Week 11/12/2017 - 04/01/2018 a great life lesson came at a big price
I don't want to find myself any excuses: I've been lazy in the past few months and didn't update this blog at all. A lot has happened in the past ~5 months.
In short I'm done with this new job for good reasons. And I'm actually heading back to my old job to sort of continue working there. Similarly, for good reasons.
Till this day I'm still holding grudges against people I report to at this job so I've decided to include some transparency here when it needs.
A quick re-cap on what I've done in the past few months:
- finished the deployment pipeline improvement: fully automated one-button release process.
- changed AWS access control to be based on a corporate leasing tool, and updated everything on the application side.
- added access token permission system to application back-end.
- added rate-limiter application back-end.
- added request validator to application back-end.
- re-write most of the node.js back-end to be reusable and can be exposed to public REST API.
- set up automated testing framework and built tests for quickly verifying contract of each exposed API.
There are more things that I've achieved but I couldn't recall at this point in time.
Now this is where the beef starts.
In 09/2017, I quit my job in San Francisco and moved my entire family to Los Angeles to join Snap as an engineer. Reason? Better compensation, and more importantly, to work on a project that I've always wanted to work on: a game engine project.
I was given very little information when I was offered the job: the interviewer(project owner) refuses to tell me his full name, and told me he can't tell me any details about the project, since "people are not supposed to know he works for Snap". I was able to figure out the rough idea of the project by asking their (together with another interviewer) background.
They told me it's a "content management" tool that needs people and they're looking for someone to take care of the entire back-end. How can I say no to possibly a game engine project? I took the bait, forced my wife to quit her job, and moved my family there for this project.
Things are OK in 2017. It's a shitty project that has 6yrs of legacy and people who wrote the code apparently don't care about who's going to maintain that: it's a shit project that has been written in a speed-oriented way for 6yrs. Every single decision made, was for the purpose of shipping something sooner. They never invested in automation, testing or monitoring: it's kinda ridiculous given their team is fairly small in size. Reminded me of the "we're too busy to install the wheels" mime.
Honestly, I didn't get along with my co-workers: they don't seem ambitious and their engineering philosophy is quite different from mine. They would yell at me for deleting a completely duplicated copy, and told me in my face "I don't really care about your career growth".
Everyday I spent on this team is agony to me. The so-called "engineer manager" was the CEO of the company before it's acquired by Snap, and till this day he still gives 0 shits about how his employee feels. So I reached out to see if I can get an internal transfer, but I wasn't able to find any team that interests me.
And here we're at 2018: on the first day of 2018 I've got terrible news from my family saying my grandpa is in a really bad physical condition and asked me to go bad to see him for one last time. I arranged everything (flight tickets, visa appointments etc) and asked for approval to be absent for a few weeks. The manager dude told me "you gotta do what you have to do, but we've got a lot of work". So when I was in China sitting in the hospital next to my dying grandpa, I still have the laptop with me trying to do some work. With these people pushing me every day, I went to Snap Shenzhen office eventually to do work 8hrs a day during my "sick leave". So Jan 2018 I wasn't at the office at all, but I worked remotely for a little more than 2 weeks (excluding the days I spent on flights & visa)
Early Feb 2018 I came back to the office, but immediately I've caught a on-going flu in the office: it was so bad that I couldn't stop coughing. This happens as long as I'm awake and it was painful for me and my wife. I've been working from home everyday trying to not spread the virus around any more in the office. And on the day I feel I'm much recovered and went to the office, my condition got worse when I get back. I'm 100% sure the virus is still existing in the office since this happened 3 times in a row. Our "office" is a beach house without any ventilation system: not even opened windows, and I'm sure it has a lot to do with my condition. The good thing is company policy is unlimited PTO & abundant sick days as long as manager approves.
Fast forward to March 2018. I still haven't fully recovered from the flu, but I'm able to go to the office and do work while coughing sometimes. Due to the family issue and the sickness I had, I'm working my ass off every night with my half-sick body trying to deliver more work. And guess what, I got laid off in the 1st week of March.
It's a big shock to me: I've never pictured myself getting laid off. All of a sudden, I don't know how I'm going to pay for rent, and how my wife is going to stay here legally. It's a really cheap out.
However I was able to find my "manager" and figured out some more details:
company has a on-going "re-org" to cut cost. My manager received a request to rate all his engineers' performance. He told me in person he rated me low performance because I was absent for family issue and sickness, and he "expected me to deliver more", but he also felt sorry about this because he told the engineer organization don't remove anyone on his team (he's still assuming he was the CEO of the company and got the final call on everything). I guess that's why he's willing to share the insights with me.
I'd say this is completely unprofessional. Pressuring me into doing work because of things I don't have control over, and then lay me off work which I've made huge commitment to. This is not cool. But you know what, I'm happy that I'm out of that mess:
- the entire company except for 1 guy (other than the CEO and CTO) were laid off in order to reach the acquisition deal.
- after the acquisition by Snap (almost a big corporate) it's still moving in the speed-oriented mode, which creates problem for the future.
- both CEO and CTO dude give zero fuck about my feelings and my career growth.
- the working environment is full of lies. people I report to say one thing while mean the opposite, and makes me pay for that.
Now it's April 2018. I've spent the past month interviewing for a new job. And with the lesson I've learned from this shit team, I've decided to head back to my old job to work with people I get along with and care about my growth. I'm much happier that way.
Forgot to say, this team I worked at briefly, is called PlayCanvas. Even when I was working on it, I don't think this project has a great future. The people running the show are bad business people who don't really care about their employees (they laid off almost the entire company to be acquired, and they laid off me for reasons above). If anyone ever gets a LinkedIn message about Snap Inc or PlayCanvas, my recommendation is to simply skip it: you deserve a better employer.
