"Why are you looking to leave your current employer?" is a question I've asked hundreds of times when hiring at Uber. There are few things I've not heard.

Save for how Revolut treated engineers.

Here's how to build a culture where the hardest-working people voluntarily leave:
This was years back. I was doing the hiring manager interview. I ask the question and expect one of the common reasons - challenges, money, boredom etc.

"I'm pissed off, that's why. I put my heart and soul into this company, worked 80-hour weeks, and get slapped in the face."
Okay, this was new. "Can you give more details on what happened?"

"I didn't get a bonus."

"Well " - I think to myself - "that's not much to be pissed off about."

"So why did that tick you off?" - I ask. The person continues to explain this is not your usual bonus situation:
"So the way Revolut works is bonuses are tied to goals. Which is fine. So our goal was to ship this massive new feature by 1 March. It required engineering, product, design, legal etc to work together. A team of 20-30 people, about half of these engineers."
"We had 2-3 months to the deadline. At first we told management this is impossible. But it's Revolut so they had none of this.

I said screw it, let's do it.

Me and the whole engineering team work through weekends for months. I miss bedtime for my kid most days. But we push on."
"Against all the odds we make it for the launch. We even have time to test and validate. It all works!

But there's some legal issue and we can't launch on 1 Mar. The legal team gets clearance and we launch a few days later.

Management says: you missed the goal, zero bonus."
"And that is when I decided, I'm out.

What company ignores the effort and challenges behind getting things done? What place ignores all sacrifices people do for a project we said was impossible?

It's places like Revolut.

I gave it my all, and got a big fat 'not good enough'."
What was crazy about this story for me is how this all seemed very deliberate from the company.

I have no idea if the company knew or cared, but AFAIK most of the team started interviewing after seeing how hard work doesn't matter when the deadline is missed by an inch.
The mind-bending part is that pulling crazy like this did not seem to hurt the company.

Revolut is seen as a FinTech success, with a >$30B valuation.

I personally think they are succeeding *despite* pulling things like this, the culture of results, no acknowledgment of effort.
The one (and only) positive thing I have heard about Revolut, that, unlike many EU companies or competitors like Bunq, they do give equity to engineers. And there are already >50 paper millionaires in the company.

Good on them to compensate for a very... strange culture.
Some additions:

- Apparently, no one working on this project got a bonus (of the 20-30 people). Oh, the product launch was a success.

- How did I, as a hiring manager look at this story shared? ABSOLUTELY positive. This person was right to interview & leave.
Until now, I've told this story in private to a few people who reached out, with offers from Revolut.

None of those people took the offer afterward.

The company is known for this type of non-respectful culture in some communities:

Gotten many DMs from ex-Revolut engineers. Not a single positive experience shared. Quotes:

“toxic culture”
“absolutely abysmal”
“ridiculous deadlines”
“full disrespect of engineers”
“despicable”

If you’re an eng working at Revolut with a *non-negative* experience, DMs open.
To balance, a few *current* Revolut engineers reached out who like the place (thanks!)

Their points:
- The past was... the past
- $$$ above the market
- A culture of rewarding high-performers (equity)
- Yes, low performers are let go (but more rare w eng)
- Company maturing
So to close it out

1. I don't suggest to do what Revolut did with dangling a carrot to take it away

2. Companies/teams change over time... both good and bad.

3. If you have an offer from Company X, reverse interview them:

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Gergely Orosz

Gergely Orosz Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @GergelyOrosz

2 Oct
There is so little information written about equity for tech employees, and even less by software engineers who benefitted from it.

Uber and Square engineer @mcdickenson wrote the book Equity Compensation for Tech Employees, which fills this gap.

Here's the table of contents:
I reviewed the book before it was out, and it's a must-read if you are either based in the US or are/will be working for US-based companies issuing equity. Or if you want to know more on this important topic.

Get the book here: gumroad.com/a/276534387
What I *really* like about this book is the first-hand perspective theoretic approaches.

@mcdickenson was there when Uber went IPO (all engineers had RSUs/options). He works at publicly-traded Square where engineers get equity.

This is a book by an employee, for employees.
Read 4 tweets
1 Oct
I'm leaving money on the table, but I am ignoring *all* opportunities related to crypto that have anything to do with PoW (e.g. Bitcoin, Ethereum).

These currencies waste incredible energy amounts - contributing to global warming - and generate huge amounts of e-waste.
Bitcoin is a terrible offender both energy, and e-wase wise, and has no plans to move off the wasteful PoW approach.

theguardian.com/technology/202…
Up until now few have done research on the impact on e-waste. Unsuprisingly, it's also massive:

theguardian.com/technology/202…
Read 8 tweets
30 Sep
I dug deeper and the Amplitude founder is a legend.

They were the *first* company to introduce a 10-year post-termination exercise window. Their lawyers said they cannot be done. They did it, and open-sourced it, other companies following.

The implications of this are massive:
A 10-year post-termination exercise window means that an employee who joined in 2012, left 4 years later *still* made $10M, without having to exercise any options until now.

It's hard to beat a policy like this. They did this in 2015: amplitude.com/blog/employee-…
Summarized in a comment I added to the thread here: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=287040… Image
Read 4 tweets
29 Sep
While there are many posts criticizing how difficult hiring processes are, especially for entry-level roles, it's only in private you hear interviewers and hiring managers talk about the other side.

Here's a short thread on a few observations that also explains some criticisms:
1. Entry-level applicants are on a very wide spread skillset-wise. They range from people who can only follow a tutorial to those who are hands-on with production-ready code. It skews towards the former though.

This is one reason there are so many automated closing assessments.
2. Resumes don't tell you much about entry-level people. Within the same bootcamp grads, there will be some strong candidates, and plenty of week ones. Same with colleges. It's impossible to predict how well a person will do on a coding exercise.
Read 8 tweets
29 Sep
That first day as the Head of Engineering at a fast-growing startup is always glorious.

Not an engineering manager anymore, but a Head Of. The non-technical-at-all founder hired them because they *really* needed someone to get sort the eng problems.

A new story starts today:
The first week is done, and it's exciting. Well, a bit annoying as well. The founder keeps checking in, and talking about how they see this role, and what they want the EM (not Head of Eng) to do.

Problem is, much of it is not how the EM worked in the past, and it doesn't work.
Like the obsession the founder has with what are essentially micromanagement practices.

"This is how we work. High autonomy+high accountability is our culture". But then eng is told the work they should do, given deadlines with no input, and judged on "getting shit done".
Read 15 tweets
28 Sep
Engineer: "Can I expense this $500 noise-canceling headphone? Makes it easier to focus."

Manager: "Sure."

Compliance: "That's against policy."

Manager: "It's $500. 0.3% of their salary. It helps them do better work."

Compliance: "It's policy."

Manager: "Ok, how about this:"
Manager: "Can you remind me of team morale budget rules?"

Compliance: "$1,500/person, per year."

Manager: "So it comes out of team morale."

Compliance: "But..."

Manager: "But, indeed, if we don't buy this, team morale will plummet due to stupid corp policies."

True story.
This was how I went getting noise-canceling headphones in an open-plan office* for my team at my previous gig.

*corp policy was handing out $100, non-noise canceling, uncomfortable headphones, purchased in bulk for savings.

Policy still the same AFAIK, as is the workaround.
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(