Honestly, I think 40 direct reports is borderline insane. You can't effectively support that many people (as you note yourself). Speaking as the author of two of these READMEs, at Netflix I had at peak around 12 direct reports (one was a manager with his own reports) and at Slack I have 3 (all of whom manage their own teams).
(Hi, I'm Roy Rapoport -- the author of both slide decks).
Referring to the Netflix version of the slide deck as "the old version" of the Slack version of the slide deck is inaccurate. I'm in a somewhat unusual position amongst the people whose READMEs were quoted, because I got to write one from both sides of the fence: As the established person welcoming a new member to the team (Netflix), and as someone joining a new organization (Slack). READMEs, for me, then end up looking very different.
It's also worth noting, as geofft notes, that Slack's culture and Netflix's culture are very very different, so the concerns of people within them would be different (and should be addressed differently). The concern that you might be fired was pervasive for new people at Netflix, and I sought to alleviate it; it's not a commonly-held concern at Slack.
I would find a mandatory vacation to be intrusively big-brotherish and -- while I can't guarantee I wouldn't work at a place that required it -- it'd be an overall negative in my retention. I'm a fully-formed adult. How about letting me manage my time off?
It's not explicit, but as I noted above that generally ends up being the case. Most other managers here with whom I've talked consider tracking vacation usage ... suspect and worrisome. It feels icky, so we don't do it.
That's because I don't know of a single manager here who tracks vacation usage. There's a general allergy to doing that, because that can lead to trying to manage that number and then the 'unmetered vacation' is no longer so unmetered.
I suppose I could, for my people, try to find all the out of office notifications, but that'd be a silly level of effort.
(There's no consistent process across the board for dealing with vacations, but to the best of my knowledge the typical way this works -- and the way it works in my own group -- is that an engineer will at some point probably mention to me that they're taking days off casually. I try to make sure it's clear to them that they're not asking for permission, and then move on).
I'm a hiring manager at Netflix. If one of my employees told me "I'm going to take the year off, see you in a year," I'd basically go "OK, have a great time with your kids. Send us a picture every once in a while."
And then I'd backfill them. And when they got back, I'd have an extra engineer. Chances are by that point I'll be looking to expand the team anyway.
TFA says the policy is 1 year paid leave, with an option to work (toward promotion/bonus, i assume). not unlimited. Calling it unlimited is just nonsense.
"With this in mind, today we’re introducing an unlimited leave policy for new moms and dads that allows them to take off as much time as they want during the first year after a child’s birth or adoption."
Speaking as a hiring manager in a tech company here for a moment, I do find there's a shortage of reasonable people to consider. I found this thread because someone had pointed me at unemployable.pen.io and wanted to comment on it specifically, because having read that particular blog post, I started off thinking "man, that's someone I'd like to talk to," and then realized a few things:
If you're trying to get hired, then maybe when you write a blog post on the fact, you also include a link to your resume. Or at least your name. Because otherwise, I'm sitting here thinking to myself "welp, no idea who this person is"
This person acknowledges that for more than a decade, she/he coasted in an office job. I tend to hire for strong initiative and drive, and I'd worry about this person. And that still wouldn't stop me from talking to them IF THEY MADE IT EASY FOR ME TO FIND THEM.
Tolerance of failure is different for ICs and Managers, partially because Managers tend to have such an ability to really screw things up in a way that isn't technical and has an impact on a bunch of other people in the company.
The shortest IC tenure I've seen here was the result of being a brilliant jerk (which interviewers did not catch during the interview cycle (and I speak here as one of the people who interviewed this person)). The shortest Manager tenure I've seen here was noticeably shorter than this, and was the result of pissing off your engineers.
I've not seen any IC here screw up on a technical level in such a way as to get fired for a first or even second screwup -- it really takes a pattern. My shortest IC termination was six months from hiring to termination.
You can't just implement "unmetered vacation" and have it all work out -- it has to be part of a set of practices.
For example, at Netflix as a manager I don't "veto" any proposed vacations, because my engineers do not propose vacations -- they tell me what time they're taking off. It's their job to make sure that's not going to be a surprise to anyone covering for them, and it's not my job to check that they've done that work.
As for being careful not to be the guy who takes too much vacation ... putting aside the fact I have people reporting to me who aren't guys, there are people on my team who take two days of vacation a year; there are people on my team who take ~6 weeks of vacation per year. Nobody here seems to care much.
I've been at Netflix for 2211 days (a little more than six years). Joined as an IT engineer, became an IT manager, became an engineer in the Product Engineering side, then became a manager in the Product Engineering side. At least two of the people who've already responded in this thread report to me.