In short I'm done with this new job for good reasons. And I'm actually heading back to my old job to sort of continue working there. Similarly, for good reasons.
Till this day I'm still holding grudges against people I report to at this job so I've decided to include some transparency here when it needs.
A quick re-cap on what I've done in the past few months:
- finished the deployment pipeline improvement: fully automated one-button release process.
- changed AWS access control to be based on a corporate leasing tool, and updated everything on the application side.
- added access token permission system to application back-end.
- added rate-limiter application back-end.
- added request validator to application back-end.
- re-write most of the node.js back-end to be reusable and can be exposed to public REST API.
- set up automated testing framework and built tests for quickly verifying contract of each exposed API.
There are more things that I've achieved but I couldn't recall at this point in time.
Now this is where the beef starts.
In 09/2017, I quit my job in San Francisco and moved my entire family to Los Angeles to join Snap as an engineer. Reason? Better compensation, and more importantly, to work on a project that I've always wanted to work on: a game engine project.
I was given very little information when I was offered the job: the interviewer(project owner) refuses to tell me his full name, and told me he can't tell me any details about the project, since "people are not supposed to know he works for Snap". I was able to figure out the rough idea of the project by asking their (together with another interviewer) background.
They told me it's a "content management" tool that needs people and they're looking for someone to take care of the entire back-end. How can I say no to possibly a game engine project? I took the bait, forced my wife to quit her job, and moved my family there for this project.
Things are OK in 2017. It's a shitty project that has 6yrs of legacy and people who wrote the code apparently don't care about who's going to maintain that: it's a shit project that has been written in a speed-oriented way for 6yrs. Every single decision made, was for the purpose of shipping something sooner. They never invested in automation, testing or monitoring: it's kinda ridiculous given their team is fairly small in size. Reminded me of the "we're too busy to install the wheels" mime.
Honestly, I didn't get along with my co-workers: they don't seem ambitious and their engineering philosophy is quite different from mine. They would yell at me for deleting a completely duplicated copy, and told me in my face "I don't really care about your career growth".
Everyday I spent on this team is agony to me. The so-called "engineer manager" was the CEO of the company before it's acquired by Snap, and till this day he still gives 0 shits about how his employee feels. So I reached out to see if I can get an internal transfer, but I wasn't able to find any team that interests me.
And here we're at 2018: on the first day of 2018 I've got terrible news from my family saying my grandpa is in a really bad physical condition and asked me to go bad to see him for one last time. I arranged everything (flight tickets, visa appointments etc) and asked for approval to be absent for a few weeks. The manager dude told me "you gotta do what you have to do, but we've got a lot of work". So when I was in China sitting in the hospital next to my dying grandpa, I still have the laptop with me trying to do some work. With these people pushing me every day, I went to Snap Shenzhen office eventually to do work 8hrs a day during my "sick leave". So Jan 2018 I wasn't at the office at all, but I worked remotely for a little more than 2 weeks (excluding the days I spent on flights & visa)
Early Feb 2018 I came back to the office, but immediately I've caught a on-going flu in the office: it was so bad that I couldn't stop coughing. This happens as long as I'm awake and it was painful for me and my wife. I've been working from home everyday trying to not spread the virus around any more in the office. And on the day I feel I'm much recovered and went to the office, my condition got worse when I get back. I'm 100% sure the virus is still existing in the office since this happened 3 times in a row. Our "office" is a beach house without any ventilation system: not even opened windows, and I'm sure it has a lot to do with my condition. The good thing is company policy is unlimited PTO & abundant sick days as long as manager approves.
Fast forward to March 2018. I still haven't fully recovered from the flu, but I'm able to go to the office and do work while coughing sometimes. Due to the family issue and the sickness I had, I'm working my ass off every night with my half-sick body trying to deliver more work. And guess what, I got laid off in the 1st week of March.
It's a big shock to me: I've never pictured myself getting laid off. All of a sudden, I don't know how I'm going to pay for rent, and how my wife is going to stay here legally. It's a really cheap out.
However I was able to find my "manager" and figured out some more details:
company has a on-going "re-org" to cut cost. My manager received a request to rate all his engineers' performance. He told me in person he rated me low performance because I was absent for family issue and sickness, and he "expected me to deliver more", but he also felt sorry about this because he told the engineer organization don't remove anyone on his team (he's still assuming he was the CEO of the company and got the final call on everything). I guess that's why he's willing to share the insights with me.
I'd say this is completely unprofessional. Pressuring me into doing work because of things I don't have control over, and then lay me off work which I've made huge commitment to. This is not cool. But you know what, I'm happy that I'm out of that mess:
- the entire company except for 1 guy (other than the CEO and CTO) were laid off in order to reach the acquisition deal.
- after the acquisition by Snap (almost a big corporate) it's still moving in the speed-oriented mode, which creates problem for the future.
- both CEO and CTO dude give zero fuck about my feelings and my career growth.
- the working environment is full of lies. people I report to say one thing while mean the opposite, and makes me pay for that.
Now it's April 2018. I've spent the past month interviewing for a new job. And with the lesson I've learned from this shit team, I've decided to head back to my old job to work with people I get along with and care about my growth. I'm much happier that way.
Forgot to say, this team I worked at briefly, is called PlayCanvas. Even when I was working on it, I don't think this project has a great future. The people running the show are bad business people who don't really care about their employees (they laid off almost the entire company to be acquired, and they laid off me for reasons above). If anyone ever gets a LinkedIn message about Snap Inc or PlayCanvas, my recommendation is to simply skip it: you deserve a better employer.
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