this director and pretending to take their concerns into consideration, OP fights back more than other teammates (reading between the lines of the quote "However, given that I was far from John's favorite (we never openly came into conflict, but I didn't put the requisite amount of enthusiasm into jumping through his hoops to really get onto his good side)" here) \- The director gives him a very poor performance review, that seems to have had serious impact on OPs career, team selection possibility, and personal finances, despite the director eventually getting fired

It just seems like a very high price to pay just to be able to tell yourself that you're not putting up with bullshit.

<comment><USER19> The philosopher Diogenes was sitting on a curbstone, eating bread and lentils for his supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, "If you would learn to be subservient to the king, you would not have to live on lentils." Said Diogenes, "Learn to live on lentils, and you will not have to cultivate the king."

<comment><USER20> The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is largely based around this topic as well.

Giving up who you really are can be a very high price to pay just to be able to receive some (more) money.

<comment><USER21> People are both complex and can change though. Maybe we should give up our worst aspects as we grow and learn. Figure out your core essence and protect it; identify the accidental and be open to alternatives.

I know that as my experience has accumulated i care about a few things more and all things a lot less. O also better understand life is a spectrum of many different perspectives, versus the black or white zealot i was in my younger days...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "The problem with John was not just that he was misinformed, but that he was misinformed and highly motivated."

Oh yes! This rings so true with me.

One of my biggest bug-bears in IT are the leaders who have the gift of the gab and know how to BS their way through life. They have that personality that allows them to talk about any subject and people will listen assuming that they now what they are talking about.

If they know how to use those skills for the betterment of a project then they are fantastic people. In other words listening to the devs and using their skills to manipulate the higher ups to get more time and resources. Usually it works the other way round though by ignoring what the devs say and forcing their own will upon them.

For example by insisting on switching to Scrum 9 months in to a 12 month project that had been happily running on waterfall up to that point.

<comment><USER23> > One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be > entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only > mischief.

Perfectly describes our friend John.

The rest of the quote is quite interesting too:

[https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein- Equord](https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> 'Foundational promise'

I love these as a new mgr - new guy shows up, I know nothing of their unique 'foundational promise', I have no idea if they can contribute or work well with team, I put some effort in to get them going, then they start sending long (they are always WAY too long) emails about being special cased over 20 people who I've known longer and have worked harder for me. I check with HR and a hard pass. I'm not considered humane for failing to give someone I'm paying lots of money to lots of remote work time. And I know what remote work time is like when an employee is visiting family - even though they are "working" it takes them hours to respond to slack.

I don't mean to be harsh, but if you look at compensation rates - your manager does get to call the shots at least a little in return for money they are throwing at you.

And yes, if a top performer keeping you is pretty high up on list. 20 reports is too many though - def not a great sign in my book.

<comment><USER25> > even though they are "working" it takes them hours to respond to slack.

Interesting, I feel the opposite. The longer it takes me to respond to someone's messages, the more real work I am actually getting done because I'm deeply focused. The days where I quickly reply to everyone are usually the most unproductive.

<comment><USER26> I think it depends on the team and your role. In many cases, much of your value comes from being a team member, not a lone wolf, which extends beyond your personal git commits. Sometimes being available to answer questions, remove blockers, review a proposal, etc., is simply more valuable to the team than you plugging away on a ticket for four hours in isolation. In other words, while you might feel more productive because your personal output in git is higher, your impact on the team's progress might actually be lower. Of course, this can also be taken too far to the point where you're always being distracted and can't do any substantial coding. The right balance depends on what the team is trying to accomplish.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > When I say that it was a bedroom, I don't just mean that it would be > identified as a bedroom on the condo's floor plan, I mean that this room had > a fully made up bed crammed into it next to the conference table and video > conferencing unit.

That's hilarious.

<comment><USER28> I would make it a point to sleep for the first 30 minutes of any meeting.

<comment><USER2> Seriously, that thing would be booked 24x7 at my company. Being able to lie down while on a call would make things so much more relaxing and productive.

<comment><USER29> Too risky for falling asleep.

<comment><USER30> I believe the fact that you might fall asleep when you simply lie on a bed at work indicates that there are some timing issues in your daily lifecycle.

<comment><USER14> Normally i'd agree, but they had 2 hour sprint plannings.. for a sub-team..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I find it interesting how split the HN comments on this story are. Half seem to think this guy is an entitled low performer chasing high compensation, and the other half relate to him and feel that he was treated unfairly by Snap.

I'm not sure what that means.

<comment><USER26> I suspect this is a story of two low performers colliding and causing problems for each other. "John", the director of engineering, was fired, probably for some of the reasons the author points out. But there are also many signs here that the author wasn't performing up to standards, was difficult to manage, and had very high expectations and wanted special treatment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > ...the workload we had mostly kept us working separately on our own tasks > with little room for interaction. It wasn't uncommon, for the first part of > my time at Snap, to get up in the morning, drive to the office, go through > the work-day in the same room as two other people but rarely speaking to > each other, and then drive home...

Sadly, I find this to be all too common in the industry. It's super isolating and depressing when you work alone on projects and aren't in an environment that fosters socialization and team-building. Forming those bonds is what makes people happy to go to work everyday and work hard. Managers should do more to prioritize interaction and teaming up on projects when it makes sense.

<comment><USER32> This actually sounds like a near-perfect setup to me. Get it, program, get out. If I want to socialize, I'll do it outside of work.

<comment><USER33> It may sound like it but I can assure you that it's not. Humans are social animals and when you have to spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week in a setting with little to no peer interaction, it'll start to wear on you.

