For those without showdead on; it seems that Brian (not-D) Foy was hellbanned for his comments.
It seems obvious that he is a disgruntled ex-employee so you should take his statements with a grain of salt, but since I don't see any reason for hellbanning him for that (maybe he got too many flags?,) so I'm reposting them there.
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I am not Brian D Foy so stop maligning his name. Brian D Foy doesn't work for Booking and he never has.
Booking tries to keep the big names you mentioned happy so that they don't spill the beans. These names get the best development projects and the big money. One of their job responsibilities as a senior developer is to advertise and say good things about the company. I concur with you that they play this game well. In fact open praise in developer forums about the company is a sure way to land good bonus.
They make tonnes of money but none of that is shared with the developers although they put up with the grunge work of fixing one of the worst Perl code in the industry patched up by people who left in a hurry.
I speak for those who are going to leave their family, friends at home with the hopes that they would be doing good work based on the big names working there only to find that the reality is totally different.
The treatment meted out to the rest of the developers is shameful and you know it and the Perl blog mentions all the pain points.
The expats do not know the local employment laws of Netherlands and Booking.com fully exploits this to the hilt.
And the truth can be found out easily from people who left the company and who currently do not get a direct/indirect monetary benefit of saying good things about the company, and given that you are recruiting for them and get approximately thousand Euro atleast for every successful lead, it disqualifies you.
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The Netherlands has employee friendly policies. After three years in a company, employees automatically get an "indefinite" contract. An "indefinite" contract ensures that the employer cannot kick out the employee on a whim unlike in the US.
Good Dutch companies give out indefinite contract to the expats at the beginning of their employment itself but not Booking.com.
Booking.com gives out a 1 year contract to start with and after every 2 years kicks out its developers and gets new ones. So the frequent hiring you see is one of the side-effects of this cheap policy. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the big names Curtis "Ovid" Poe mentioned jumps on this mailing list to say - "not me", but the truth is this is their cheap game.
So after two years the delta of ones career capital can be summed up as:
1. experience in copy pasting code and cargo culting which would translate to nothing when you try out for another job.
2. no monetary benefit. Booking has the most underpaid developers in the industry. Those bonuses they promise never come. Given how expensive Amsterdam is, one wouldn't have saved up a penny after two years and if you have a family you might end up in debt.
In short one is ruining his/her best two years without any increase in career capital or monetary standing.
It seems obvious that he is a disgruntled ex-employee so you should take his statements with a grain of salt, but since I don't see any reason for hellbanning him for that (maybe he got too many flags?,) so I'm reposting them there.
------------
I am not Brian D Foy so stop maligning his name. Brian D Foy doesn't work for Booking and he never has.
Booking tries to keep the big names you mentioned happy so that they don't spill the beans. These names get the best development projects and the big money. One of their job responsibilities as a senior developer is to advertise and say good things about the company. I concur with you that they play this game well. In fact open praise in developer forums about the company is a sure way to land good bonus.
They make tonnes of money but none of that is shared with the developers although they put up with the grunge work of fixing one of the worst Perl code in the industry patched up by people who left in a hurry.
I speak for those who are going to leave their family, friends at home with the hopes that they would be doing good work based on the big names working there only to find that the reality is totally different.
The treatment meted out to the rest of the developers is shameful and you know it and the Perl blog mentions all the pain points.
The expats do not know the local employment laws of Netherlands and Booking.com fully exploits this to the hilt.
And the truth can be found out easily from people who left the company and who currently do not get a direct/indirect monetary benefit of saying good things about the company, and given that you are recruiting for them and get approximately thousand Euro atleast for every successful lead, it disqualifies you.
------------
The Netherlands has employee friendly policies. After three years in a company, employees automatically get an "indefinite" contract. An "indefinite" contract ensures that the employer cannot kick out the employee on a whim unlike in the US.
Good Dutch companies give out indefinite contract to the expats at the beginning of their employment itself but not Booking.com.
Booking.com gives out a 1 year contract to start with and after every 2 years kicks out its developers and gets new ones. So the frequent hiring you see is one of the side-effects of this cheap policy. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the big names Curtis "Ovid" Poe mentioned jumps on this mailing list to say - "not me", but the truth is this is their cheap game.
So after two years the delta of ones career capital can be summed up as:
1. experience in copy pasting code and cargo culting which would translate to nothing when you try out for another job.
2. no monetary benefit. Booking has the most underpaid developers in the industry. Those bonuses they promise never come. Given how expensive Amsterdam is, one wouldn't have saved up a penny after two years and if you have a family you might end up in debt.
In short one is ruining his/her best two years without any increase in career capital or monetary standing.