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Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

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Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#271

Post by wqaatwt »

bluGill wrote: post #104
wqaatwt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not so much the individual employees fault (or personal failing) that most of them in most large enterprise companies aren’t doing anything meaningful and useful. That’s just how large organizations works, bloat and inefficiency is kind of unavoidable in any type of large organization.

Many are not doing anything obviously meaningful and useful. However that doesn't mean it isn't meaningful or useful, only that you don't know.

But I do. Often based on direct personal experience.

Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#272

Post by mattjoyce »

order-matters wrote: post #235
danudey wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote that I heard was "the purpose of a system is what it does", which was to a degree kind of revelatory. The example I heard was McDonald's ice cream machines. What is the purpose of a McDonald's ice cream machine? To make ice cream? No, they break down all the time, they're actually pretty bad at making ice cream. The purpose of a McDonald's ice cream machine is to create billable service calls and ensure sup…

>"the purpose of a system is what it does" thank you, i believe this is closer to, if not exactly, the original wording. >The purpose of a McDonald's ice cream machine is to create billable service calls and ensure support contracts this is spin, but does have truth. i think people dramatize the quote too much towards conspiracy or alternative intent. I think the best way to interpret the quote is to remove intent an…

Therefore the purpose of a system is to support incentives.

Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#273

Post by jurgenburgen »

hyperhello wrote: post #229
danudey wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote that I heard was "the purpose of a system is what it does", which was to a degree kind of revelatory. The example I heard was McDonald's ice cream machines. What is the purpose of a McDonald's ice cream machine? To make ice cream? No, they break down all the time, they're actually pretty bad at making ice cream. The purpose of a McDonald's ice cream machine is to create billable service calls and ensure sup…

It doesn’t hold to reason that McDonalds would publicly and continuously put up with that from a supplier. Much more likely that they have control over the machines and use them for impromptu advertising, to keep calorie per dollar lower, and to starve out local ice cream shops as needed.

> It doesn’t hold to reason that McDonalds would publicly and continuously put up with that from a supplier.

I thought McDonalds is the supplier and the franchisee is the one paying. Either way, that money is transfer-billed out of the country.

Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#274

Post by watwut »

stirfish wrote: post #253
watwut wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing says human connection as much as scheduled meeting and necessity to have scheduled meeting to get or provide context. If the general mussings about a company, causual fun project and a little small talk about life require scheduled meething, you dont have those human connections with the team. Did you considered that people understand difference between human connection, relationship and being one of mandator…

>Nothing says human connection as much as scheduled meeting and necessity to have scheduled meeting to get or provide context. I understand your point, but that also describes a date.

I dated only people I already had human connection with. I did not went to dates because company process said I should or I thought it will make my partner more performing, but because I wanted to be with that person.

We also did quite a lot of spontaneous unplanned stuff.

Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#275

Post by throwaway29473 »

jldugger wrote: post #270
eudamoniac wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why I'd ever want a promotion, and I haven't ever got one. I did turn one down once. A promotion is like 5% more pay for way more work and a bunch of corporate bullshit along the way. If I want to move up I just change jobs.

My last promotion from level 3 to level 4 was a 50% increase in pay basically, with no change in responsibilities or scope.

That’s because you were already working at the next level. Your promotion was just a recognition of that.

Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#276

Post by sph »

01284a7e wrote: post #60
prepend wrote: post #10

It’s hard to tell. I’ve worked on projects with 50 programmers and it seemed many did nothing and a few did negative work. We went through a round of layoffs and I had to “finish” another programmer’s work. It was a java app with servlets and JSP and a bunch of web forms submitting back to a database. He had just copy and pasted the html into his JSP so it had the sample data and messages. Everything submitted and we…

My whole career (15+ year) is built on orgs (Fortune 500s, academia, government, and even startups) hiring me to actually get something done that an employee spent months "working on" that ended up useless and scrapped. It's everywhere, all the time. Additionally, you can be productive from a development sense, ship functional software that is to spec, and everybody is happy - and it still never gets used, or gets ca…

I’ve been in such a work context for the better part of two years, as a contractor, and by God it is soul crushing to give your best to do a good job, and to see it ultimately ends up in the bin.