The first month is awesome. Complete freedom & autonomy, then the depression starts kicking in.

<comment><USER32> You certainly can assure me, but that won't do much.

I've been doing it for 30 years, I know how I like it.

<comment><USER34> The distinction is going to be whether you have a rich social network outside of work. Stack up immediate family, extended family, a handful of close longtime friends, church, a softball team, a couple of hobbyist groups, and a volunteer board, and your half dozen colleagues you were randomly assigned to work near can seem rather superfluous.

On the other hand, you take a bunch of young people straight out of college, collect them from around the country and the world, drop them in a new city without any social network, lean on them to work 50, 60 hour weeks, and suddenly socializing with your coworkers becomes very important, especially if you're single, not very religious, and not very outgoing. The alternative is complete isolation and sad phone calls with friends and family thousands of miles away.

<comment><USER35> Man, this really resonates with me, basically my situation right now. I love my job and my colleagues, but I basically have no close friends outside of work in my city since moving.

<comment><USER34> One piece of advice is to not focus on making close friends. They're important, and it's really nice having some nearby, but it's not really any easier to make a new close friend than to start any other long-term relationship.

Instead, just focus on (a) _meeting_ as many people as you can bear and (b) establishing membership in a few groups with regular activities.

The latter is more straight forward, and can accomplish the former. There are lots of options: signing up for a sports league, taking classes (art classes, exercise classes, continuing education classes, whatever), going to a board games meetup group, joining a volunteer organization, join a church (or whatever) if you're even mildly religious. Friendships, like all relationships, are built on shared interests and repeat interactions.

You can also meet a lot of people without joining any groups, although it's easier if you're the sort of naturally sociable person who can strike up a conversation with anyone you're around for more than two minutes. Besides the obvious (go to places there are people, talk to them), or the "run for political office" strategy (it gives you a reason to go and introduce yourself to a few thousand people in your area), there's also the reverse strategy, where you establish a _routine_.

Pick a few activities to do yourself, and do them on a regular, predictable basis in public. Go for a walk or a run every day at the same time, on the same route. Go read at the library or a park a coffee shop at the same time every week. Go to a farmer's market every weekend. You don't need to schedule your entire life on a recurring basis, but by just keeping a regular schedule you will make yourself more visible, familiar and approachable to the people around you, and they'll feel comfortable saying "hi" or introducing themselves.

While meeting lots of people and joining a few groups can lead to finding a few close friends, it's also a big help in itself in alleviating the isolation which comes with moving to a new place. You'll be surprised at even the difference that just introducing yourself to a couple hundred people makes. Suddenly, everyone around you isn't just one flavor or another of "stranger"; you know their names (or at least, some of them, depending on your memory for names and faces), and they know yours. You've been introduced, so now you can wave or say "hi" or comment on the weather without it being weird.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Tough break. I also spoke w/ a Snap Recruiter around the same time as you, and was offered that ridic amount of equity- they were talking about 600k for L5, or over 1m for L6. I felt like this was a huge red flag that their equity was bullshit. And that vesting schedule is an obvious scam. Reading Glassdoor is nothing but stories like this one. Sorry you went through it. None of this surprises me, Snap Leadership seems like nothing but jerks.

<comment><USER37> 1M per year?

<comment><USER38> 1m over 4 years in RSU

<comment><USER37> So 250k per year in stocks + up to 200k in salary + 40k annual bonus. 500k total. That's a really solid result for someone with 10yoe in the big tech companies, top performer. Solid, but nothing to shout about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> There are many types of "John"s out there. I worked for a John who was a highly accomplished engineer. It doesn't make it any better to have someone constantly micromanage you knowing that they are technical, it only makes it worse because you have to think to yourself "he might be right". But the thing about micromanagement is that it doesn't matter if the micromanager is right or not, it simply kills employee motivation to know that any energy and thought they put into their work is likely to be overruled based on a whim.

<comment><USER40> > it only makes it worse because you have to think to yourself "he might be > right"

Seems a self-defeating statement. Thinking isn't wrong. Neither it is that someone _else_ is right.

<comment><USER39> I didn't say either of those things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Tangent. How is it logical to deprive people from access to a booth just because people in a wheelchair can't access it? That's like banning computer screens because blind people can't see them.

<comment><USER42> I'm making a website that gives free kittens and Bitcoins to anyone who has a HN username starting with a letter in the second half of the alphabet. You can't use it, which is a shame, but it would be wrong to deprive half of HN free kittens and Bitcoins, right? I mean, fairness is all well and good, but _everyone_ likes a free kitten. I'm really sorry I can't make a website that everyone can access, but that would cost more so I'm not going to bother.

<comment><USER43> I think I can guess the point you're trying to make, but you did a pretty bad job making it. There's literally nothing wrong with your example.

<comment><USER42> _There 's literally nothing wrong with your example._

You may believe there's nothing wrong with arbitrary discrimination but I don't.

<comment><USER44> Your posts discriminate against everyone who can't read English. _Unreasonable_ discrimination is the problem.

EDIT: granted, writing posts in English isn't _arbitrary_ , but neither is installing small booths, there are good space-utilization benefits to it; it's _unreasonable_ , because those benefits don't trump accessibility to people in wheelchairs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> And this is why companies offer you stock on a vesting schedule that keeps you around.

The author knew it would be a shitshow before they even started. But took the job because of the stock. Started at the job, found it to be terrible. Stuck around... because of the stock. And so on. Meanwhile, your bet rests on the company, which you now know to be a badly run shitshow, beating estimates and turning a healthy profit. Surely you know that isn't going to happen. At a certain point you're making a life decision based around the hope that stock market investors are too stupid to see the obvious. Then scale that thought process up to an entire company, and you wonder why the place isn't functional.

