There is a sort of stress that comes from a "slow-paced environment" where you've got a 50% or less duty cycle of doing real work because you're always waiting for somebody else to do something. Too little work can be just as stressful as too much.
This. Hurry up and wait. That's exactly how it worked for me when I worked for a large company. Need to make a database change? Be prepared to wait 3 weeks unless you can get someone several levels above you on the org chart to take notice. Same for any kind of additional access you might need, or to provision any amount of computing or network resources...
At every job I've ever had, in the interview I have mentioned that I'd rather have 10 hours of work to squeeze into an 8 hour day than have 2 hours of work to expand into an 8 hour day. Thus far, nobody has taken me seriously.
Weirdly enough, I find that fast-paced and slow-paced can be combined into an annoying hybrid I'll just call "unpaced." An unpaced organization has a hurry-up-and-wait mentality about decisionmaking, but once a decision has been made -- inevitably, right before a big delivery deadline has come and gone -- everyone is sent into an unnecessary crunch mode: the aptly named "fire drill."
Nine times out of ten, if you're at a company with a lot of fire drills, it's because somebody a few levels above you isn't managing timelines appropriately, or some folks at that level just aren't talking to each other. Point is, the "fast-paced" moments are usually symptoms of a deeper issue.
Especially when your employer watches your every move every second you're in their building. Cameras, remote desktops on every PC, services that track what files you open and when, keyloggers, et cetera. Not having enough work in such a paranoid environment where you get griped at for doing anything outside of your responsibilities or for not being in the building exactly eight hours a day can be a living hell.
As was pointed out in the comments, fast-paced == lots of unpaid overtime. If you had good project planners (or project managers who don't start factoring timelines based on the amount of unpaid overtime they can get you to do) then you'd be working in a "well-paced environment". Which is a nice place to work.
"fast-paced environment" says more about the people than the environment...
Let's say, for example, that your environment changes at rate "10".
If you normally move at rate "7", this environment would seem fast-paced to you.
But if you're accustomed to moving at rate "15", you wouldn't even consider it to be fast-paced.
In my experience, what most junior and enterprise programmers would consider "fast-paced" would seem fairly normal to most senior or start-up programmers. It's all relative.
You know what fast-paced is - ideas thrown at you that invalidate your previous architecture once every 2 weeks. And I don't know how you can get any more fast-paced than that.
If I hadn't enough experience to make the architecture flexible enough or to do unit-tests or to choose the right moment to start from scratch, I would probably go mad.
Saying 'fast-paced' usually (in my experience) is a claim that the team doesn't get hung up and blocked on a bunch of minute details and 'sign-offs'. In other words - there's no committee.
Even if that isn't the norm, putting so much stock in the copy in a job ad is probably a waste of time anyway. Just because the ad says 'fast-paced' or refers to the person they're looking for as a 'ninja' doesn't mean it wouldn't be an awesome place to work -- from my perspective, quite the opposite, any text like that makes it feel like it was written by a company without an HR department (+10!).
I've written a few job ads and I'm sure I've said fast-paced and other filler words.
I wish I meant "When reality and the plan don't match, we change the plan," in reality it was "Hmm, this text needs to look longer -- I'll use adjectives!"
I have the great misfortune of working at a big company which has tons and tons of specs AND frequent spec changes.
Our process is waterfall that refuses to accept the reality that marketing runs this company and they change their minds a lot.
My point is only that if there was something better I would quit mediately. But I would rather deal with this at a biotech, then work at the most wonderful company working on social apps, or advertising apps, or ticketing, or booking, etc.
Heh, that sounds very familiar. When I got my job, it was told that the reason for using a waterfall model was that "the specifications are very clear, and developers just have to implement them".
Interesting - it would be helpful to have a definition of "fast-paced". The phrase is far too vague.
I love working very hard (potentially fast) on a product that I'm making great headway on. Perhaps I'm in the zone or I know I need to hit a deadline.
That being said if I'm being asked to produce things frantically (also fast paced) with little to no direction or thought behind it...that's not so hot.
In general job descriptions should be more self aware and try to communicate the environment more specifically.
Reminds me of estate agent talk. "Fast-paced, agile, challenging environment" as a plus point on a job ad usually makes me skip right over. I know people say you should turn your weaknesses into strengths but I don't think this is the way!
Its like the other phrase I dislike "Rockstar programmers". Now my idea of "rock stars" is that they are temperamental, have low self confidence, and spend 90% of their time complaining. I've met, and occasionally worked with, programmers that fit that particular shoe and frankly I wouldn't try to recruit them.
