Ask HN: Have you ever taken (or not) a job mainly due to the company's mission?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15026945

by raybb • 9 years ago

39 44 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

bandrami2• 9 years ago

Sure, several times. I've mostly done ops for the nonprofit sector so it's a little easier (I'm in avtech right now for rea$on$, but most of my career has been nonprofit).

Now, I live in DC so this is a lot easier for me than for people who live in other cities. But K Street and Old Town are chock full of Societies for the Advancement of Whatever, who always need technical work done, and there's rarely a problem finding a "Whatever" that you believe in (or just think is cool).

A few thoughts on this:

1. The "cool" factor should not be underestimated. One of my favorite jobs was sysadmining at Mount Vernon; it's not that I particularly believe in George Washington, but that is a mission that is undeniably "cool".

2. You will not make remotely as much money as you will in the for-profit sector (see above), but you'll have a much better quality of life. I spent years as a sysadmin without a pager, because they really don't care if the server goes down overnight. You will also (in my experience) have a much freer hand with what you do than you do in a tech company. If their brief is lobbying for human rights, they neither know nor care what stack you use to implement their intranet.

3. Org work has a very specific annual rhythm that you need to understand to work with. Every year there's a conference, a publication of some sort, and a membership drive; each of those is an "all-hands-on-deck" situation that lasts about a fiscal quarter (and you probably will be stuffing envelopes and manning a booth and checking people in). That leaves you one quarter per year for infrastructure work. Use it wisely.

raybb5• 9 years ago

Have you found it a challenge at all (as far as getting jobs) to move between the nonprofit and private sector?

Did you start out with nonprofits or move to nonprofits later in your career?

bandrami2• 9 years ago

Not really; the big barrier is between tech companies and non-tech companies. Once you leave the tech world it can be harder to get back in.

Again, as a sysadmin my experience is probably different from a developer's: every industry needs sysadmins, and in a lot of smaller places you'll literally be the only IT employee other than possibly a CIO.

Raphmedia2• 9 years ago

No but I have left a company due to the lack of vision and mission.

raybb5• 9 years ago

Care to elaborate on that?

Raphmedia2• 9 years ago

You can only work so long with the motivation of "the company will make more money".

The company I am at right now has a clear vision and a clear mission. I find myself a lot more motivated.

AnimalMuppet• 9 years ago

I'm not the person you're asking, but I'll throw in my two cents. If they don't have a mission, they're probably going to have trouble doing something that anyone cares about enough to pay them for.

megamindbrian• 9 years ago

I avoid feeling like a middle man. I want to provide services to people. I turn down stupid startup ideas every day.

paulgb• 9 years ago

Yes. The one that comes to mind most prominently is Palantir.

Dodged a bullet there, considering that those options would probably be underwater.

mattnewport2• 9 years ago

It usually doesn't get that far - I've turned down interviews at companies I wouldn't work for because of their mission (an Apple recruiter for example who contacted me through a referral from a former colleague). If I'm that opposed to a company's mission or business practices that I'd turn down a job offer I'm probably not even going to waste my time interviewing.

raybb5• 9 years ago

Is a company's mission a big part of what you look at when you're looking at a potential employer? Have you ever sought out a job because of the company's mission?

alexbanks• 9 years ago

I'm not the person you're responding to, but I have, and will continue to assess a company's "mission" before working there. I also look for companies in my community that I'd be exceptionally happy to work for from a mission standpoint.

It's way easier to be passionate about your work when you're doing it for something you really believe in.

mattnewport2• 9 years ago

It's a fairly important factor, there's quite a few companies I'd be unlikely to work for due to qualms about how they operate. There's others I'd be more inclined to work for because of their mission. Ultimately the work has to be engaging though, I'm unlikely to take a job working on something that doesn't interest me just because I believe in the company's mission.

goodroot• 9 years ago

I have passed on many opportunities. Without a lucid mission and vision, what is the company doing? If my heart isn't in full alignment with the organization, why am I committing a large chunk of my waking life to furthering their goals? Our dance on this earth is too short to commit your health, talent, and wisdom to something you don't believe in.

Can you share the circumstance that you're mulling over? Good paycheque, ambiguous plan?

raybb5• 9 years ago

I've been reading this Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble and it just kinda got me thinking about the topic in general.