I do have sympathy for the author, no-one deserves to work in a miserable job. But that's why we have the option of quitting. Stock vesting fundamentally affects that.

</comment><comment><USER46> Regarding the attractive stock vestments: in my opinion you need to avoid like the plague, anything that makes it hard to walk away from your job at any time. You need to be in the driver's seat for your life and career. Otherwise you're just going to become miserable FAANG engineer cattle through one mechanism or another.

Good on this person to walk away like that.

<comment><USER47> Attractive stock vestments are potentially what will make it possible in the futures to walk away at any time...

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> >He did tell us to use the word "epoch," but not before explaining what the word meant and that it was not, in fact, the same word as "epic," to a room full of native English speakers. He then proceeded to opine on what he thought the Latin roots of the word might be, which I'm convinced to this day he was making up on the spot.

"epoch" actually comes from Greek :)

<comment><USER49> It would've been lovely if someone had directly interrupted this "John" anytime he attempted to expound extensively after being asked a minor clarifying question. This sort of person shouldn't be tolerated, not even by employees.

<comment><USER50> Trouble is has that he seems to be in charge of their bi-annual reviews, which is actually rather solid leverage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> There are enough threads comparing the OP and john mentioned in the article. I'll not get into details on that. OPs experience does echo a few of my colleagues, who kinda got screwed in the end. A few things I have learnt from other peoples mishaps is that

1\. Always be Coding. Keep solving interview / LeetCode problems if you want to pursue SE role. You never know, when shit hits the fan and you're asked to leave. Not being prepared to give interview in a short notice will hurt a lot in the future.

2\. Spend the first 90 days understanding team dynamics, culture, execution. I rather observer the first few days and play dumb as apposed to show off my skills, even though I know I could do a hell of a better job that the other guy.

3\. If I dont like things going smoothly in first 90 days you should gtfo. I was in teams before, where there were soo many gaming types folks (I personally dont play video games that much) and barely a culture of reading or discussing tech papers. I pretty much realized its not my place and I need to gtfo.

</comment><comment><USER52> Sadly we have all worked with John. In my first job, 15 years ago, I was preparing for a test for masters program. The test was on a Saturday at 8am in a town 4 hours away. My manager thought Friday night 7pm is a good time to schedule a meeting about what we are going to deliver in next 6 months. Meeting went on for 2 hours!

<comment><USER53> Why would you agree to participate in a 7pm Friday meeting?

<comment><USER52> This was when I was 22, just out of college at my first job, so did not realised at the time that you can say no to requests like these. Now a days I follow a short Friday routine, get in early (7am) and leave by 1 or 2pm as after that most people tend not to work and I would rather be home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> > _trying to figure out how to rework my long-term financial plans around the > hole Snap had just blown in my projected income made me feel ill._

Maybe don't make long-term financial plans around a company that's obviously unstable?

<comment><USER55> Yeah buying a house in Florida, years before he was planning to actually move there was an interesting choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Wow, nothing like a massive whinge to start the day! Don't take a lot of pleasure in saying it, but am highly suspicious of the author's role in all this. While there's no doubt John plagued our friend's life (as are Johns' wont); how said friend played everything else, the relationship handling, the motivation (!) ... culminating in this ego-driven, embittered rant. I mean, the situation definitely sucks. But my biggest takeout was how stacked with shit hires the whole big tech scene must be. It sounds like a bureaucratic hr tetris nightmare, where all you're getting is these equity-driven, self- absorbed shapeshifters that don't stack together because its not in the job description. And then it all implodes. I don't know, maybe there was something constructive between the lines in there. I just couldn't find it.

<comment><USER57> I'm just amazed that developers have the confidence to lambaste former employers in such a public, toxic and hostile manner.

If I was hiring for a developer position and Google'd Marko Tupper's name, I wouldn't even agree to meet with him based on this article alone. Why would I want someone so ego and drama-driven on my team?

I won't even leave negative reviews on Yelp or Google Maps out of fear of reprisal or future employers finding them.

<comment><USER58> "out of fear of reprisal"

You say this like the reprisal is unfair immediately after admitting you would do the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> One day, when the vests run out, I'll write an article about my time at AWS...

It's not nearly this bad but there are some stories that are worth telling.

</comment><comment><USER60> Can we please stop calling publicly traded companies "startups", because they are not.

</comment><comment><USER61> Oh, John, there you are again! How do you manage to be in so many places at once? Which reminds me to ask: which firms have implemented the "No Asshole Rule" well?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule)

Here's a list by the author from 2012, FYI: [https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/02/the_no_assho...](https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/02/the_no_asshole_.html)

</comment><comment><USER62> Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. And a mandatory disclaimer that I have not walked in the author's shoes, and that I am considering his description as what happened.

Two things that stood out for me:

1/ If a director of engineering is not able to run a sprint planning meeting or is grossly inefficient at that, what was the reaction of other devs at Snap who were part of the same meeting. More than likely, if they see that as the state of the managements, were they looking for jobs too?

2/ Is there a point in having engineering teams where there is no regular interaction with the manager?

</comment><comment><USER63> Although it certainly sounds like this guy had a really negative experience -- for lots of reasons that were not under his control -- I'm smacking my head at some of the stuff.