I am sure the HR/Recruiter is trying to convey a sense of urgency that keeps you at the top of your game, but I agree with most of the comments that companies that create their own urgency by not planning is the more common occurrence.
Fast-paced environment usually describes places that lack an attention to detail and quality, which above anything else should be the core focus of a company. A lot of people are suggesting that pace refers to the amount of work which I don't think is entirely correct. A business could have all the work in the world and still move at a snail's pace. @mrspeaker made an excellent point in that the ideal environment would be "well-paced." More often than not, though, this sort of terminology was probably picked from similar job postings that the HR person (generalizing, of course) saw elsewhere.
1) The specs are not in place
2) They are a software company, mostly
3) The managers are not really managers, but engineers who were given a battle field promotion
4) They have a set of key customers who control 51% of revenue, who dictate everything and change their mind frequently
It's just marketing - on the converse, no one wants to sound slow...it associates with boredom. Fast-paced signals energy and excitement, but translates to over-worked and poor balance with the rest of your life.
When I hear this it reminds me of when engineers in interviews say "I work with the smartest people." Of course you do...who works with the 2nd smartest people? Who admits to working with average people? I'd like to know how you distinguish that in an ad/interview.
The fact that 'fast-paced' has negative connotations for older/wiser workers is irrelevant. They're targeting the same sort of 20-year-olds who all wanted to work for MS in the late 90s because they had free soda. The commenters criticizing this tactic seem oblivious to the fact that the companies using it don't want them.
Software job postings are full of cliches. Best to ignore the description and instead use the interview to ask how project requirements are decided, scheduled, and delivered. If their process doesn't mention any input from developers other than "deliver" then ask how often morale improvement beatings are administered.
I want a fast-paced environment. And I want to work with people who also like a fast-paced environment.
A fast paced environment is not the same as a "ridiculous hours" environment (I've done that - 80 hrs per week, high pressure). Nor is it a "death march" environment.
What it should be is a place where people come in to work ready to go, work intensely for 8 or 9 hours, then go home to enjoy the rest of their lives. I work at one of the more aggressive large web companies and we have an "email blackout" policy on weekends, for example - if it's not an operations problem, we ask folks to wait until the work week to send emails about it so that folks can concentrate on enjoying their time off undiluted by work and be ready to go on Monday.
I moved from an extremely fast-paced environment to a well balanced, well managed software shop. I regret that choice a lot. While I do have now work/life balance, sleep longer nights and never do any overtime, I can't help but feel I'm not even close to the productive levels I had before. I loved being pushed to my limit, constantly having to come up with new solutions to new problems, etc.
On the plus side, I now have the time to launch my company which will - I hope - give me once again the kind of environment in which I can push my own limits.
"fast-paced environment" means getting shit done. it means rolling hard like facebook, google, zynga, groupon, etc. it means launching fast. it means getting feedback fast. it means failing fast. it means the exact opposite of the folks complaining about it who work at ibm or hp or microsoft or yahoo or aol. or worse yet, some hole-in-the-wall enterprise vendor inflating internal budgets and wallowing in mediocrity.
fast-paced to me means "if you can't keep up, don't step up."
regardless, if you have to ask, it's not a place for you to work.
I work in what I would call a fast-paced environment.
What I always took fast-paced to mean is that, as a startup who is trying to build a business we are constantly evolving our goals to develop the best product possible. This means making smart but quick decisions based on actionable data.
Whether that means adding new features, dropping ones that don't work, etc. thats what we are going to do.
[+] [-] PaulHoule|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cosgroveb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bartonfink|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonnathanson|15 years ago|reply
Nine times out of ten, if you're at a company with a lot of fire drills, it's because somebody a few levels above you isn't managing timelines appropriately, or some folks at that level just aren't talking to each other. Point is, the "fast-paced" moments are usually symptoms of a deeper issue.
[+] [-] cydonian_monk|15 years ago|reply
But the opposite is true, too.
[+] [-] georgekv|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrspeaker|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edw519|15 years ago|reply
Let's say, for example, that your environment changes at rate "10".
If you normally move at rate "7", this environment would seem fast-paced to you.
But if you're accustomed to moving at rate "15", you wouldn't even consider it to be fast-paced.
In my experience, what most junior and enterprise programmers would consider "fast-paced" would seem fairly normal to most senior or start-up programmers. It's all relative.
