I understand what you say about motivation, but I don't think Netflix is about that. My belief is that they expect you to be intrinsically excited about working there - because you are a professional adult. You should already be learning on your own and already "self-actualized". Paying you well just validates what they believe you should be.
Not all companies are like that, and that's why working at Netflix takes a bit of a mindset re-org.
I think we are coming from the same place but I am not sure I agree with "you should already be learning on your own and already "self actualized."
I think the work place is one place of many where you can grow and prove yourself. It's a great place to learn new things, test your theories and be creative. A company should nurture that.
My guess would be a few months but I don't have any hard evidence on hand. Based on my limited experience, I wouldn't put the duration at more than a year.
Actually this is the opposite of what you're suggesting. Working for Netflix doesn't require that you sacrifice a work/life balance. Implicit is the agreement that you'll perform up to the standard that is expected of you, but from what I've seen, most people here can handle it admirably.
Working for Netflix doesn't require that you sacrifice a work/life balance.
Well, yeah, it pretty much does, if the company actually follows the personnel-retention guidelines in that slide deck. Your work at such a company is graded on a curve, whether you like it or not, and if you don't outperform your peers, you end up looking "only adequate." Meanwhile, your peers are talented twenty-something kids who cheerfully work 60-hour weeks, and you're not going to be able to keep up for long since there's going to be (again, presumably, under the stated guidelines) fresh meat coming in all the time.
As my other comment to elq pointed out, this seems a bit OTT for a company whose mission is, at the end of the day, to mail out a bunch of DVDs without screwing up too much. It's more like selling sugar water than changing the world, and I'm not sure I see the point in killing yourself for it.
I think the reason you're hired is because they think you can perform at the same level of said peers. And you accept the job because you think you can. And want to.
I'd say the average employee age skews towards 35+. No young whipper-snappers here! Except for a few :) Most everyone seems to have a family they need to take care of, which means leaving early some days.
Mailing out DVDs is big business! You have no idea how important Netflix is to people's happiness. I think that's closer to changing the world than most other companies. Just do a search of Netflix on twitter and you'll see what I mean.
You have no idea how important Netflix is to people's happiness.
As a longtime customer, I do indeed. :-P Pretty damn reliable service, actually.
The last Netflix error I experienced was when you sent me a fourth disc for some reason. An advanced AI would have recognized that He's Just Not That Into You doesn't go well with Park Chan-Wook's Vengeance Trilogy. /grumble
"your peers are talented twenty-something kids who cheerfully work 60-hour weeks"
Personally I've found, and read research to the effect, that the difference between skilled/knowledgeable coders can be up to 10x in efficiency. If you're a talented older guy with a family and such, then you should've put in the 60-hour work weeks when you were twenty-something, such that your knowledge and talent at your current age means you don't need to work 60 hours to accomplish the same goals.
If you weren't a talented twenty-something, and didn't work your butt off, then you're most likely not a talented forty-something, and thus won't fit in the Netflix firm anyway.
Doesn't sound like you're competing against your peers so much as you're competing against the market. Outperform the market, do fine. That doesn't sound too tough to me; talented, motivated people are always in short supply.
Makes me wish they were hiring in a city where I wanted to live.
From Wikipedia:
From time to time, the term "cargo cult" is invoked as an English language idiom to mean any group of people who imitate the superficial exterior of a process or system without having any understanding of the underlying substance. The error of logic made by the islanders consisted of mistaking a necessary condition (i.e., building airstrips, control towers, etc.) for cargo to come flying in, for a sufficient condition for cargo to come flying in, thereby reversing the causation. On a lower level, they repeated the same error by e.g. mistaking the necessary condition (i.e. build something that looks like a control tower) for building a control tower, for a sufficient condition for building a control tower.
I thought from the first paragraph the article was going to talk about how H1-Bs can start their own company but really it was about how startups can hire H1-Bs. Well, I'm already in that situation so it's not of much use to me.
I think most H1-Bs think that they have to stick with the same company for years until their green cards get approved. Well, that's not really true. It didn't seem too risky to transfer my H1-B to my second company when I had to. And when I needed to move to my current company, I could even transfer my green card application because the AC21 rules state that if my I-485 has been in processed for 6 months (or something like that), I could transfer that too. What all this means is that I don't think H1-Bs are beholden to the companies they are currently at. They can switch if their new companies are willing to process the legal documents for them. And even if they can't pay the fees, it shouldn't amount to too much (~$1k).
I too am on an H1-B, and as far as I know, what you say is true. Once your I-485 has been approved for a period of 6 months or longer, you can move companies, though from what I hear, it raises a few questions when it comes for the INS to finally approve your petition.