First -- when it comes to stuff like remote work (especially since he was first told "no, you can't do that" when he first explored switching teams), that's all stuff that needs to be in writing. Period. I don't even think this is a hard concept or something you need to learn from experience -- it's just common sense. If you are promised something that is outside the norm or what is official company/department policy, you get that in writing. If you can't get it into your contract, it needs to be at least in email communication with the hiring manager -- but you should really get that into your contract.

The second thing is the whole way he switched teams. Obviously there was something super sketchy going on there (and in retrospect, was the first sign that Snap was trying to manage him out), but that's a massive, massive red flag. For his own performance reviews/bonuses/reporting stuff, the idea that he would technically report to someone else while actually working for a totally different team just doesn't make sense. I understand needing to get away from a bad manager, but this was maybe the worst way to go about doing it, because it offers the employee little to no protection if something in that super sketchy scenario breaks down (which is exactly what happened).

Third, although I'm not going to call this guy "entitled" \-- I do take issue with some of the work ethic stuff. I understand the hell that is unproductive meetings, especially meetings that don't involve you or that preclude you from doing what you actually need to do to get done. I have significant experience managing requests/meetings from higher ups that impede on getting your actual work done.

If you're called into a last-minute 2 hour meeting and it means you can't leave on time to avoid traffic, in my opinion (which may be unpopular), the adult thing to do is to stay late and attend the meeting -- paying only as much attention as is necessary. Yes, it sucks to have to leave the office late (and potentially hours later if you need to avoid traffic) -- but barring any sort of preset appointment or obligation, stay in the damn meeting and find a way to avoid having to be in the next one. Not to belabor the point, but the way you get a Low Performance review is to skulk out of a meeting and literally hide from your boss as you sneak out of the building.

Anyway. I do hope the author has found a place that is a better fit for them.

</comment><comment><USER64> Remember, centi-medium posts often have two sides to the story.. this person describes one incident with "John" based on a biased, self-reporting and frankly not a great story either: actually seems to portray the author in a bad light even with his one-sided story.

</comment><comment><USER65> I wonder if some of the disagreement in this thread over whether the narrator was being reasonable is really disagreement over the productivity of remote employees.

I saw the author's request for extended remote work as entirely reasonable, but I work at a company that has an extremely generous and flexible remote policy, which I love and take full advantage of (working from home several days a week). I now believe that engineers can be at least as productive remote as on-site. Thus, denying his request to work remotely felt, to me, a little petty.

I've worked at companies in the past that discouraged remote work. I think back then, before I'd tried it, I would've seen his insistance on working remotely as a little lazy and entitled.

</comment><comment><USER66> Hmm, the council thing sounds kind of cool actually - I wonder where they got it from? The Venice Beach work location sounded kind of nice too.

On the other hand, I do share the frustration with being stuck doing "team- building" stuff that you hate. In most of the cases when I've had "team- building" or mandatory "fun" activities for work, I would have preferred to stay home and sleep. It's also hard to let your hair down when there are bosses around who have the power to fire you or determine your rate of pay.

The biggest problem seems to be bad/micromanaging boss "John."

I concur with the overall point about working remotely being great and often much more productive than working in the office.

</comment><comment><USER67> > keeping an eye out for John like an awkward combination of James Bond and > Pac Man.

instant classic

</comment><comment><USER68> Life changing amount of money for dev tools and a smattering of HTML/CSS. Right.

<comment><USER69> Money is more a function of algorithmic interviewing and negotiating ability than technical stack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> >you could walk around miles of Venice Beach streets pointing out unmarked office after unmarked office as you went along. A seemingly empty storefront here, a nondescript house there, the top level of an apartment building over that way.

Is that legal in that area?

I lived in a townhouse association where someone started the company out of his house. Eventually he started hiring and it didn't take long for everyone to notice his employees were taking all the parking. Fortunately the city had zoning laws and he chose to move when push came to shove.

<comment><USER71> No, they said the company was keeping a bed in the conference room to "comply" with zoning regulations, essentially pretending the office was also someone's house.

<comment><USER70> It seems like it would be pretty easy to sort of "discover" it wasn't true. In my case the cops just parked outside and recorded people parking and going in and out for a bit (only after the dude balked and denied he was running an office).

Fortunately the guy in question didn't put up a fight after that and promised to move / did.

<comment><USER71> Yeah, it's such a superficially obvious "hack" that zero regulators would fall for it.

Zoning regulations might just be unenforced unless someone complains. I mean, when was the last time the town just showed up at your house for a regular audit to check you're using your house for it's zoned purpose? I've never heard of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I have not worked at a startup but I love the juxtaposition so many seem to have of very developed culture practices (council) and otherwise very undeveloped HR/facilities practices.

</comment><comment><USER72> If you don't have something on paper you cannot expect it to be enforced. Next time you should make sure you have your remote weeks written and signed.

</comment><comment><USER73> Wow, he stuck to his guns on not sacrificing his values over financial fear - much respect!

> As someone who's usually pretty good at chewing over a problem until I can > find an acceptable solution, being trapped in a situation where there was no > acceptable solution was miserable, and I still couldn't stop chewing.

Eek, uncannily familiar with this feeling.

</comment><comment><USER74> I see how the issues could be a "no deal" for the post writer. However, I have the impression that software engineers forgot that we are exchanging labor for money and it is normal to put our heads down sometimes. Let's stop with the "drama" when every single of our requests are not attended.

</comment><comment><USER75> I read quite a bit of the article, and a lot of it seems like ungrateful whining. It seems like the author found something negative about everything. It must be difficult living such a comfortable life.

</comment><comment><USER76> Why do engineers have such a hard time influencing or standing up to 'Johns'?

