arrjayh

~20 engineers, ~3 people managers. From what I recall the team had high attrition and shuffled through a number of people managers. When I joined 1 manager was new hire, 1 manager was new-ish hire, 1 manager was fairly seasoned at Riot and had a "good reputation". Was still a total mess.

> My experience at big corporate is that (edit: unmanageable) tech debt is caused by undisciplined and unorganized scrum team.

Yeah, this is 100% correct. I comically left Riot after ~6 months for this exact reason. Obviously it's a large company with many different flavors of teams, and it sounds like this team maybe has gotten it together, but by in large most haven't.

While I was there I was working on some of their core games tooling and felt uneasy about my day-to-day. My teams tech debt was quite literally owning them. Constantly missing sprint scopes, spending countless hours arguing and debating about trivial stuff, it was all a mess. They ended up laying off a number of people from that team in a pretty shifty manner so maybe things have gotten better since then.

Yes, you should absolutely care.

What in the actual, 6.2 GHz!? The power draw must be insane.

Do they really? that seems difficult to navigate

Probably because they couldn't hire effectively?

SEEKING WORK - Austin TX

Technologies: TypeScript, Rust, C, C++

I run a sole member consulting and development llc which leverages 5+ years of experiences at some of the biggest names in the game, for example: Cloudflare, Riot, Twitch, Trend Micro and Argonne National Lab.

Generally like to work in 3-6 month increments with the option to re-negotiate.

Drop me a line if your team needs an extra Software or Systems Engineer!

Email: [email protected] LinkdIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-j-hickok/

This is brilliant. I'm a mid-level engineer with decent C/C++/Rust background. Have yet to find a team like this. I'm inspired by your story to keep searching!

This is awesome! I've become preconditioned to seeing slow buggy demos. This is snappy and a great representation of HTMX. Good work!

I'm working through this exact situation right now, I really appreciate this insight!

Can't add much more than what's already been said here but I'm glad to see more presence of this on the internet. Grew up in IL, this was largely unspoken + alcohol and drug abuse.

I nominate SDL2 and DPDK. Spent a lot of time combing through these code bases, found them to be excellent.

I didn't read the article but the headline is hilarious. For a company that has been so outward about hiring "all star talent" I'm amazed they're needing to cut back. Just from the outside it appears that things are pretty broken there...

> but surely running a business is one of those things that IS about money?

I'd disagree. Running a business is about developing systems to create and maintain resources, connections, and influence. Money is a symbolic representation of resources but by itself isn't a resource. Resources in my opinion, and experience, are a very small piece of the puzzle. In my experience connections have way more value than money. In my experience money attracts the worst kinds of folks to work with. My skills have created more value than money ever has.

Hehe yeah work never actually ends but it's a different beast.

> so you can probably get them as employeed for very cheap

Not everything is about money or paying for things.

>but, on the other hand, people are in dire economical condition, so it's hard to sell them anything.

Buying and selling things is a very American construct and tells like 1/4 of the story when it comes to trading.

I grew up in a rural area of the US. Lots of folks are poor but wealthy beyond measure. Bartering goes a long way and only works if you provide a service that is valuable ;-).

Also, in terms of funds, I understand that can be a constraint especially if you can’t finance things. You can always try to work and band with your community to solve problems. Group funding is always in option.

A lot of know-how is learned on the job. What are the jobs? Well, look and see what your day-to-day looks like and if there’s a service you could provide to make it better.

If you’re commuting 2+ hours a day buying a bus and helping other commute for $ could be a start :-). All just ideas, though.

How does entrepreneurship look? Often if there’s high unemployment there’s a window to be the job maker.

Is it because of visa constraints? Working hellish hours is unhealthy and often highly counterproductive.

I'm glad you got to spend some time with those smart folks... I really craved that while I was there. They had an all start team for quite a while, I got the tail end of it.

Very hard to say. I have suspicions but don't really feel comfortable sharing. News like this is a chip in their armor, expect to see more soon.

I got hired to do C++ work, JD an all interviews outlined this clearly. Had about a month of C++ work and then was quickly forced to start doing React work. My background and skill set is in embedded C programming.

There's lots to elaborate. Tl;dr is toxic siloed teams, bad management, and even worse management above those managers. Plus, since the Amazon acquisition, Twitch has been bleeding talent.

I left Twitch not so long ago (May 2022), not surprised at all by this.

I've seen a number of these posts of the years and the goal post of "foundational knowledge" seems to change frequently... Do you want algorithms? Do you want networking? Do you want embedded? Do you want SQL?

Frankly you can't have it all.

What I see successful companies do is invest in uni programs so they have a stake on what the students learn. Take for example the UT Inventors Program.

This has been a problem for a while. Hopefully this provides some extra context.

This is awesome, great work.

> If you want to actively aim to have coworkers that in your own judgement are more likely to stab you in the back and more likely to be incompetent for the job at hand then you do you.

No need to be dismissive only pointing out that your valuation of people will likely cause you more grief than benefit (imo). Also, incompetent people would probably be far less likely to actually be a threat because, well, they're incompetent... It's the smart people that you write off as incompetent that stab you in the back (in my experience). Having some coined judgemental framework will definitely cause oversights eventually.

Mmm objectively (black and white) lying is a stupid but man taking a moral high ground is even stupider. If you're caught into a position where you either need to lie or divert it's likely a bad situation. The right people, the right job, the right opportunities won't put you in a situation where your boundaries will be tested or you need to lie.