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Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

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Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#101

Post by henrik_w »

danmaz74 wrote: post #100
henrik_w wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a counterpoint. I worked with software development at Ericsson for about 10 years before XP and agile came out. I too had a private office, and I recognize a lot of what you describe. While it was nice, it was not a very productive environment. Each release of new SW was enormous and typically took a year or more to get out. The developers had no real idea of how things worked in production. Lots of useless d…

What you describe looks how agile was supposed to be. What the op described looks like a perversion of agile perpetrated by managers who either don't understand why agile was born, or do understand it, but only care about increasing their power instead of getting things done.

I know. When I first read the XP book by Kent Beck it was a revelation. That was the first time I saw a methodology that I felt worked and agreed with my own experience. Planning everything out in advance is hopeless.

There are two great quotes that I think capture this:

“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.” John Gall

“Enlightened trial and error outperforms the planning of flawless intellects.” David Kelley

It is really sad to read about how often the agile ideas have been misused!

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#102

Post by kerneltime »

When I had a visual shield between my screen and people walking around.

When there is enough space that some one else's conversations did not cut through my headphones which do not play music by just cancel noise.

When what is the problem is articulated well (I do not mean details for a task, I am ok with a problem with no known solution but there needs to be a common articulation of success..)

When my co-workers are emotionally secure enough to have a discussion where any and every idea is open for a challenge. I hate to say this but "disagree but commit" is a good mantra as long as "disagreement" is not used against you, actively or passively. I burn more energy navigating my path around egg shells and consequently have less for what I need to do.

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#103

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

johntheme wrote: post #60
temporallobe wrote: post #25

My first software engineering job was with a big aerospace company about 20 years ago. Back then, budgets were big and the culture was completely different. Even the lowest peon had a huge cubicle with lots of desk space and privacy. Standups were not a thing and Agile wasn’t on the radar. We had lots of time to do anything we were assigned and never had to do much reporting aside from weekly meetings. We all had a g…

I keep reading about how scrum,agile,openspace,slack,oncall,whatsup outside of work has ruined developers productivity and life after work. WHY dont we do something about it? why are we going like cattle to the slaughter house? We are developers right we are supposed to be smart, intelligent yes, we have let this come all over us step by step until we have lost our life. Developers - it's time to raise to the basic w…

Companies would rather hire less-talented, less-perceptive, less-skilled workers if they will express fealty to mandated bureaucratic marching orders, even if it means paying more money, letting projects fail, losing business, etc.

Companies _will not_ negotiate things like letting developers have autonomy over the process by which the work is managed and delivered, or letting developers have private offices.

This is just standard Moral Mazes 101 stuff. Preserving the property that employees behave like obedient dogs instead of free thinkers is the absolute number one mandate, to the detriment of all else.

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#104

Post by limaoscarjuliet »

Everybody needs slightly different motivation and environment. Some require silence and closed space. Some thrive through constant interaction with others. Some, me included, need some level of difficulty and pressure ("nobody else solved it, this is critical, etc.").

Great discussion, but try not to reorg your workplace based on the data driven from such small and likely biased (hn readers are not randomly selected, etc.) sample.

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#105

Post by kreetx »

noir_lord wrote: post #84
kreetx wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were you consciously looking for it or did it turn out this way by accident?

Consciously looking, I had two offers one for where I am and another for more pay (about 16% base but I get a bonus that offsets a lot of that) The other one was for a larger company in a big open office. It wasn't even a choice tbh I can't articulate how much I loathe open offices.

It's good to hear how well how it has worked out for you!

My situation isn't exactly as good, but it's getting there I'm hoping. The current job I have started out as part time so that I could work on my side project. This didn't work out but then I suddenly got more trust and freedom for doing things my own way, and now it's much better.

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#106

Post by avip »

johntheme wrote: post #60
temporallobe wrote: post #25

My first software engineering job was with a big aerospace company about 20 years ago. Back then, budgets were big and the culture was completely different. Even the lowest peon had a huge cubicle with lots of desk space and privacy. Standups were not a thing and Agile wasn’t on the radar. We had lots of time to do anything we were assigned and never had to do much reporting aside from weekly meetings. We all had a g…

I keep reading about how scrum,agile,openspace,slack,oncall,whatsup outside of work has ruined developers productivity and life after work. WHY dont we do something about it? why are we going like cattle to the slaughter house? We are developers right we are supposed to be smart, intelligent yes, we have let this come all over us step by step until we have lost our life. Developers - it's time to raise to the basic w…

Just man up don’t answer messages off work and don’t make a fuss about it.

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#107

Post by noir_lord »

speedplane wrote: post #87
noir_lord wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's the freedom to set my own priorities, tell me what you want and I'll build it. As for a sense of ownership, not a problem when you're the only dev. I own everything that isn't the windows server and desktops. All the Linux servers, the network, the android terminals the production software, driver terminals etc are all my responsibility.

If you're an employee, you actually own nothing. To own it, you need to put some skin in the game, feel the burn when things fail and share in the bounty when it succeeds. A "feeling" of responsibility, is one thing. But having your bottom line decrease when you mess up "feels" quite different.

> As for a sense of ownership

Note the word sense, clarifying is fine but why be needlessly pedantic.

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#108

Post by balladeer »

First one and a half years at my current company which was (maybe still is) a startup but provided me with proper cubicles where I could concentrate and work while also providing me with a process (or lack of it) startups often are supposed to have that I could reach up to even CTO or CEO pretty much whenever I wanted to. Or if I wanted to make some change or do something different or new, I didn't have to go through a chain of command, I just used to meet with whoever were the stakeholders with a short notice in a very casual to the point short meeting or huddle. The place had nap rooms, gym, shower rooms (which I used to use everyday because I would play 2 hours of badminton before office), and people used to come there at 9-10am and leave by 5-6pm. It had a separate hall for TT and foosball which were not used aggressively.

The new team however is a place which prides itself in having the "startup culture". It's in a different building and it has TT and foosball tables (pretty much never free) right next to our work desks which are like places where everybody sits everywhere and I literally had to fight with people to ensure that my "spot" remains "my" spot. People start coming at 11-130am and keep leaving till 11pm - 12pm and you are often expected to stay back if there's "dependency" and if you start pulling a 10-6 you are literally looked down upon. This team loves to talk about working like this. Productivity is hitting rock bottom. I know it turned into a rant but that's how I feel. Yes, I am interviewing but only at MNCs :|

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#109

Post by Volrath89 »

growtofill wrote: post #93
quickthrower2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve recently started a job where my time isn’t measured. My time was measure 2012 until 2018. 3 different jobs. Utter misery. Now I’m having a lot more fun and feel very productive in the true sense of the word. There is still stand ups and slack etc. but I don’t mind that so much. Having a stopwatch constantly ticking against you is the main hell I hate in modern tech culture.

Were you working for Crossover or similar?

(not OP) it seems to me it is now "normal" for remote companies to track every second; is it really as soulcrushing as it sounds? Do you have any real world experience with crossover? (I am seriously considering applying with them)

Re: Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?

#110

Post by systematical »

Honestly working full remote. But too much of anything gets old and I'm looking to get back into an office with 3 days in and 2 days out or even 4 in and 1 out.

As for team dynamics it was my first job. The cheapos would hire only very junior engineers. This meant terrible code quality but a young team eagar to make the jump in our careers. We learned a lot from each other and many of us are still in communication 10 years later. Despite being scattered across the country.

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