I don't think it will hinder his future employment prospects. He wouldn't be a fit for any company like Samsung, just as they wouldn't be a good employer for him.
It goes both ways. If a person takes a stand like that (basically stating not liking dysopian work environments, bad tools and major bureaucracy), he might make himself not available to such environments, but yet open doors to other ones.
The other thing you forget is that this guy is pretty young and still maturing up. Almost no level headed manager will read too much into it few years down the road.
As a co-worker, I like this type. They are more likely to reject bureaucracies, and seeking efficiency. These types tend to be more motivated on getting things done, and taking joy in their productive work, and not useless work.
Having seen myself how Samsung engineers work (mostly Korean teams), long hours culture, sleeping in their desks (shows you are working hard!), producing buggy code at night, then fixing their own crap in the morning (inefficient tail chasing), I would never work for that company either.
I suppose that I could argue that complaining about an incompetent former employer does literally no good for one's future career prospects. It can only hurt you, and that lack of foresight may be considered "unprofessional" by not considering your own best interests.
(some companies won't care about his rant against Samsung, but some other bigcos will. No company will actually give him bonus points for his public complaints, so overall the blog is purely a net negative for his future career transition prospects)
There is something to be said for opening discussion about coding practices in large companies. His essay was descriptive. Even if it did hurt his own personal career prospects, having it out there helps the community better understand what is expected at certain jobs. If I were a new CS graduate, this sort of information would be immensely helpful in deciding whether Samsung was right for me. I think that, from a global standpoint, his essay was a good thing. I'm not disagreeing with you, of course -- he may have hurt his job prospects for certain companies, but it sounds like he wouldn't be happy working at such companies anyway, so it seems for the best.
He didn't say they're incompetent, to the contrary, just that he didn't like it, and that being directly involved in something that makes more sense to him is more fulfilling to him in the meantime. So yes, he won't be hired by people without reading comprehension who snoop around on blogs, but what makes you think those are particularly productive anyway? And how is this relevant for someone looking to start his own business? And even if that wasn't the case, how are only "bigcos" viable employers, and how can you equate them with "all companies" on top of that?
Bigcos aren't the only ones who would be turned off by this post - I do due diligence daily on new employees at a small dev shop, we work startup hours and get dirty when it comes to the work we do (I do mindless crap daily that feels like I should have an intern that does it for me).
The op's post wreaks of entitlement and puts doubt in my mind that he'd be able to sit for 5 hours and setup staging servers, or batch review and comment code so new employees can follow quickly, or do one of the 100 other small, time-consuming, mundane tasks that we all get stuck doing sometimes at ANY size company level.
Then he wouldn't be a fit for you company, just as you probably wouldn't be a good employer for him.
It goes both ways. If a person takes a stand like that (basically stating not liking dysopian work environments, bad tools and major bureaucracy), he might make himself not available to such environments, but yet open doors to other ones.
The other thing you forget is that this guy is pretty young and still maturing up. Almost no level headed manager will read too much into it few years down the road.
As a co-worker, I like this type. They are more likely to reject bureaucracies, and seeking efficiency. These types tend to be more motivated on getting things done, and taking joy in their productive work, and not useless work.
Having seen myself how Samsung engineers work (mostly Korean teams), long hours culture, sleeping in their desks (shows you are working hard!), producing buggy code at night, then fixing their own crap in the morning (inefficient tail chasing), I would never work for that company either. *
*(Unless they pay me a 7 figure salary, I have a price after all)
I am not sure about that. From the article: "Secondly Samsung as a corporation is a place of absurdity where doing unnecessary things for about 40% of time is a rule"
That's not necessarily true - people like to hire people like themselves, there are a good number of people in the small company world that think similar things about working for a big company but don't say it. If he's otherwise qualified, it's pretty likely that one of them would want to hire him.
It's unprofessional because in the real-world you're OFTEN (of not most of the time) tasked with tasks that you believe are below your skill-set (or non-world changing as the author put it).