<comment><USER77> cause he does the performance reviews, that determine your comp.

"Stand up to bullies!" is a cheerful thing to say from the safety of your chair. Not so nice when you're the one the bully will pound into the dirt for standing up

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> TLDR: Rich man takes bad job to get richer. Shockingly discovers he's unhappy. Writes 2500 word medium blog post about it.

</comment><comment><USER79> That was a really good read, consider writing more articles like this one, you have talent to keep things interesting even for such a long text.

</comment><comment><USER80> And then everybody clapped.

</comment><comment><USER81> Act I - The Offer:

I knew what I was getting myself into. There were red flags, but I chose to ignore them for the sake of a huge equity offer.

Act II - Council:

Snap starts every employee's onboarding off with some real hippy type of shit. The aforementioned hippy shit can continue into your regular employment if you so desire, which I did not.

Act III - The First Months:

For the first ~1/2 year at Snap, I was mostly isolated on a handful of projects where I became the sole maintainer, and rarely got to interact much with other engineers or my manager.

Act IV - The Phantom Resident:

When I worked for Snap in Venice, we occupied a beach-front condominium with a likely fictitious resident who supposedly slept in our "conference room" to meet zoning requirements.

Act V - Moving to Santa Monica & ADA Semi-Compliance:

The Snap Santa Monica offices were pretty standard big tech office fare. Miniature "phone booth" meeting rooms raised the ire of building inspectors over ADA compliance, and the company implicitly encouraged employees to continue using the non-compliant facilities while replacements were acquired.

Act VI - The John Months:

I needed to stay until at least the following February to vest the first 10% of my stock grant, but it was proving difficult to keep going. A friend on the customer ops team, Nate, offered to have me transfer over and work on their projects full time, and after receiving assurances that I would be able to travel around the holidays and work remotely I jumped on it.

Act VII - The Team Change Switcharoo:

I went through with the team change to customer ops, but for HR purposes I ended up technically reporting to an engineering manager on a different team. Nate, who was going to become my manager under the original plan, didn't take this news well, but I didn't mind. The work on the new team proved enjoyable and the stock price even started to recover as I began vesting my stock grant.

Act VIII - The Beginning of the End:

I got a hatchet job of a performance review from my time working for John, and Nate left the company which put me in a tricky situation. I ended up truly joining the team I was technically a member of, and began integrating more into their work alongside my own.

Act XI - The End of the End:

Remember the agreement I made with customer ops about working remotely around the holidays? My new team decided they weren't going to honor it, and didn't let me know about that until just a few months before I was planning a trip.

Act X (The Finale) - Dealing With The Fallout:

I couldn't find any way around the predicament I was in, and had to leave the company. Despite some minor depression symptoms I managed to find a new job and walked away from what would have been a life-changing amount of money.

</comment><comment><USER82> My thoughts after reading roughly 75% of the article, I couldn't finish it:

I noticed three things:

* This developer is focused around me me me, everything has to revolve around him

* This developer is probably hell to work with

* There was a huge cultural mismatch between him/her and Snap

These were my thoughts while reading the article with some comments after every tl;dr. I wasn't able to finish the article because it felt very whiny and egocentric.

>tl;dr — I knew what I was getting myself into. There were red flags, but I chose to ignore them for the sake of a huge equity offer.

At least the author has a lot of self-awareness.

>tl:dr — Snap starts every employee's on-boarding off with some real hippy type of shit. The aforementioned hippy shit can continue into your regular employment if you so desire, which I did not.

To me this sounds pretty great? Who doesn't want to work in a team in which there is "real" team bonding? People bond over time and shared experiences. I feel like the author is really cynical and is unable to see the benefit from this. I have worked in dysfunctional teams where it's every man for himself and I prefer the opposite by a large margin.

This screams to me that there is a huge cultural mismatch between the author's ideal place to work and Snap Inc.

>unfortunately the workload we had mostly kept us working separately on our own tasks with little room for interaction. It wasn't uncommon, for the first part of my time at Snap, to get up in the morning, drive to the office, go through the work-day in the same room as two other people but rarely speaking to each other ...

Then maybe ... talk to each other? The author is literally blaming the workload for being unable to socialise with this coworkers -- in the same freaking room. Take out 10 minutes of your time and have coffee, there is a reason those teambuilding activities exist. But I'm giving the author the benefit of the doubt, so let's continue.

>tl;dr — For the first ~1/2 year at Snap, I was mostly isolated on a handful of projects where I became the sole maintainer, and rarely got to interact much with other engineers or my manager.

I empathise with the author because I too have been in the same situation.

>tl;dr — When I worked for Snap in Venice, we occupied a beach-front condominium with a likely fictitious resident who supposedly slept in our "conference room" to meet zoning requirements.

OK I have to admit, that is really weird and possibly illegal?

>tldr — The Snap Santa Monica offices were pretty standard big tech office fare. Miniature "phone booth" meeting rooms raised the ire of building inspectors over ADA compliance, and the company implicitly encouraged employees to continue using the non-compliant facilities while replacements were acquired.

Understandable but an annoying situation. I don't fault anyone for using the booths even with an Out of order sign ... as a developer I would rather have someone use the booth than not use it, phone calls suck.

>The first indications that something was amiss came from just getting introduced to the project by the other engineer already working on it. After showing me the Github repo where I could check out the code, he pointed me to an enormous design document for what was, at the end of the day, not an overly complicated project. When I asked him why he'd put so much effort writing out an extensive design document for a project whose architecture would probably change significantly by the time it wrapped up, he gave me what would become an all-too-familiar reason: John insisted.

