Geek programmers "angry": FAANG technology giant's internal promotion mechanism is "killing" Kubernetes!

On April 7, geek programmer Noah Kantrowitz posted multiple tweets on social media slamming the "FAANG" technology giant's internal promotion mechanism for being unfriendly to Kubernetes full-time employees - "This kind of behavior that prevents developers from participating in open source contributions full-time. Incentives are killing Kubernetes".

Once the tweet was published, it attracted heated discussions among developers in the circle.

The so-called FAANGs originally referred to the five (now a bit broad) U.S. tech giants—Facebook, Apple AAPL, Amazon, Netflix, and Google parent Alphabet—who collectively have significant influence over the entire tech market.

Noah sent multiple tweets below the tweet, elaborating on the issue - because the mechanism within these tech giants determines "who gets promoted and who doesn't."

Because of this, it takes a considerable amount of time and effort for developers to complete promotion recommendation letters and continuous lobbying to promote themselves, and although the promotion process is not exactly the same everywhere, most FAANG-o-spheres have adopted a similar mode:

• Write a letter of introduction explaining why you should be promoted, including your "promotional kit"
• Have your manager submit the above to the committee
• wait
• Maybe new opportunities

So, in this way, the maintainer base of the Kubernetes technical community will face the problem of "rapid shrinkage", because most of the developer technical staff start to work on "how to achieve high-paying promotion".... lower than the entire technical circle, this is Not a sustainable situation.

In his tweet, Noah emphasized that in addition to the above problems, "the huge external incentive pressure that we can't control", this is by far the biggest problem, "Honestly, I don't see any solution."

“If you are on a FAANG promo committee, think long and hard about how you've valued this kind of work, please. I don't know what to say to the rest of us though. I normally bang the drum of UBI and grant programs but neither is close to enough to sustain something at this scale.”

"If you're a member of the FAANG Outreach Committee, think carefully about how you value this kind of work. For me, I don't know what to say to other people. Usually, I advocate for UBI and bursary programs. , but neither is sufficient to sustain a project of this size.”

Noah believes that no company in this world should abandon users for the greater good. However, a recent new trend is to shift development time to single-vendor projects like Istio so that companies don't have to share control of direction and goals.

While this kind of work does benefit the company, it's pathetic! It is true that some people give up because of this and say "we should not develop open source Kubernetes, look at what little money is left on our table", but this is not the case.

As one of the most valued metrics for most businesses, the importance of attributable revenue is self-evident. But here in Kubernetes, there is little clear attribution of revenue.

As we all know, the benefits of participating in open source contributions have always been gradual, and this is what everyone involved in open source projects must accept. However, for open source technicians, maintaining open source projects has already consumed a lot of energy and time. If they do "promotion canvassing" and "self-recommendation" in the leadership every week, this is indeed a consumption.

"People have kids, all kinds of car loans and mortgages, and when most of these companies think it's a failure not to get promoted, and when everyone tells you not to, there's no reward for doing the right thing," Noah said. ......

"But know that all the revenue from hundreds or thousands of businesses exists because Kubernetes is a 'big tent' where everyone can build together community governance standards. Break it down into specific Suppliers' gadget kits are against their own interests."

Therefore, Noah hopes that everyone will find a way to reverse this trend. "I firmly believe that Kubernetes is a good technical foundation for future growth and an amazing community, and I hope to see it continue."

......

For Noah's remarks, many developers from the open source circle agreed. One of them commented "This is an outrageously good thread by a pillar in the k8s community that highlights an issue we've seen since at least 2020. "

Another said: "One of the things I really pushed for as an OSPOnaut is improving how #OpenSource work is recognized, rewarded, and contextualized in performance reviews. As a company, you cannot be a good open source citizen without doing this."

The general meaning of the comments is how an open source company should be an "open source citizen", among which, improving "the recognition, reward and contextualization of open source work in performance evaluation" is a top priority.

At present, the popularity of related topics about this tweet has continued to ferment on Twitter, and more and more developers and technicians have begun to pay attention and participate in it, and many people have thus gained a new understanding of the open source circle and Kubernetes. . What do you think about this? Welcome to discuss in the comment area.