[+] [-] Stormbringer|15 years ago|reply
He said that "all coding is change". This is simple, trite and deeply profound.
All coding is change. Either you're building something new (change) or you're fixing a bug (change) or you're adding a feature (change).
The whole rhetoric about programmers who don't like other programmers being 'afraid of change' or unwilling to 'embrace change' is nonsense.
Given then, that all coding is change... I wonder what it means to say that some environments change faster than others.
What does this mean? Requirements flip-flop? Staff turnover? Starting projects and then killing them softly with this song?
[+] [-] bad_user|15 years ago|reply
You know what fast-paced is - ideas thrown at you that invalidate your previous architecture once every 2 weeks. And I don't know how you can get any more fast-paced than that.
If I hadn't enough experience to make the architecture flexible enough or to do unit-tests or to choose the right moment to start from scratch, I would probably go mad.
[+] [-] thenduks|15 years ago|reply
Even if that isn't the norm, putting so much stock in the copy in a job ad is probably a waste of time anyway. Just because the ad says 'fast-paced' or refers to the person they're looking for as a 'ninja' doesn't mean it wouldn't be an awesome place to work -- from my perspective, quite the opposite, any text like that makes it feel like it was written by a company without an HR department (+10!).
[+] [-] ultrasaurus|15 years ago|reply
I wish I meant "When reality and the plan don't match, we change the plan," in reality it was "Hmm, this text needs to look longer -- I'll use adjectives!"
[+] [-] bioh42_2|15 years ago|reply
Our process is waterfall that refuses to accept the reality that marketing runs this company and they change their minds a lot.
My point is only that if there was something better I would quit mediately. But I would rather deal with this at a biotech, then work at the most wonderful company working on social apps, or advertising apps, or ticketing, or booking, etc.
Pick your poison kids.
[+] [-] wladimir|15 years ago|reply
Reality is so different... :)
[+] [-] chrisaycock|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JulianMorrison|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pauldisneyiv|15 years ago|reply
I love working very hard (potentially fast) on a product that I'm making great headway on. Perhaps I'm in the zone or I know I need to hit a deadline.
That being said if I'm being asked to produce things frantically (also fast paced) with little to no direction or thought behind it...that's not so hot.
In general job descriptions should be more self aware and try to communicate the environment more specifically.
[+] [-] grammaton|15 years ago|reply
Welcome to the wonderful world of MBA-speak.
[+] [-] kingofspain|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|15 years ago|reply
I am sure the HR/Recruiter is trying to convey a sense of urgency that keeps you at the top of your game, but I agree with most of the comments that companies that create their own urgency by not planning is the more common occurrence.
[+] [-] rglover|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grammaton|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amitraman1|15 years ago|reply
1) The specs are not in place 2) They are a software company, mostly 3) The managers are not really managers, but engineers who were given a battle field promotion 4) They have a set of key customers who control 51% of revenue, who dictate everything and change their mind frequently
[+] [-] acconrad|15 years ago|reply
When I hear this it reminds me of when engineers in interviews say "I work with the smartest people." Of course you do...who works with the 2nd smartest people? Who admits to working with average people? I'd like to know how you distinguish that in an ad/interview.
[+] [-] Alex3917|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snorkel|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcritz|15 years ago|reply
Ladies.
[+] [-] tomkarlo|15 years ago|reply
A fast paced environment is not the same as a "ridiculous hours" environment (I've done that - 80 hrs per week, high pressure). Nor is it a "death march" environment.
What it should be is a place where people come in to work ready to go, work intensely for 8 or 9 hours, then go home to enjoy the rest of their lives. I work at one of the more aggressive large web companies and we have an "email blackout" policy on weekends, for example - if it's not an operations problem, we ask folks to wait until the work week to send emails about it so that folks can concentrate on enjoying their time off undiluted by work and be ready to go on Monday.
[+] [-] yannickmahe|15 years ago|reply
On the plus side, I now have the time to launch my company which will - I hope - give me once again the kind of environment in which I can push my own limits.
[+] [-] cema|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m3mnoch|15 years ago|reply
fast-paced to me means "if you can't keep up, don't step up."
regardless, if you have to ask, it's not a place for you to work.
m3mnoch.
[+] [-] gaius|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mgrouchy|15 years ago|reply
What I always took fast-paced to mean is that, as a startup who is trying to build a business we are constantly evolving our goals to develop the best product possible. This means making smart but quick decisions based on actionable data.
Whether that means adding new features, dropping ones that don't work, etc. thats what we are going to do.