Here is my rant: Been in LinkedIn for 2 years now. This is the worst company I have worked for!! Why? 1. The tech stack is sooo freaking old and weird 2. We build everything in-house and that is kinda like burning money (we have been trying to reinvent graphql for the last 5 years I think - like everything else we have reinvented) 3. The engineering talent is mostly shit! (Rest and vest is the attitude) 3a. If you are a LinkedIn dinosaur then you are used to the inner workings of here else good luck 3b. Engineers work is specifically to target a promotion (that is when they are not working on their promo package for a year) 3c. All the principal, staff and distinguished engineers are working in LinkedIn as a side gig when they are working on their own gigs as full time jobs 3d. How is that the whole company relies on a handful of dinosaur engineers to know what is happening inside the shitty play/restli framework? 3e. Everyone seems to be always ready to go on the defensive at the flip of a word, ready to go postal - especially the espresso folks 3f. Every two years (or less) really immature engineers gets promoted 3g. So many levels - anyone staff and above does barely any coding! So the company runs on swe & sr swe doing all the coding and that shows in the output 3h. With avg 2 yr or less promotion an avg eng makes it as eng manager in 6 years or less and that shows in their maturity too. Most LI managers are home grown and inefficient at being managers. They don’t know to “lead”. 4. Why don’t LinkedIn have OKR? I am not sure what is the goal that LinkedIn is trying to get to? 5. It is very top down - no creativity (one of the vps say something everyone rally’s begins that as if its words from gods) 6. Most of the TPM org seems to just exist and not do anything more 7. Diversity is kinda god knows where? 8. Everything is a committee - dmrc, rfc, tlg, promotions 9. What does all the directors and senior managers do? (Eng & product) There are so many levels just like in the principal route and they are cruising by on a high pay and no output like the staff to distinguished eng ones. 10. Immigration team is absolutely slow, BALGlobal is shit! At the end of the day you have LinkedIn or any other big company tag you get other doors open for you so nothing bad will happen to the bad people above - also I am sure all big tech companies are shit, but it opens more financially safe doors with a big company stamp! So unfair but that’s life! Now - why don’t I quit if I am unhappy? I just did!! Phew I feel so relieved. TC 500k - signing time it was 350k, thanks to msft price growth. tc and benefits are the only good things here. #tech
Which company would you hold in high regard?
Have worked in smaller orgs before LinkedIn and “all” of them were really way better than LinkedIn- I was fascinated by the big company tag in deciding to join LinkedIn.
All big companies are horrible in their own ways. And, useful in their own ways. You made the right choice to choose for yourself. It’s not easy to know what you want and to believe enough in yourself to go get it.
Start your own company
How is wlb? 500k for senior sde is quite good
Not a senior sde - plus the tc is coz of nadella pushing up Msft stocks high. My tc was 350k when I signed.
Ok. Well msft senior is staff there says levels.fyi. 500k is still pretty good. How is wlb for staff level?
Not the best, but solid in tier two. I am grateful for the learning and earning here.
Not a “solid” tier 2, more like the bottom of tier 2 given the tech stack, slow growth and bad refresher
Then which companies are tier-1?
I genuinely enjoyed reading this rant.
After reading that Amazon rant here comes the LinkedIn rant. Now waiting for other folks to follow so we can conclude all companies are shit.
This rant could've been about BKNG ...
Just take away half TC and add a little more politics and this post could be about Walmart.
While I agree with a lot of points, there’s a lot good going on too. You at probably a staff, so you should have enough pull to bring a lot of change, did you try it? Complaining is not good if not followed by solutions especially at your level. Hope you have a good time at your next play 👍
I agree, lots of goods, but not work wise, benefit wise. I have frankly tried, but LinkedIn has a ton of baggage + everything is tightly coupled to our existing tools. Our VPs point at building and thinking inside our existing box and not outside. I tried and failed after multiple rapids and gave up. Our existing engineers who have been here all their life don’t want change (probably for good reasons or that they haven’t seen the outside world).
Which org were you in? Or all orgs are like that?
What are they lacking in diversity?
Exactly that - diversity! (Like all big tech company hard to see any, at least in engineering or other high paying jobs)
So only white people?
Sounds like a sweet gig to me. If you want to work your ass off come to FB
“Sounds like”
500k TC
Sounds like salesforce lol