118 points by jihadjihad 3 days ago | 130 comments
archeantus 3 days ago
I know so many amazing people that were doing the work of their lives that quit or were laid off because of the RTO mandate. I can’t believe that they are doubling down on this, despite the human and financial costs associated with it.
Ultimately it highlights an important fact about working at WM (and lots of other companies, I am sure): you aren’t as special or irreplaceable as you think you are. Look out for yourselves and do what makes sense for you, always!
Aurornis 3 days ago
The strange part is that all of the stories I've heard covered different time periods, often not overlapping. Off the top of my head I can think of 4 people I've run into at local meetups who went from thinking Walmart Labs was a great place to work, to having nothing good to say about the place at all.
It's natural for new jobs to have a honeymoon period that wears off over time, but I've heard this same story arc so many times that, as an outsider, it feels like something must be wrong with how they approach long-term employees. Obviously the RTO mandate is a huge blow to one of their original selling points, too.
awill 3 days ago
Then, as this part of the company grew, some bean counter decided it was a huge expense, and something had to be done.
I suspect these walmart labs people were costing triple the standard walmart webdev, and so to the bean counters, the path forward was obvious.
It's really unfortunate when non tech people make decisions like this. I've worked at a FAANG for 10 years, and before that was at HP and other mid-sized companies. HP's average principal engineer would be outperformed by our interns.
harrisi 3 days ago
Maybe that is what's happening, and management is just cycling through the same way the engineers are. Walmart does have plenty of money to relearn lessons every few years, but I also would be surprised for the same reason - they didn't find billions of dollars under a rock. They're good at making money. Making the same mistake with personnel repeatedly is not a good way to make money (or maybe it is, what do I know).
kev009 2 days ago
For a software engineer this does lead to some pear shaped decision making, like adopting new UI frameworks every few years, or whatever the case may be but these kinds of things are overall pretty benign compared to the same problem in the management of the business.
In the management of the business, the correct decision may be to stay the course on something a lot of outsiders and pundits and new grads want to pot shot and second guess like what industry you should even be in or how you should structure the company itself.
Let's say you are Visa and your transaction processing runs on IBM mainframes as an example. Everything is working with known parameters and risks, has a long and predictable roadmap, whatever. Being the guy that says "ok we are going to keep doing this for 10 years and evaluate again periodically if needed but this is the plan of record" takes massive guts, and should be paid at least as well as the guy that says "throw everything out and do this risky untested thing instead" but very few managements actually work like that.
The same waffling happens with remote vs RTO and either having the guts to make a particular stand or kowtowing to what you preceive to be the popular/prevailing opinion one ought to have as a CEO at this moment.
It can also lead directly to the situation you are describing where a decision keeps getting remade, perhaps even in a flip flop loop, to the benefit of multiple generations of "decision makers".
harrisi 2 days ago
Except, I don't even really agree with that. That's how companies treat employees all the time. Not just in software, but floor workers and warehouse folk and anything else.
kev009 2 days ago
delichon 3 days ago
slyall 3 days ago
We got a new CEO from Austin. They opened a new office there. Over the next few years they closed most of the other offices and stopped WFH.
datavirtue 2 days ago
neduma 2 days ago
red-iron-pine 2 days ago
kubectl_h 3 days ago
Aloisius 3 days ago
I'm a little confused as to why a company would pay bay area rates for remote workers given the higher competition for jobs.
OkayPhysicist 3 days ago
Living on a private island in the South Pacific is expensive, too, but most companies wouldn't pay a premium to employ you.
I'm not saying that if you pick two random software developers, one from Nebraska and the other from San Francisco, that the SF dev will always be better. I am saying that, if we track a population of 100 developers from Nebraska and SF, more of the top 20 devs from Nebraska than those in the bottom 20 are going to move to SF, and in the SF group more of the bottom quintile is going to leave than in the top quintile, leading to better median developers in the Bay.
Centigonal 3 days ago
Bentonville is a company town with not too much nearby. It's a nice enough place, with good schools, a few surrounding towns, and a fantastic art museum, but above all it's Walmart town. If you move there from another state and ever decide to work somewhere else, you're probably going to want to uproot your life again and move your family across the country. It's a great retention strategy for Walmart, and the lower CoL doesn't hurt either. If you prefer a more cosmopolitan lifestyle and the option to work elsewhere without moving, the Bentonville deal is a pretty unattractive one.
At least they've put windows in some of the office buildings now, that's a plus.
from-nibly 3 days ago
Centigonal 2 days ago
ahi 3 days ago
androiddrew 3 days ago
ahi 2 days ago
486sx33 2 days ago
Tostino 3 days ago
Companies need to be humbled a little with these policies they want to force.
awill 3 days ago
hparadiz 3 days ago
midnitewarrior 3 days ago
ian-g 3 days ago
datavirtue 2 days ago
I remember the 1990s when it was common to see the same baristas day after day for years. Everyone seemed to enjoy working there. It's a bleak, dystopian contrast as of late.
fragmede 3 days ago
sksxihve 3 days ago
olliej 2 days ago
sksxihve 2 days ago
> You will be eligible to use the Company aircraft for (i) business-related travel in accordance with the Company’s travel policy, (ii) travel between your city of residence and the Company’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington and (iii) your personal travel in accordance with the Company’s policies, up to a maximum amount of $250,000 per year, which amount will be based on the aggregate incremental cost to the Company.
His offer letter [1] is available on edgar
[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/829224/0001193125242...
EasyMark 2 days ago
red-iron-pine 2 days ago
You want me to move to Austin... Maybe. My wife and I could make it work, probably. Bentonville, AR? Nah.