The reward for the hard work is usually being elevated to a project you're proud of, or work you enjoy (sometimes this happens, sometimes it doesn't - that's the workforce - if you're in a situation where you don't see upward mobility, you usually switch out from Co. A to Co. B that'll grant you what you're looking for).
We may all feel the way the poster did at one time or another ("eerrrg my job sucks..."), the difference is we don't write negative, public posts against the company that we worked for (especially considering Samsung's probably recruiting, and there's a "talent shortage" in mobile development at-the-moment).
Good luck clearing due diligence for a job at a large reputable company in the future.
Sidebar, it's not a matter of age either, it's professionalism that he should have known - I'm 23, been in the workforce for 5 years, and I wouldn't be caught dead writing a post like this...
It's unprofessional because in the real-world you're OFTEN (of not most of the time) tasked with tasks that you believe are below your skill-set (or non-world changing as the author put it).
The reward for the hard work is usually being elevated to a project you're proud of, or work you enjoy (sometimes this happens, sometimes it doesn't - that's the workforce - if you're in a situation where you don't see upward mobility, you usually switch out from Co. A to Co. B that'll grant you what you're looking for).
Do you realize how disgusting and condescending an arrangement this is? It's "you're a prole, so if you really grovel I'll throw you a bone now and then, if I feel like it; if not, too bad, and that's what you get for being a prole". Fuck that.
By the way, I don't think you're one of the bad guys. I think you're too young to realize that you're defending the bad guys, or at least it comes off that way. At your age, I don't think you've been burned badly enough to know what you're talking about. You may have been laid off, but you haven't had the CEO of a 100-person company spend years stalking you and trying to ruin your reputation. Once you start having experiences like that, you'll know the assholes running this game for what they really are.
the difference is we don't write negative, public posts against the company that we worked for (especially considering Samsung's probably recruiting, and there's a "talent shortage" in mobile development at-the-moment).
Speaking honestly about a negative work experience is a good thing for society, because it allows talented people to allocate their energy to more appreciative companies that will give them better work, rather than wasting their talents on low-level, parochial people-pleasing.
This is like the refusal of some newspapers to print Bush's involvement in the wiretapping scandal of 2004 because it "might affect the election". That's the fucking point! You're supposed to give people information that will help them make better (political and economic) decisions. The prohibition against "bad-mouthing" previous employers by being honest about them is the same thing. It's just fucking oppression and intimidation at this point, not "professionalism". Back when the professions meant something because companies took care to be decent to their people, it was different. But now "bad-mouthing" is almost always second-strike. People don't disparage ex-employers lightly. In all the cases I know about, the ex-employers deserve much worse than they got.
> Do you realize how disgusting and condescending an arrangement this is?
It's a pretty basic workplace dynamic. If you really have to get away from it, you stay out of the workplace.
In freelancing or contract work, you're in the workplace, but are free to turn stuff down and be difficult because there's no long-term investment, you come on board and start contributing immediately. If they treat you poorly, just tell them to take a hike and go find something else.
The real problem is people let themselves be taken advantage of, because they often leave themselves with no options but to take abuse until they crack and do something that gets them fired.
If your immediate supervisor has shown signs of being a sociopathic asshole, you start making connections with other people, spread out your influence on the company. That way when things get real bad you can complain to someone who already knows you. Not make long diatribic rants about how ugly things are. One of these strategies offers options, the other limits them.
And he will come back full circle after he starts his own company and realizes there's a bunch of bullshit and stuff that he needs to swallow. He yarns about how at least in his job at Samsung he had a good income and he understands that everyone, yes absolutely everyone has to start from the bottom and fight their way to the top positions/companies.
Crap, with a foot already in Samsung, he could have stay 2 years and then bargain for either: a) a better position, or b) a position in another company.
I tend to agree with you. Corporations will often test you out in what you consider to be a "crap" job. Why? It's not a test of skill, it's a test of initiative. Without slamming him -- it's his personal choice, after all, and good luck to him -- this is why some people don't advance. They see a position as being "beneath" them when actually they're being watched to see if they can -- on their own -- bring something new to it.