There's no special circumstance that's prompting me to ask this question. It was something I thought about and was surprised that there were no HN discussions about it.

We see a lot of posts here about culture fit, compensation, and perks but I wonder how many people go to a company because they believe in the mission of a company.

snowAbstraction• 9 years ago

I almost signed at a software company working with interesting maintenance optimization for big machines, like trains or helicopters. Up until the final meeting with the CEO, I was promised that I could stay out of the military applications. But the CEO luckily told me that actually I could not be avoid those applications. So I politely said that I would being declining the offer and that I was disappointed that lower staffs and bosses mislead me.

xemdetia• 9 years ago

Yes, if you don't believe in the mission or at least think it is a good idea you aren't going to do well there as some place where you do. It's a lot easier to do that much more even in a 9-5 role when you don't have to spend effort trying to make sense of what is going on. It's the same as on the other side of the hiring equation saying someone is a 'bad fit' for the work you had planned for them.

here_comes_pork• 9 years ago

I don't work for fossil fuel companies, or companies that do heavy business with them. Along the same lines I would love to find a job with a company in the green energy/sustainability business. Problem is that there don't seem to be a ton of options for the kind of coding I do...

atwong• 9 years ago

Maybe not 100% but it did influence the decision on working for an open source company.

doktrin• 9 years ago

Yes, most notably to work on a microfinance platform. I believed in the social mission and the model's viability.

As for the inverse, I've avoided many large tech companies because I felt they broadly lacked a mission.

I don't regret following my proverbial heart from time to time, but I do actually regret not trying out one of the tech giants while I was still in the US - some domains and problem spaces are hard to work on elsewhere, Greater Mission (tm) or no.

smoe• 9 years ago

I have quit a job mostly because of the unofficial but clearly visible mission change.

So far I haven't taken a job because of a specific mission (I'm happy as long there actually is one beyond a sales pitch), but denied or ignored offers from companies where I would have moral problems with what their doing.

rnprince• 9 years ago

I once joined a successful, for-profit, private company, because I liked its mission, despite being offered lower compensation and benefits than I could have accepted elsewhere. This was very naive of me, and didn't turn out how I had hoped at all.

It turned out that the mission was more of a very well executed recruiting and sales strategy than what I felt every day at the organization. Looking back, the recruiting effort talked about their culture and values so much that I should have known they were very insecure about something. The lower compensation wasn't required by the company's financials from what I could tell, nor was it made up for by especially meaningful work. Unsurprisingly, the organizational flaws of not valuing employees and cutting corners also showed up in other ways, most painfully in the form of amazingly bad code and hostile managers. The job was unbearable for me, as well as for many others.

I think the takeaway is that honest, successful companies should be willing to fairly compensate their employees. If a company can do that but doesn't, you should reconsider working there.

vandahm• 9 years ago

I worked as a software developer at a nonprofit for four years, mostly because of the organization's mission. It didn't pay nearly as well as the for-profit sector, but the job had quality-of-life advantages that mostly offset that.

The nonprofit sector has its share of frustrations. Nonprofits are subject to auditing requirements that restrict them from doing things that we take for granted in the for-profit sector, and fundraising campaigns were always really stressful. But, by and large, it was four years of productive, meaningful, good-quality work.

bsvalley• 9 years ago

Nope. It's like VC's... They always bet on a team rather than an idea. With great people, you usually do great things.

hprotagonist• 9 years ago

You know the scene near the end of "Real Genius", when the team realizes they've been duped and Chris screams "Kent, how could you build that mirror?!"?

I ask myself that question before taking a job, so that nobody else will be able to.

SAI_Peregrinus2• 9 years ago

I've done (and will continue to do) volunteer work on the side. That's often a part-time job (20 hrs/wk) taken entirely due to the mission of the organization.

raybb5• 9 years ago

Willing to share any of the organizations you've enjoyed volunteering for?

SAI_Peregrinus2• 9 years ago

Freeflight, an exotic bird sanctuary in San Diego. I like birds, they can be very friendly animals.

The Los Angeles Maritime Institute. I'm a member of the International Guild of Knot Tyers, I like knots and ropework, so helping out with the maintenance of the tall ships was a great experience.

That brings up an added benefit of volunteer work: it doesn't need to have any relation to your day job.

