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Maggie Shiels

Workplace porn or career karma?

  • Maggie Shiels
  • 18 Jun 08, 20:40 GMT

If you crave a job in Silicon Valley and think coming to work for one of the premier companies like Apple, Google, Yahoo or Microsoft will result in untold riches and happiness, then think again.

Let's get to the money part first.

Engineers at Google rake in an average of $113,000 (£58,000) including compensation, while over at Microsoft and Yahoo it's around $106,000 (£54,000). The penny pinchers in this equation are Apple, who pays its engineers a measly $89,000 (£45,000).Google canteen

Still I suppose the Apple crew do get to work on some of the coolest products on planet earth, and I am guessing they get a good employee discount to boot.

All this information is courtesy of workers at these firms who have anonymously lifted the lid on the sacrosanct topic of their wage slip. And they are sharing this with the world via a new website that has just recently gone live called Glassdoor.com.

GlassdoorThe aim of the site is to provide information about everything from career opportunities to management culture and from salary to what the boss is like.

Jerry Yang, post-Microsoft, is having a tawdry time in the approval ratings. To date he scores a dismal 46% compared to his nemesis, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, at 55%.

The mission, says Glassdoor, is to "bring more transparency to the workplace so that everyone has the information needed to make better career decisions."

I think if you are a top notch engineer considering a move to Silicon Valley you would be mightily depressed by these salaries. So perhaps in this case, ignorance is bliss because it would allow you to go to a company with real conviction demanding the heavens.

On the other hand, I guess human resources will love it because they can keep expectations low.

But hey, it's not all about the dollars and cents. What about career satisfaction and development?

Let's look at what is being said about Google, which comes out top in survey after survey as one of the most desired places to work.

One review is titled "Awesome culture, bad management". Another says "Fun at first, frustrating in the long run". Uh oh!

Someone else carps that "Google is deteriorating at the edges" while someone else really goes for the solar plexus by noting "Google: an elitist's playground". Ouch!

There are positive reviews but they aren't as much fun as, say, that last posting from a past employee which goes on to say: "If you enjoy your individuality and time alone, Google is not the place for you. Google pushes a highly 'Googley' atmosphere, which is something akin to what the Brady Bunch would be if they lived in Communist Russia.

"People are encouraged to have Googley attitudes, wear plastic smiles, and not to question the infallible nature of the executive management group."

Okay, enough vitriol! But, man, don't you just love reading this stuff? And that's why Forbes has dubbed the site "Workplace porn".

It's car crash rubber necking at its best.

But love it or hate it, it seems to be a runaway success if the numbers are to be believed: 32,000 reviews covering nearly 7,000 companies from people in 165 countries and 1.2m page views on day one.

Impressive stuff, but should we care? Well, that rather depends on whether or not you are looking to work at any of these companies. CEO Robert Hohman, formerly President of Hotwire, makes a good point for the need for Glassdoor.

"Google serves up 15.4m sites with reviews for the iPhone, yet I can't find a good site that can tell me what it's really like to work for Apple."

He can now because the reviews of Apple vary from "Awesome company" to "Dead end career".

The issue of course comes with trusting what you read on the site. Mr Hohman claims that every effort is made to verify the anonymous reviewers are bone fide and that actually "We're rejecting one or two out of every 10 reviews because they violate our community guidelines in some way, are clearly bogus, or it's someone trying to post duplicates."

Hm, that seems quite high to me and given the recent volume of reviews, it might seem wise to read some of the extremely gushing or caustic ones with a healthy bit of scepticism.

And just to prove it's not all about negativity, the company is actually offering reviewers $500 for the most thoughtful posting.

The winner first time out is someone who works for Netflix and writes that the company is all about "Freedom and responsibility. You're treated like an adult. You're part of a pro team that is highly functioning. You matter."

As for advice for senior management, the reviewer writes "I have none. Senior management is fantastic, smart, focused and led by example."

Now, depending on how cynical you are, you are either looking up Netflix's phone number or asking for someone to pass the sick bag.

Rory Cellan-Jones

Good at games?

  • Rory Cellan-Jones
  • 18 Jun 08, 15:24 GMT

Is the UK good at games - by which I mean the likes of Grand Theft Auto rather than the 100 metres? The answer is definitely yes - this has been the birthplace of some of the great games franchises including GTA.

So why then are games firms in such a grumpy mood about the challenge of doing business in the UK? What's their beef? Too little government support and too few smart people who want to work in the industry.

Well I've yet to meet an industry that isn't holding out its hat for a government bung - but surely the games business can't have a recruitment problem?

The trouble, as I found out on a visit to the Ubisoft Reflections studio in Newcastle, is that there is a mismatch between the demands of the games industry and the skills of the eager hordes of aspiring employees now emerging from university games courses.

At Ubisoft's studio atop a funky office building overlooking the Tyne Bridge I found just what I'd expected - a roomful of young almost exclusively male staff (one woman in a team of 107) who looked as though they spent just a little too much time on the Xbox or PS3.

Ubisoft work their magic on RoryBut when I talked to them I found that advanced computing and mathematical skills, rather than just a love of games were the key to a job here. True, those who worked in games design and animation (they set to work turning me into a character in their new Driver game) were more likely to come from an arts background, rather than being programmers.

But the engineers who actually make new games work on ever more advanced consoles now need high-level programming skills. Craig Braithwaite, who interrupted his work on programming the movement of characters inside a car to talk to me, was one of the lucky few to emerge from a university course and get a job in the industry. But he said his course had been tough, full of maths, and anyone who wanted to make the grade had to knuckle down.

The industry's Games Up? campaign believes most games courses just aren't fit for purpose. The campaign doesn't use the term "Mickey Mouse" to describe the 80 odd computer games degree courses at British universities - but it's clear most are regarded with contempt. "They're designed just to get bums on seats," according to Ian Livingstone, the creative director of Eidos.

At Northumbria University they do run a serious computer games engineering course and require aspiring students to have an A-level in maths. Dan Hodgson, who runs the course, told me that puts many off - and the decline in the study of maths and physics at A-level is a headache when it comes to finding suitable applicants.

There is good news in all this. For years, young people who have been lectured about the importance of studying maths and physics have responded with some justification that the decline of British industry means there are no decent job prospects for graduates in those subjects. Now there is a thriving and exciting industry crying out for their skills. As the Americans say, just do the math.

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