I quit weeks ago, and they are already begging me back because I was good at what I was doing, to work on yet another hallucination from the higher ups that will be scrapped in 6 months.

The good money doesn’t make up for the existential pain. Maybe I’m too old for this shit. (20 year career and a burnout that made me reassess the value of my time on earth)

Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#277

Post by jjav »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #266
Esophagus4 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an anti pattern of management - the 1-1 shouldn’t be a status update. There are times you want to brief your boss on things that are important to them, but if you’re just going over your tickets, that’s a waste of time (unless you’re using that time to get technical guidance on your tickets). There are lots of lousy managers out there, and you can’t control that - but you can set the agenda of your 1-1 yoursel…

I have had multiple managers and the thing is I wouldn't expect a truly honest answer from my manager ever, so to me it is also just all performative ritual that I have to go through and would rather avoid. So it does feel like waste of time to me. And I also feel like I have to be careful, because honesty has most of the time just yielded me useless work in the long term. It is easier to pretend everything is good,…

> because honesty has most of the time just yielded me useless work in the long term

Are you sure it's useless work, or growth opportunities?

A good manager will be handing growth opportunities to you often. I had one employee once who for every new opportunity just rolled their eyes and asked if they have to do it? I'd tell them the work was not strictly required for their current role, but if they wanted to grow their visibility in the company and thus promotion support, it could be a good opportunity. They never wanted to do any of it so never did, never got any visibility and thus never any promotions. Up or out, so eventually they were out.

Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#278

Post by jjav »

cebert wrote: post #156
harrall wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have standup every day so my manager knows what I am doing so my 1:1s are: - General sentiment about problems with the team and company that bother me but that I don’t have a solution to yet or decided how to bring it up with the team. - Fun / interesting projects I unilaterally decided to dedicate my working hours towards that I never asked permission to work on. Sometimes it ends up being something cool that my m…

So basically useless unless you need to schedule a meeting with them

> So basically useless unless you need to schedule a meeting with them

Back in the day of 5 days in the office, this kind of connection happened through osmosis, not really necessary to schedule.

In this day of everyone remote, if you don't intentionally schedule time to just connect, it'll never happen.

Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#279

Post by ponector »

Esophagus4 wrote: post #192
garciasn wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lead teams of Data Engineers, Data Scientists, and Platform Engineers. My direct reports drive their 1:1s; from the need to have them in the first place to the agenda when we do. We have standups for our team as well as the larger team and we are in constant contact with one another throughout each day via IM. Why would we need to repeat the same shit in a 1:1? I consider their 1:1s THEIR meeting. If they want it,…

> if they don't and want to work, great. Interesting thought, I had never considered cancelling if they don’t have anything. Thanks for that. My thought was always, “I want to give everyone that time no matter what, and if they don’t have anything, then I go to a list of questions I have for every 1-1 if we have time. Stuff like, “how are you feeling with ${latest_company_happenings}?” or “how do you think the team i…

>“how are you feeling with ${latest_company_happenings}?” or “how do you think the team is doing?” or “are you interested in the work these days, or burnt out?”

That is the worst questions to ask to the experienced people. You cannot share your negative feelings, so the answer should be socially acceptable bullshit.

Are you burnt out? Yes? Sorry to hear that! I'll put a high attrition risk to your name in the system.

Like asking during the job interview the question: Why do you want to work here? I need money and you have an open position! But you cannot answer that to pass the gatekeeper.

Re: Ask HN: Are most corporate SWE jobs performative?

#280

Post by psychoslave »

quotemstr wrote: post #108
ryandvm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, pretty much all systems of governance ultimately evolve until their primary purpose is actually ensuring the survival of the system of governance and anything else it accomplishes is kind of a side effect. It's probably some sort of informational axiom of rules systems in general whether bureaucratic or biological or whatever. Hell, DNA is just rules about what you can build and it's primary purpose is just mak…

And that's why command economies fail. They fail in the same way that firms do, except that because the whole economy is one giant firm, you can't get the you need to remove entrenched bureaucrats until the situation gets so bad that you have a revolution or lose a war.

How is failure/success discriminated here and which concrete command economies are assessed?
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