Ask HN: Where to go after giving up on big growth-obsessed tech companies? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Where to go after giving up on big growth-obsessed tech companies?

10 pointspickledish15 comments

Hello HN!

My name's Brandon, 27, USA, been in the tech biz since graduating college (so 5 years now).

Last month, I quit my job. Big public tech company, great compensation and benefits and snacks and all that, but realized it was really not my bag by my third year there. The set of individual incentives at any company so large can lead to irresponsible or nonsensical roadmaps, taken-advantage-of coworkers, etc -- by the end I was left frustrated and sad most days. I'm happy to say I'm taking a few months off now.

But, I love making software and want to get back into it soon! So the next question is, "if not that, then what"?

The short version is, I want to work somewhere I can feel good about. Somewhere every worker is treated with respect, and we actively cull sprouts of "political" or egotistical behavior -- a place that prioritizes transparency, trust, and psychological safety over revenue growth. For me (and hopefully some others), that's the catalyst for feeling motivated and responsible to deliver excellent work.

(and please no cynical comments like "good luck finding a business that puts culture over money, i.e. its own reason for existing" -- yes, I know what I'm looking for is not the norm, that's why I wanted to try casting a wide net here on HN, thank you!)

So, I figure this immediately rules out public companies. Them having the constant pressure (a legal obligation?) to put shareholder interest above everything else. Besides -- it seems hard to get such a large group of people with similar-enough values all working towards the same goal anyways.

I think it actually also rules out most startups. They take VC money, and are then beholden to those VCs just like a public company is beholden to shareholders -- growth at any cost. Bootstrapped startups could be OK, but those are pretty rare.

Maybe worker-owned tech companies would be a solution? But those are even more rare than bootstrapped ones as I understand it, at least in the US?

Anyways -- as you can see my ideas are pretty scattered when it comes to "where can I find what I'm looking for"! If anyone here has had similar thoughts, or wanted something like this and did something about it, I'd love to hear about your experiences :)

Thanks!

There are 4 basic options imo:

1. Start your own company - the hardest and most stressful option by miles, but most potentially rewarding.

2. Work for a startup - smaller team, greater impact, less "politics" but a greater risk of being a complete shitshow

3. Public tech company - What you did, didn't like it, most of these companies seem to be about the same now, what matters is the local management and product area's importance to the company

4. Public nontech company - The worst, tech is either seen as cost center and burden, or it's the CEO's pet project that no one understands and you're basically being paid to be a magician because the CEO read something in Harvard business review that your specialization is the future of their industry or something.

I think you should go for 2 personally, but if you have a business idea that you believe in, 1 is the best. In both cases you may realize that 3 is actually the best option for you, but not today.

Good luck!

Ah this is a good rundown! Yeah, I actually worked at a 2 for a couple years before the most recent 3, it surprisingly had a lot of the same traits that I didn't like, but it was still pretty large (50-100 people) so maybe I just need to go smaller! Thank you for the well wishes :)

I would look into smaller companies that make niche products. Specifically, niche products that are a) used in boring business-case scenarios and b) have no real potential for absurd growth rates. Things like WordPress plugins, code text editors, or billing software for plumbers.

In my experience, smaller, profitable companies like this have more of what you're looking for. Often times, they only have a few full-time staff other than the founder, so they tend to fly under the radar.

Hm, this seems like a good idea I hadn't considered! Specifically companies with "low ceilings", yeah this makes a lot of sense, and I can totally imagine how they'd go a lot better internally than more ambitious ones.

> so they tend to fly under the radar

Though, I wonder how to work with this -- there's probably no central place to find these kinds of businesses :P still, I will look into it for sure, thanks for the comment!

Indie Hackers and MicroConf might be good places to look. Presumably most are solo developers or small teams.

Why not look at mid-size private companies?

I've worked for every type of employer: public companies, government contracts, and all size of private company. Mid-size private companies (between 100 and 10,000 people) seems to be the sweet spot in terms of culture.

Ah thanks, it's great hearing your perspective!