I used to be like that (no really I did): I started programming when I was about 7 years old (LOGO, then Basic, then C). I finished my degree in Software Engineering with the highest grade of all my peers and with honours. About one year before graduation I started working at a software company (doing some rent-a-car systems and tourism web-dev) but inside me thinking I was so-much-better than what I was doing (programming .NET v1). So I took off and went to the UK to do a Master and a PhD.
Fastforward 8 years (4 of Masters/PhD, 4 of a PostDoc), I am 'back' as a 'simple' software engineer in a great company doing what I realized I love: programming software. I have been one year now, learning the company processess and their domain, meeting the people. And after this year, I've got a good career path laid in front of me with the opportunity to sometime become a tech lead.
And this is a great way to lose your best talent. Why work for a place that puts you through bullshit tests when you can work for a company that gives you important work and helps you succeed from day 1?
Personally, I did achieve significant success in a highly bureaucratic environment and got rewarded for it...but then I left anyway to work at a place actually encouraged me to work on problems that mattered, instead of constantly getting in the way when I tried to get anything done. Any sane person would do the same thing.
Corporations will often test you out in what you consider to be a "crap" job. Why? It's not a test of skill, it's a test of initiative. Without slamming him -- it's his personal choice, after all, and good luck to him -- this is why some people don't advance. They see a position as being "beneath" them when actually they're being watched to see if they can -- on their own -- bring something new to it.
It's a total waste of time to play that game. Why? Because not everyone starts on a crap job. When you apply for transfer after 1.5-2 years, you will be competing against people had real work, and you won't be able to get out of your second-class citizen status. You might get a slightly better project, but you'll never get an actually good one.
Were it not for the job-hopper stigma imposed by Boomersaurs holding the reality of the new economy against us (as if we had something to do with it) the most viable thing would be to roll the dice again after 6 months. The only way to get good projects in a company is to start on one (or have a pre-existing personal relationship with the CEO).
The best way to get good projects in a company is to get put on a project that's failing and make it succeed. My first boss at Google did this - he was on a project that was going nowhere, introduced a bunch of modern software-development methods to the team, and got the project unstuck. He's a Principal Engineer now.
This is probably harder than taking a project that doesn't exist and making it exist, but that's why it's also more respected. It shows that no matter where you land, you'll be able to make the best out of it, and that makes you incredibly valuable to...everyone.
get put on a project that's failing and make it succeed. My first boss at Google did this - he was on a project that was going nowhere, introduced a bunch of modern software-development methods to the team, and got the project unstuck.
In order to do that, you need a political protector who can guarantee, in advance, that performance reviews will come out in your favor no matter what happens. There's just too much risk for it to make sense otherwise.
If you have such a protector, then you're an unusually lucky person and most of my advice isn't for you.
You take the risk because you're secure enough in yourself that it doesn't really matter whether you succeed or fail or if you get that promotion anyway. If it doesn't work out - so what? You miss out on that promotion, but you still drew a salary the whole time. That's a lot more than you get if you found a startup and it doesn't work out.
My former boss had no such guarantee when he took the initiative with that project - if it had failed, he would've remained a SWE 3 forever (or, well, at least until he succeeded with some other project). I had no such guarantee when I volunteered for the 2010 search visual redesign - and I didn't get promoted, though I did get my picture in Businessweek and a reputation internally as a person who gets shit done. I also had no such guarantee when I volunteered to help start Google's Authorship program, but I did get promoted for that one, and a nice pick of future assignments. And since then, I've had a major project I initiated (which I'd hoped would be my ticket to staff and senior staff) get canceled and a major open-source 20% project get put in limbo. This blows, but that's life. I was an entrepreneur before Google; some of my projects have been mild successes (enough to get me professional reputation but no money) and many of them got me far less than I got at Google for sinking a year of my time into this failed research project.