Author sounds like a hellish developer to work with. He is bouncing from "let me just stay here for 4 years and cash out" to "I know this better than anyone else". Engineering director writes big document to align everyone and this developer wants to do everything on __his __terms.

</comment><comment><USER83> I've worked harder for less. Kids are so entitled these days.

</comment><comment><USER84> Prior to the first day of boot camp they flown us to an airport in San Diego, everyone gathered at the USO lounge on the opposite end of the airport to wait for everyone else flying in.

At midnight, a bus rolls in to the parking lot. Everyone was told to line up in a formation, head forward, arms straight and down to the side.

The bus door opens and out pops a drill instructor with the vigor of a tasmanian devil, barking out orders. Everyone got loaded into the bus in orderly fashion and was told to to put our heads down, cradled between our legs. The bus drove around for what seemed like an hour. Later I found out the camp was next door to the airport.

Upon arrival, the bus stopped, the bus driver got out and the drill instructor got out. We were left to our selves, with no instructions, no understanding for ten minutes. Then came an imposing man with a wide brimmed hat with a voice that sounds like a frog inhabited his throat.

He proceeded to say in a frank manner we are now to disembark off this bus and make our way outside to find a pair of gold foot prints on the ground. We are each to line up on them and wait for further instructions.

After the last person has gotten off the bus and when everyone was situated, we are then told the meaning of those foot prints. It is a tradition passed on through history, whereby someone before us had stepped on those foot prints prior to starting boot camp and there will be people after us to step on those foot prints.

From there we entered the gates thus began our journey to become United States Marine Corps, an organization with a history of over 243 years.

tl;dr -- Every organization has whackadoo indoctrination.

<comment><USER45> > Every organization has whackadoo indoctrination.

Nope. Just whackaddo organizations. I'd argue the Marine Corps is included in that, but at least they have the excuse of needing soldiers to be able to depend on each other for their lives. Snap... not so much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> I applied to Snap a few months ago and was insta-rejected which was the first time (and only) that has ever happened to me. I was interning at a FAANG for the third time, going into my senior year at a top school with a good GPA, and looking for a full time job. Not sure which requirement I didn't meet.

<comment><USER86> It's probably because they were bleeding money at that moment and weren't hiring anyone outside super unicorn seniors, but they didn't want to update their job descriptions

<comment><USER87> Yea, I've worked at a place that had job ads out despite having no plans on hiring on the grounds that "someone really amazing might apply". They never did.

<comment><USER86> There are a lot of strategic reasons to do this:

1\. Internally you'll feel like you're growing still even though you aren't

2\. Externally to investors same feeling

3\. You will collect resumes in case you want to fire up hiring again quickly</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fabrice Bellard - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrice_Bellard

<comment><USER2> I actually wrote a long (somewhere ~15 pages) paper on him in the style of the CACM for an intro CS class. It turns out I've worked on a bunch of his projects (FFmpeg, QEMU) so I thought finding out more about him would be really interesting. It also includes a short interview. If anyone's interested I can post it.

Edit: PDF: <http://commentout.net/media/fabrice.pdf>

Fair warning: I remember there were still some spelling and grammatical errors in the final draft. The writing style is also a little fractured because I co- wrote it with my roommate. The interview is cited but not included raw. I'll see if I can find it in my email.

<comment><AUTHOR> Please post it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> OK, I'll bite: He has singlehandedly built a lot of incredibly useful software. He's awesome.

Why are we linking to his wikipedia article? Am I missing some timely piece of info?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nothing special. To me, it feels awesome to read about what he has done and it's inspirational. I just wanted to share it.

<comment><USER4> "It's people like that who make you realize how little you've accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years."

Tom Lehrer

[http://thinkexist.com/quotation/it_is_a_sobering_thought_tha...](http://thinkexist.com/quotation/it_is_a_sobering_thought_that_when_mozart_was_my/225326.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> His webpage provides a nice list of projects: <http://bellard.org/>

I agree with the poster, Fabrice Bellard is one of those amazing people that should be better known but has been too busy quietly writing everything.

</comment><comment><USER6> As clever as you think you might be, people like Fabrice remind you that there is always someone out there to outsmart you.

</comment><comment><USER7> A personal hero for me as well. In addition to the projects listed in the wikipedia article, I'd like to mention TinyGL (<http://bellard.org/TinyGL/>), which was really useful for OpenGL on BeOS/BeBox (much faster than Mesa), and qemacs (<http://bellard.org/qemacs/>) for editing really large text files.

</comment><comment><USER8> Thanks for posting this. Fb belongs with jwz, linus and the other household names for ffmpeg and qemu alone.

</comment><comment><USER9> For me, Fabrice remains the author of LZEXE [1], a tool that I found technically amazing at the time, very useful to meet the "64kb intro limit" back in those days.

[1] <http://bellard.org/lzexe.html>

</comment><comment><USER10> Epitome of a hacker.</comment>


Someone shot down a $200 drone with a $3M Patriot missile - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/someone-shot-down-a-200-drone-with-a-3m-patriot-missile/ <comment><USER2> And this is a perfect example demonstrating why no one will ever win a protracted war against an entrenched insurgent population.

<comment><USER3> Actually, protracted wars against entrenched insurgent populations have been won, both historically and recently.

The Huks in the Philippines in the 1950 for one.

The Tamil Tigers, inventors of the sucide belt, holders of the world record for killing heads of state, and pioneers in crashing civilian aircraft into government targets, were put down in 2009 after thirty years of war.

There's nothing magic about an insurgeny - most die stillborn. There's a whole lot of survivorship bias when looking at this. Defeated insurgencies don't make the news.

