Is Netflix’s company culture of fear real? What happened when you were fired?
A little bit of my background, I’m a software engineer with less than 4 years of work experience. I ask this question because recently I got a senior software engineer offer from Netflix but I don’t know if I should take it. I heard that they pay really really well but they also fire people like crazy, like 2 mistakes and you’re out. Most of the engineers on the team I interviewed have over 8 years of experience, will I be considered not an A+ player compared to them? In Netflix’s culture deck they say that they fire adequate employees right away and only keep superstar engineers. My major concern: Job security is very important to me not because I have a family to raise but because I’m on H1B work visa, which means if I got fired I would no longer be able to stay in US unless I could get another employer to sponsor my visa within a month. I’m basically happy with my salary at my current job and I don’t want to ruin my career just because I take the bad money from an unstable job. Another thing is that under such pressure and fear of losing job, will one grow as an engineer? I always think that engineers learn a lot from mistakes, if one is not allowed to make any mistake, how do engineers at Netflix grow? Since Blind is an (to some extent) anonymous society, can someone tell us about how it really feels like to work at Netflix? Is the culture of fear real? Is the pay really worth the workload? And to those who got fired by Netflix, how long did you stay there before you got fired? And what happened before you were shown the door? Is real that Netflix is basically zero-tolerant to mistakes?
Yeah they made it clear during my interview but I’m wondering to what extent they really execute it that way?
Thanks for the reply! Yeah I think it all boils down to the question of whether I’m strong enough an engineer to survive Netflix, which to be honest I’m not sure...
Tough choice mate, money or mental peace? I would choose latter 8 out of 10 times.
Exactly. The reason why I’m considering leaving my current job is actually because I find my current job kind of boring and with little room of career growth, so Netflix does have challenges for me, which is what I’m looking for in my next job, but the low tolerance of failure really makes me worried about my career path there too. I’m sure Netflix will give me a (big) raise salary-wise but I don’t know if that’s worth the risk.
Depends, if doubling my paycheck means my wife can stay home to take care of the kids, then it gives me more mental peace than the job.
Secure your GC first, make the jump later. You said you have 4 years of experience so I assume you’re young, therefore you have enough time to go back and take the risk at Netflix once you’ve secured your residency status.
Thanks for the reply, I think you made a very good point from a new perspective! That’s exactly the reason why I post this on Blind - to get more people help me to think about this question from different perspectives
It depends on the person but I perform considerably poorly if I always have to worry about performance ; I tend to perform my best work when I am stress free and I excited about what I am working on. Secondly I am not even sure what sometimes your best work is - often stuff that I feel is relatively trivial can have huge impact and stuff that I have sweated and worked hard upon relatively less - much like the real world , where not everything is meritrocratic. Netflix’s culture deck would make me half the engineer I am and I have worked at some pretty stressful places ( still working at one ).
@OP if your wife is working then go ahead and take the risk. You are young to take such a risk
I’m actually single haha. Financial-wise I’m not too worried about being out of job, I’m more worried about losing my legal status in US if I lose my job and can’t find a new one within a month :)
Haha how conveniently did this person assume that the OP is male
Any current/former Netflix employee cares for a comment? I’m actually curious about how new employees ramp up at Netflix? Rumor has it that your manager can let you go within weeks after you start at Netflix, how do you guys manage the pressure?
Most managers have some patience on new folks. After all, it takes some time to pick up the platform, business logic etc. That being said, it won't take more than 3 months to figure out a new hire. You are not being compared to the others though. You just need to be able to do your job.
Netflix is cult-y. Keep interviewing elsewhere. There are challenging gigs with job stability, you don't have to be at netflix to get that
Not worth it dude.
don’t you have 60 day grace period these days? if you can make the cut at nflx, I bet you can land a job in that time frame
Yeah I think we do, but honestly I think it looks bad on your resume if you have a tenure less than say half a year. I’m totally fine with switching job after a full year or two if things don’t quite work well, but I think changing job after a few months at Netflix basically tells your interviewer that you’re fired by them and that looks like a negative thing(to me at least). If I’m the interviewer, I’d rather believe in one’s track record than the ability to solve coding questions during the interview.
I would not take the risk of getting fired on H1b. Seek a company where you can stay for at least a decade, if you plan on getting the green card.
I think you can still change job while waiting for green card as long as there’s no big gap between two jobs.