Interestingly, I think my most recent company fits into that range, they're about 5,000 now I believe. Though only about 1,000 when I joined; even in such a short time the change in culture was pretty hard to miss. And 10,000 just sounds massive to me!

Anyways -- it's interesting, there may be companies in that range with cultures that are good TODAY, but you have to have really solid leadership that you can trust to make sure nothing perverse sneaks in TOMORROW, you know? Definitely they are out there, it's just finding them that's the hard part, perhaps

(part of me wishes I could help in that crusade, but at that point I'm either joining a 10-person business or starting my own thing I guess, lol)

> And 10,000 just sounds massive to me!

The smallest company I worked at was 7 people and the largest was 80,000. I like a certain level of professionalism (distance from personal life) in my work, so startups aren't really for me. Past 10,000 people, the entire operation is run by bean counters and nothing you do has any effect on the company's success.

> Anyways -- it's interesting, there may be companies in that range with cultures that are good TODAY, but you have to have really solid leadership that you can trust to make sure nothing perverse sneaks in TOMORROW, you know? Definitely they are out there, it's just finding them that's the hard part, perhaps

Everything is always changing year by year. You'd be surprised how much can change on a team in three months after a simple change of senior manager.

The solution is: create your own company, and form it exactly the way you want it to be. Or simply be a 1-person company and freelance: treat yourself good, and bill expensive hours. Two birds, one stone.

Oh yeah, totally -- this has been on my mind a bit! It definitely would help solve my issues though I'm afraid I don't have an entrepreneurial bone in my body, lol. Still, I think it's a challenge I'd be up to, at least if I can find somebody to do it with (have to say I've always been a bit wary of those cofounder-matching sites)

I found that I really enjoy being the "local wizard" at a smaller company. Right now I'm applying tech skills as a webmaster. My website helps people with the local immigration system. I mostly use programming to support the content with useful calculators.

I fell in love with programming again. I really get to express myself with code instead of using it as a small cog in a big machine.

You're not going to find your ideals but you can get closer. There exist software engineering teams in billion or million dollar businesses where the primary product is physical. Manufacturing, infrastructure, and robotics. You might have to come out of the cloud and get closer to the iron, but that's my recommendation.

Hmm, that is an interesting point I hadn't considered! I've heard sometimes that places like that (tech inside a non-tech company) can be not-great to work at, since you're often viewed as just a cost center to the business -- BUT, I bet it's true that you'd also avoid some of the bad-incentives or ladder-climbers since the main money and prestige is elsewhere in the company, I suppose

Thank you for the idea!

Look for Bootstrapped smaller tech companies (5-100 or less employees). You would still have interesting challenges but bootstrapped companies usually have less pressure to grow at a certain rate as long as they are profitable which they should be at that scale.

Companies like these do exist. I think if you looks for smaller companies, bootstrapped companies, and/or companies that are run by their founders who managed to retain control and valued culture you'll find folks who are more values driven.

At some level though, you need management to be focused enough on revenue to keep the lights on, and make sure you are getting raises and career progression. (I do think like many posters have mentioned, there are teams within bigger companies that are values driven with good management that shields ICs from the bigger org challenges -- until they don't)

The incentives do change when outside money is involved.

A few ideas:

- Companies that serve values driven industries (gov, nonprofits, medical)

- B-corps

- Bootstrapped Companies

- Higher Education / Research Labs

Some examples:

- https://www.olark.com/values (company I founded - which fits your target, but isn't currently hiring)

- https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/find-a-b-corp/

- https://smallgiants.org/

- https://www.usworker.coop/directory/

My guess is smaller companies in general will have less politics and more autonomy.

If I were in your shoes I'd take a look at:

- https://buffer.com/journey (founder retained enough control to drive culture)

- https://automattic.com/work-with-us/ (I've always admired wordpress and the team behind it, they've been customers multiple times and they've been a joy to work with)

- https://careers.peopleclick.com/careerscp/client_mit/externa... (I am a former academic, the pay isn't great, but lots of cool problems to work on, search for "media lab", teams are small enough politics is likely less of an issue)

fun problem to solve, I am curious where you'll land.

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