<comment><USER4> The Malayan Emergency?

I think in Vietnam the U.S. copied some of the successful tactics the British developed, like moving farmers into barricaded villages for their "protection", with opposite and disastrous results.</comment></comment></comment>


Any ideas in helping to improve writing skills? - <AUTHOR>

I really want to get better at writing. It's something I never really placed attention to or focus on during college, and now I'm really regretting it. I now recognize it as an essential skill that's much more difficult than I initially thought.
I've been thinking of ways of helping my creative writing. Obviously practice makes you better, but I wish I could contact someone qualified with a good background who can really help look over and give me very helpful critiques.
I've started a blog as well to help motivate me and increase my online presence, but too be honest I'm extremely hesitant and embarrassed to post because I'm not content with the quality of my work, and I don't feel I have good subject matter to write on.
I wanted to ask the HN community if they had any tips, advice, perspectives, or resources that might be worth looking into. I also figured I wasn't the only one who could benefit from some assistance.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I don't know what I'm talking about, but keeping that in mind, you should consider the following attack strategy: write a lot, and write weird. For example, force yourself to avoid certain things when writing: avoid "I", avoid forms of "is". This is not a rule of How Writing Should Be Done, it's just an exercise, the same way that avoiding goto is an important exercise for novice programmers. I'm sure you could think of other options, like making each paragraph be comprised of one long sentence, or taking a second pass to your work and compressing it into as few words as possible, or picking a small set of words and abusively trying to work them in as much as possible. Maybe these tricks are no good but will just make writing more interesting so that you do it more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Being different helps in being better, so I think those are good tips. If not only for an exercise and experimentation to test out different styles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have not read it myself (yet), but Garr Reynolds (<http://www.presentationzen.com/>) recommends this one "Brenda Ueland: If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit". Maybe that helps.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have only recently started writing and found the HN community very friendly. Just get it out there, submit it and get feedback. Just write about what keeps your mind occupied. You will notice that once you start you'll continue to have new ideas.

Best of luck!

<comment><USER5> OP: What makes you think you suck at writing?

Looking over your previous comments and about.me profile, you've already got the fundamentals down. The only thing left is to apply them like Mike Tyson does:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXL5dRYpM7E>

Take a page out of Tyson's book and check your head to make sure you're having fun. On any given day, you have a slew of things you can write about; you'll never get them out though when your fingers are bleeding and your brain has been beaten stupid by your own thoughts.

Good luck. Post your writing-for-fun-dammit blog URL so we can shoot it down^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hyou our comments. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> I mean, I'm able to communicate things. But I'm interested in being able to write in a way that's effective and intriguing. I look up to people's writing like James Altucher, Tim Ferris, and I think Paul Graham's essays are absolutely great. Partly I just need more experience in things to write about, but I'm trying to be proactive in getting better at it.

My blog is on my about.me page. I intentionally don't really post the link because I'm not happy with it as to publicize it - but feel free to check it out! vjtorres.com

<comment><USER5> What do you like about their writing? A good (constant) exercise is to edit what people write, e.g. take an Altucher post and try rewriting it to make it better in some regard.

Hunter S Thompson supposedly typed the works of Hemingway until he finally could copy the pacing and rhythm. Maybe scan the headlines and find something that Altucher hasn't written about yet and write about it in his style.

Like a football game told as Altucher would. lol.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like it. I'll heed your advice. But a football game as Altucher would... now that's out there! hahaha. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > I don't feel I have good subject matter to write on.

Don't write publicly if you don't want, but:

What did you have for breakfast this morning? How did you get home from work today? Tell me about the last time you went grocery shopping.

Etc. Pick these or any other asinine, boring topic and try to make it interesting. IMHO, it's good to do this in two steps. First, just sit down and write, _continuously_ , without judgment or editing, write a _lot_. Then, figure out how editing can make it better.

</comment><comment><USER7> Lyn Dupre book is worth a look. She has copy-edited Don Knuth, amongst others.

[http://www.amazon.com/BUGS-Writing-Revised-Guide- Debugging/d...](http://www.amazon.com/BUGS-Writing-Revised-Guide- Debugging/dp/020137921X)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For other people interested check out <https://www.kibin.com/>. I haven't used it myself (yet) but it's basically an open source way of having your writing edited by others.

</comment><comment><USER8> Maybe this will help: <http://www.copyblogger.com/become-a-better-writer/></comment>


Will coronavirus break the sports media industry? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2020-05-03/will-coronavirus-break-the-50-billion-sports-media-industry <comment><USER2> Live sports has been the last gasp of cable TV bundles for so long now. It's frankly astonishing that more people haven't cancelled en masse. Or maybe they have and earnings haven't been released yet.

And good riddance. I look forward to being able to stream individual games on demand.

<comment><USER3> I canceled mine after dragging my feet for years and paying way too much all that time. I have been dreading the call required to cancel but it went pretty smoothly. The lady asked why I was canceling and I said, "I only pay for this for Hockey (and sometimes Baseball) and I am no longer getting either". She seemed not surprised in the slightest and there was zero push back or painful trips to the "retention department". I too look forward to way better streaming options in the next couple of years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > People who don't like sports have always paid for cable networks they didn't > watch.

Exactly. So now we think that sports _fans_ paying for games they can't watch is going to cause a problem? These business people have spent decades building an empire that depends on getting people to pay for services they're not enjoying.

I would be shocked if they can't find some way to weasel their way out of it this time, too.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wrestling seems to have done well enough. Maybe that's the future for other 'sports' too.

