I was an engineer at Netflix from 2010-2012. There were a lot of things that I really liked about the Netflix culture. They really do live the "Freedom and Responsibility" culture. It was very empowering. There is a dark side to that culture though. At Netflix it was too easy to fire people.
This had two side affects.
1) People were afraid of being fired. You could come in one day and be sent home that afternoon without ever having any idea that you were under-performing. You'll hear Netflix employees talk about the "Culture of Fear".
2) In a meeting with my team Patty said "We are your co-workers, not your friends." `The idea being, you don't make friends at work because you might have to fire that person one day. It was really strange, people were very guarded and almost never talked about their lives outside of work.
PIPs protect employees from the constant fear of being fired. They require managers to give an employee negative feedback. Without them, managers can take the easy route and never have the uncomfortable conversations.
#2 made life really hard at Netflix. The majority of my friends come from my co-workers. You spend more time with them than most other people in your life. Some teams ignored the company culture and became close friends anyway. I think the correct thing to do here is to expect your managers to be adults and do the hard thing. Fire your friend.
It's interesting that your experience is so different from mine (I work at Netflix now).
for #1, I've never heard of someone being let go without having any idea. When a manager goes to HR and says "I'd like to let this person go", they ask, "will it be a surprise?" and if the answer is yes, they send you back to have the hard conversation first.
for #2, I have lots of friends from Netflix. And some of them have even been let go and we're still friends. I was even friends with my boss, but like any company, when it is a relationship with a manager it must always be reserved.
This is an example of survivorship bias. I think you need to consider the fact that Netflix has massive employee churn compared to its peers.
One of the reasons no doubt they're constantly pestering me on LinkedIn to interview with them even though they have just 2100 employees or so. They're running out of people who will actually listen to them.
Facebook, on the other hand, has 5700 employees and I've never heard from them even though my resume is definitely suited to their needs. Why? They don't have to. People want to work at Facebook. They don't have to recruit.
I'd say the best sports teams share a close bond of friendship. Look at the Red Sox this year. They came back after two dismal seasons to win the World Series and the team culture was largely responsible for that. Little was expected from most of these players but the right group of people can make the seemingly impossible happen.
Article say that big money make things a lot smoother anyway. Do you disagree ?
Working at Netflix seems to be a very demanding experience. Will you say that Netflix balance this demand ? In which way ?
Reading this article, I have the feeling that Netflix wants the perfect employees, with no bonuses, no awesome perks, an Uncle Scrooge culture (Wow, I can display my $40 SV paid-by-myself poster in the corridor without asking ! Awesome !), and worst of it an "Han shot first" management.
The saddest thing in this article is the unconditional autocongratulation (sorry for the frenchism) when it doesn't seems so marvelous.
Working there, IMHO, is no more demanding than any other company.
There are no bonus', the salary is just raised - the average pay for engineers at Netflix is something like $200k which is fairly competitive to the "total compensation" from other employers.
I might be wrong here, but being treated like an adult, a very liberal vacation policy, and 100% support for anything and everything I need to do my job; are more valuable than what most people consider perks...
And they're certainly not a "uncle scrooge" culture - I've never once had to justify a purchase and as far as I can tell unless you're asking for something odd or fairly expensive (>5k or so) manager approval isn't even needed.
Anyone's experience at Netflix is going to be heavily influenced by their manager, and sadly, Netflix doesn't seem to be much better than any other company at finding or growing good managers.
> Working at Netflix seems to be a very demanding experience. Will you say that Netflix balance this demand ? In which way ?
It is demanding, but management sets a good example of taking time off and allowing for a work/life balance. If you're there at 6pm on a weekday, the building is 1/2 empty and by 7pm almost no one is around. People do not work crazy hours.
Also, for the most part, no one is around for the next two weeks, other than being on call for critical issues.
As for the no bonuses and perks, that is deceiving. Yes it is true, but instead they pay us what they would spend on those perks. Then we can chose to spend it on that or anything else.
Also, there are no official perks, but management is really good about celebrating wins and making sure we feel appreciated.
And thank you mackwic. I appreciate seeing "thank you" comments, especially when they specify what they liked/disliked about the parent post. HN could use some more of the civility and appreciation that you exemplify. =)
> The idea being, you don't make friends at work because you might have to fire that person one day.
This sounds sort of like a culture built around having lots of temporary contractors around; or perhaps employees who are treated as temporary contractors.
This had two side affects.
1) People were afraid of being fired. You could come in one day and be sent home that afternoon without ever having any idea that you were under-performing. You'll hear Netflix employees talk about the "Culture of Fear".
2) In a meeting with my team Patty said "We are your co-workers, not your friends." `The idea being, you don't make friends at work because you might have to fire that person one day. It was really strange, people were very guarded and almost never talked about their lives outside of work.
PIPs protect employees from the constant fear of being fired. They require managers to give an employee negative feedback. Without them, managers can take the easy route and never have the uncomfortable conversations.
#2 made life really hard at Netflix. The majority of my friends come from my co-workers. You spend more time with them than most other people in your life. Some teams ignored the company culture and became close friends anyway. I think the correct thing to do here is to expect your managers to be adults and do the hard thing. Fire your friend.