What you're asking for is rewards without having to run any risk, which is a generally unattractive quality in a person. There are jobs that give you this bargain, at least until the company goes under - you could be a code-monkey at a Fortune 500, or an accountant, or a unionized laborer. But that wouldn't give you respect, which I think is what you're looking for. People respect folks that are willing to take risks for what they believe in, and accept the consequences when those risks don't pan out.
I disagree and the experience of many others in prominent positions have experience that runs counter to that. From the outside, it's easy to dismiss it as a "game" (which is a bit odd, given the popularity of games in software...). From the inside, find a better way to separate those who can make an actual contribution to those who just do what they're told and need to be told what they should do?
>>>Were it not for the job-hopper stigma
In large companies, perhaps, where your entry depends on a corporate checklist. But in a smaller company where the opinion of those doing the hiring counts for more than procedures, it won't matter if you have the skills they need to fill the job. Let's not forget that Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft are all behemoths the size of non-digital corporations.
I disagree and the experience of many others in prominent positions have experience that runs counter to that. From the outside, it's easy to dismiss it as a "game" (which is a bit odd, given the popularity of games in software...).
I'm using "game" as a synonym for "gamble", not "engaging, interactive experience".
When you let your boss assign you crap work to support his career goals while you don't learn anything, you're essentially gambling. The idea is that if you let him use your career in the way that a teenager uses a Kleenex, for about 3 years, his sense of indebtedness will inspire him to start giving you real work and this sudden turn to political favor compensate for your wasted time.
What actually happens is that the real work always goes to people with higher-quality work experience than what you got. You're not eligible for the good stuff, because you wasted years of your life on the garbage out of a misguided sense of loyalty (or perhaps financial desperation).
From the inside, find a better way to separate those who can make an actual contribution to those who just do what they're told and need to be told what they should do?
People who try to work directly for the company by solving important problems they weren't told to solve get fired for breaking the #1 Rule of Corporate Survival: Never Outshine Your Master: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMy8Tf-zCag. (Ok, that's actually one of the 48 "laws of power" and I don't agree with the whole body of work, but that one is 100% true.)
I'm doing this right now. Hired on as a "programmer" I haven't written code in the entire time i've been in my current position. I'm doing the crap work, as are all of my coworkers who were also hired as "programmers" in the hopes that in a year or two they'll be able to jump into what they thought they were signing up for.
So now I have a decision, jump ship and hurt my "future" but find a place that gives me real work and get some experience or stick around in my "gamble" and maybe eventually get back to what I was doing as an INTERN in 2 or 3 years.
I'm jumping. not because I hate the company, but because I won't be anywhere further in my career or skillset in those 2 years.
Exactly why I'm leaving my company after ~3 years. There's absolutely no movement but lateral with a laughable pay raise, more responsibility in tasks that are unrelated to my skills and greater micromanaging.
While I've learned a lot here, most of the time I've been stagnating and it's depressing and infuriating.
2 years (or even 1.5, or hell, even 1) at Samsung then moving to Apple would have been a pretty natural choice (The fruit company is definitely always hurting for more software talent)
Can't really think of other handset makers that he might want to go to, but depending on his skillset, some chipmakers would have been a good fit as well.
1. You have no idea what you are talking about or what he was talking about.
2. Your comment is top-voted and that's bad.
Leave alone whining. This guy has not even touched upon what is like working as a software engineer at Samsung. Over the time you learn to despise yourself for just working there and then leave and if you lazied around till late and didn't leave in time then you are stuck and then you despise yourself more.
Two years down the line you look at yourself and then figure you are mechanically doing and following all those work and procedures that you used to hate and then you are scared.
You just name any aspect of a work place or work and a (non HQ - though they are now coming out slowly) Samsung engineer can tell you how horrible that is.
I had been to Korea HQ(Suwon) 5 times and I realized the HQ engineers are same with the only difference that a Samsung job is worshipped in Korea without parallel. If you talk to HQ(Korean) engineers about Samsung's low quality work and lowest quality work life balance - they make it a matter of prestige and patriotism.