<comment><USER6> As probably one of the bigger wrestling fans on HN, I feel obliged to point out that WWE is doing _very poorly_ even though it's just about the only live sport-like product left on TV: [https://www.f4wonline.com/wwe-news/wwe- smackdown-falls-below...](https://www.f4wonline.com/wwe-news/wwe-smackdown- falls-below-two-million-viewers-overnight-ratings-310111)

WWE's TV deals are in danger, which is why they are terrified and trying to be the first thing back up and running, to grab as much marketshare as possible while they can. Doesn't seem like anyone's biting, though.

(the shows are also pretty unwatchable these days, but that was a problem long before coronavirus. that said, I agree with the other commentator that _some_ of the pretape stuff they've been experimenting with has been working okay, and I'm kind of cautiously optimistic about the upcoming Money in the Bank PPV, which sounds like the film "The Raid" but with pro wrestling)

<comment><USER7> > As probably one of the bigger wrestling fans on HN

I have to ask ...

As an adult, what's the appeal of watching WWE?

<comment><USER6> Fair question! Different folks get different things out of it. Personally, I got into it a few years ago since I have some friends who are into it. It drew me in with all the spectacle, and kept me in with how compelling the long-term storytelling can be.

Lots of people compare wrestling to soap operas, with the overdramatic acting and the constant, several-times-a-week frequency of shows, but really the closest comparison I'd have is something like the current Marvel movie franchise - a silly, bombastic thing that somehow winds up being surprisingly emotionally effective (at times). Of course, much like how there are a lot of bad superhero movies, there is a lot of bad wrestling, but the good stuff can be _really_ good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yes coronavirus will impact the sports industry. But some sports will held and don't worrt about Covid-19.

<comment><USER9> I'm fascinated by your account. It's 21 days old yet has a karma of 1. And the majority of your comments are greyed out.

I wouldn't ask if this was just a personal HN account, because at this point nothing surprises me anymore, but for an account that claims to "provide you fully tested tech product reviews, buying guides, features analysis, and a large how-tos collection. Our staff work 24/7 to provide the latest tech industry news.", I can't help but be curious what it is you're trying to achieve. Is anyone on your staff telling you to stop it with the shit comments, or to figure out how to not eventually get shadowbanned?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It will hopefully break the Academic Industrial Sports Complex, and rich parents can stop Photoshopping their useless brat's heads into photos of rowboats and basketball courts. They should be giving those scholarships to poor hard working kids who know how to use Photoshop, instead.

[https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/college- admissions-s...](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/college-admissions- scandal-kids-photoshopped-as-athletes.html)

[https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture- features/colleg...](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture- features/college-admissions-scam-lori-loughlin-felicity-huffman-807208/)

>4\. CW-1 allegedly photoshopped applicants' faces onto stock photos of athletes, sometimes in ridiculous ways.

>In one case described in the court documents, CW-1 told a parent that he would photoshop an applicant to make it look like he had played football, even though his high school did not have a football team. CW-1 said this would increase his chances of admission to USC to 90 percent, and the two even discussed what fake position he would play. "I'm gonna make him a kicker," CW-1 said, prompting the parent to laugh and say, "He does have very strong legs."</comment>


Maximum theoretical downtime for a website: 30 minutes - <AUTHOR> http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/maximum-theoretical-downtime-for-a-website-30-minutes/ <comment><USER2> <blockquote> Our research led us to conclude that even for the best configurations in the world (yes, that includes Google, Amazon and all biggies), maximum theoretical downtime (for a few users) will be 30 minutes. You cannot possibly escape this limitation. </blockquote>

You've overestimated your own abilities. "The biggies" don't need to use DNS failovers, they use anycast routing and the like. Therefore, their "maximum theoretical downtime" is probably much lower than 30 minutes...

<comment><AUTHOR> Even with Anycast, a portion of their users will still be routed to old, down server until DNS cache expires. No? I'd love to get clarified as this is a problem we desperately want to solve.

<comment><USER3> IANANetwork Engineer but basically with anycasting you can announce a single IP from two different places and different providers will route to whichever is 'closest'. If your datacenter goes down one of those routes stops being advertised and providers will re-route to the next best advertised route. BGP cycle time is variable but way less than 30 minutes in many cases.

This presumes you can essentially have two 'active' datacenters, not all application designs allow for this. You can still use BGP as a failover mechanism, just announce the route to your production IP from DC1 and if that dies, announce it from DC2 once you fail over. Again, limited by response time and BGP cycle time but that's faster than DNS.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your info. I researched a bit and it sounds like Anycast is a very expensive option. But, anyway, I agree it could be faster than relying on DNS routing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> AFAIK not only does the browser cache the IP address, but the many DNS servers (user ISP or any others) also cache the IP addresses.

I wouldn't expect all the DNS servers out there to check for a new IP every couple of minutes. Many of them manage their cache according to their policies, not _strictly_ according to the arbitrary constraints set by the individual domains.

BTW shouldn't some default variant load in the site if your service is not working?

<comment><AUTHOR> Today, almost all DNS servers who cache entries respect TTL values. We did a number of benchmarks and observed that TTL was respected in all cases. Ultimately it boils down to the browser caching DNS.

Yes, default variant loads if service isn't working. The slowdown part occurs when browser tries to connect to our service for loading JS but our servers don't respond. The timeout for this kind of behavior is 60 seconds. That means for only after 60 seconds, browser will abandon its attempt for connecting.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just FYI, I found this excellent guide <http://www.tenereillo.com/GSLBPageOfShame.htm></comment>