MollyR• 9 years ago

Yea, I tend to avoid companies that pretend to be about something other than making money.

Its mainly for practical reasons, they tend to pay less.

mrwnmonm• 9 years ago

This is funny :)

tiggybear• 9 years ago

They also tend to value transparency more, IMO.

itamarst• 9 years ago

Yes.

1. I want to be working on helping scientists, and this influenced current job search. Beyond personal satisfaction, this also has practical benefits: all things being equal, if you're motivated by the company's mission you'll be more focused (more at https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/08/03/stay-focused/).

2. There are jobs I simply won't take, because I think they're immoral or unethical. Other jobs I'd probably only take if I was desperate for money, since they seem pointless. (more at https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/08/07/do-something-useful/).

That being said:

* If you're bored, you will enjoy your job less.

* If you're working crazy long hours, you're actively undermining your ability to do your job. Doesn't matter how important it is, working longer won't actually help. (more at https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/18/productive-programme...)

So basically, my take is: finding someplace that you think is worthwhile and is a good work environment. Any, of course, pays you what you need. Living below your means can give you more flexibility in what jobs you need to take.

Caveman_Coder• 9 years ago

Yes. If the company has too much corporate bullshit marketing talk.

Also, I've found that the more a company talks about how great their "culture" is, the shitty it is in actual practice.

rleigh• 9 years ago

Absolutely. My current position was carefully chosen (academic open source software development) for this reason. I did interview with some other companies, including ARM and Google. I could have definitely taken their offer and worked for ARM on Aarch64 toolchain stuff, which was also all open source software work. I would not have taken up a position with Google; its goals are not aligned with my own, no matter how much they might have paid.

nasalgoat2• 9 years ago

In a healthy job market, it's fairly easy to go beyond just salary and duties and decide based on more esoteric reasons whether to join a company or not.

I once turned down a job that paid more than another one because they wanted me to wear a tie.

palerdot• 9 years ago

That is hilarious. Did you inform the company on why you were not joining?

nasalgoat2• 9 years ago

No, it was an investment firm, they weren't super interested in feedback.

bradhe2• 9 years ago

I left a job due to it's mission. I worked for a (very, very large) adtech exchange. Their motto was "we keep the internet free." I couldn't reconcile the fact that 80% of engineers used ad blocker while working on the technology it fought against.

quickthrower2• 9 years ago

Free as in beer, but not free as in free from annoying ads!

bradhe2• 9 years ago

The former!

jamesmishra• 9 years ago

Yes! When I was interviewing at Uber in 2014, I wasn't truly interested until my interviewer mentioned that Uber reduces the drunk driving rate after it launches in a city[1].

(Later on, other studies[2] have cast doubt on the earlier findings, but from a mission perspective, I found that the employees really care about the drunk driving problem, and are proud to work on a product that can reduce the rate of drunk driving.)

[1] https://www.uber.com/blog/chicago/dui-rates-decline-in-uber-...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/business/uber-drunk-drivi...

ful09003• 9 years ago

Leaving my current employer and joining my next solely due to mission (plus a bit of culture). $current employer was recently acquired by a large multi-national "health/beauty eCommerce company" with an end goal to have complete domination in that sector. $next employer is focused on delivering a quality service to a specific audience (plus give back to that audience as much as possible). While it's asinine to assume that $next has no interest in expanding profit, the difference in mission and culture spawned from those missions is night and day to me. I've come to realize that if I am personally unable to reconcile a company's mission with my own interests and beliefs, I will eventually be unhappy regardless of the benefits they provide.

bkdonline• 9 years ago

I joined my current employer for their mission to provide mobile phones in local languages in India. Its a real contribution that helps user on the ground, but I quit after working for them for about eight months, after I realized that not only the localization was more of a marketing point, and that no real work on localization had happened in last two years, but also that people within the company were least bothered about the end product, and more about their own responsibilities. Everyone worked in silos, and management didn't give a damn about it. I am switching sides, and going from a pure server side role to a server side cum embedded systems role to try to change something in the electricity wastage problem.

So to sum up, my current job was taken because company had a mission. I quit it because they didn't stand by that mission in their day to day working. And I joined my next company due to their mission.

Ask HN: Have you ever taken (or not) a job mainly due to the company's mission?

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