[akshitgaur2005]

I just came to know about Oxide the other day, and god damn if it is not a dream workplace! High salary, flat structure, a large open-source presence, and maybe much more! Their blogs are really good too.

I am an undergraduate right now and looking at the people working there, it doesn't seem likely they would hire a fresh grad, I think I have found the yardstick I am going to measure myself by going forward, "Am I skilled enough that I could work at Oxide?". Hope more companies follow suit in putting the people forward!!

[bsaul]

After a recent experience with flat structures, i tend to be really suspicious. My experience was a total mess of organization, with slack bipping all the time, and nobody "in charge" of maintaining common sense in the architecture, with a long term vision.

Total chaos.

[cyber_kinetist]

I think flat structures aren't always bad - if the organization is geared towards maintenance and care work, it's essential to be as flat as possible. Another good example would be research labs, where experimentation cannot happen in hierarchical envrionments.

For an organization that has definite goals and have to ship a product by a deadline, a flat structure can surely be detrimental to any progress. In an environment of competition (from outsiders) and scarcity, a flat structure will only create either chaos or an implicit form of hierarchy that is even more cruel than what should have been.

[lispisok]

My experience with flat structure is the most stubborn opinionated people end up making all the decisions because they dont budge and get to escape all responsibility for bad calls. Better to have a designated lead.

[fer]

>Organizations which design systems (in the broad sense used here) are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law

[IshKebab]

Yeah there's a famous essay "The tyranny of structurelessness" or something like that. The TL;DR is that there is always a power hierarchy. If there isn't a formal one that just means there's an informal one which is usually much worse.

[kev507]

FWIW there's equal pay but it's not a flat structure

[UltraSane]

It is hard to define exactly what good management is but incredibly easy to tell when it isn't happening.

[sweetheart]

This is my first time hearing of Oxide, but I had the same initial thought after reading this blog post then poking through their site. The degree of careful thought put into their policies and culture is really impressive, at least from the outside. Good for them, I hope they continue to be in a position to have that luxury (genuinely).

[raskelll]

I always felt the same every since I learnt about the company. Can't think of a more rewarding place to work at.

[ilogik]

You should check out their podcast, Oxide And Friends