Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers • Hacker News Board

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#111

Post by daveguy » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:33 PM UTC

lgunsch wrote: post #97

linkregister wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the use of the 'engineer' vs 'developer' terms in his context was not important. What does irk me is that in real life, software developers who meet the Etsy CTO's standard often can't call themselves engineers. In many countries, misrepresenting oneself as an engineer without accreditation is against the law! [1] In the U.S., there's no official occupational category for Software Engineer. It's just Sof…

I'm curious why it irks you. There is actually software engineers. At the U of A, where I went, Software Engineering is separate than Computing Science. Software Engineering was run by the Engineering department, and they had the same rigours as the rest of engineering has. However, Computing Science was run by the Science department.

At the U of A? Could you ground that symbol, please?

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#112

Post by akkartik » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:39 PM UTC

Wow, I've been beating the drum about the distinction between abstraction and division of labor for several years now[1], and it's so great to see others who agree.

[1] http://akkartik.name/post/libraries and, rewritten, http://akkartik.name/post/libraries2

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#113

Post by p4wnc6 » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:39 PM UTC

collyw wrote: post #108

p4wnc6 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This a thousand times. For many firms, the roles of "data scientist" "data engineer" "distributed system engineer" and "platform engineer" are all fully synonymous, and all of them really mean "Hadoop* babysitter with a dash of full-stack whenever we arbitrarily feel like asking you to do other stuff too." It's depressing. * or substitute whatever other enterprise framework you want

Do you think a decent full stack engineer would have a problem picking up "proper" data science on the job? Both are fairly intelligent jobs with a fair bit of overlap.

What most firms mean by "data science" is basically just using tools for data cleaning, visualization, and using APIs like black boxes for a few different kinds of models. You are often not even allowed to take a software design approach to these tasks, and often you're just writing scripts in a hurry to address "business intelligence" fire drills.

For those positions, I am sure that smart full-stack developers could easily pick up the statistics for data cleaning and quickly gain a passable understanding of the models consumed from APIs in a black box way. In fact, full-stack devs may be happier in these jobs due to the visualization and database components.

A much smaller subset of data science is actually focused on solving novel business problems and may centrally focus on deeper knowledge of a given technique, like MCMC methods, deep learning, real-time classifier systems, etc. For these, you do tend to need more significant experience with the specific machine learning tools being used (or enough general skill in statistics to pick them up quickly). Smart people of all stripes could still learn that stuff, but it's a lot harder to see them being able to convince a firm to hire them in that capacity.

The second type of these jobs is really, really rare though.

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#114

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:45 PM UTC

chrisbennet wrote: post #5

daok wrote: post #3

More I see cross-engineer that do backend to fronend and more I see problem. There is no way a database guru can create a super nice UI with CSS and JavaScript. Same thing for an expert in JavaScript and web cannot be also an expert in AI, database and xyz stuff. I am all about having people touching a little bit of everything, but at the end, everyone has an expertise and they should do 80% of their time there. Mult…

"Specialization is for insects." -Robert A. Heinlein

[deleted]

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#115

Post by gech » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:46 PM UTC

agarden wrote: post #34

His distinction between 'engineer' and 'developer' is artificial and easily criticized. That isn't what is interesting in this article. There are a lot of things that are. Their method for avoiding the proliferation of different tools is interesting. His discussion of the kind of people they want, once you ignore the semantics, is interesting. They want people who take responsibility and are always pushing the bounda…

Will I be rewarded for responsibility of imperfect things? Will the company provide compensation and the necessary environment (trial equipment and software) for training to push the boundary of my knowledge?

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#116

Post by Kinnard » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:49 PM UTC

aikah wrote: post #106

Kinnard wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "best of the best" have frequently made enough money to stop working but they keep working, that's because they're not working for money.

> The "best of the best" have frequently made enough money to stop working but they keep working, that's because they're not working for money. Who's going to work at Etsy for a pittance when other companies offer them a better deal? If Etsy has hard time recruiting "engineers" then problem is at Etsy. They should ask themselves why they have hard time recruiting the profile they seek instead of blaming "developers".

People who have all the money they need and like what Etsy is doing? As well as people who aren't quite so skilled/talented and can't/won't compete for higher paying positions? Some combination of the two?

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#117

Post by lgunsch » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:50 PM UTC

daveguy wrote: post #111

lgunsch wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why it irks you. There is actually software engineers. At the U of A, where I went, Software Engineering is separate than Computing Science. Software Engineering was run by the Engineering department, and they had the same rigours as the rest of engineering has. However, Computing Science was run by the Science department.

At the U of A? Could you ground that symbol, please?

University of Alberta, in Canada.

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#118

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 9:56 PM UTC

lgunsch wrote: post #97

linkregister wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the use of the 'engineer' vs 'developer' terms in his context was not important. What does irk me is that in real life, software developers who meet the Etsy CTO's standard often can't call themselves engineers. In many countries, misrepresenting oneself as an engineer without accreditation is against the law! [1] In the U.S., there's no official occupational category for Software Engineer. It's just Sof…

I'm curious why it irks you. There is actually software engineers. At the U of A, where I went, Software Engineering is separate than Computing Science. Software Engineering was run by the Engineering department, and they had the same rigours as the rest of engineering has. However, Computing Science was run by the Science department.

[deleted]

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#119

Post by im_down_w_otp » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 10:02 PM UTC

asymmetric wrote: post #102

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your characterization of the typical job marketplace in tech jives pretty closely with my experience. I've often said, in public speaking forums no less, that to me, "The overwhelming majority of the 'Big Data' marketplace seems predicated on selling to the hubris that software engineers want to believe they have problems bigger than they actually are." Despite being a denizen of the whole "NoSQL" thing personally. T…

I upvoted you for the quality of your prose. Congrats!

Always a solid second stand-in for the veracity of my claims. ;-)

Re: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

#120

Post by naasking » Thu, Mar 03, 2016, 10:18 PM UTC

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #64

vdnkh wrote: post #44

>Given the choice between a software engineer who has demonstrated incredible abilities in algorithms, or an engineer or data scientist who has demonstrated both some fluency and, more importantly, curiosity on the financial and legal implications of the work that they’re doing, we will always choose the latter. Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. If you can't do the algorithm dance on the whiteboard you're "not t…

I'm going to have to disagree with you. The "algorithm dance" only demonstrates that you can memorize an algorithm and how to use it to an academic degree. That's it. I've never seen it differentiate between developers to any useful degree and found that it only helps those who are more "fresh" with the specific algorithm knowledge you happen to ask about. You're distilling what they're looking for into an ambiguous…

> The "algorithm dance" only demonstrates that you can memorize an algorithm and how to use it to an academic degree. That's it. I've never seen it differentiate between developers to any useful degree and found that it only helps those who are more "fresh" with the specific algorithm knowledge you happen to ask about.

Indeed. When I've interviewed junior candidates, I gave them a function with some inputs and asked them to produce the outputs. At least this requires them to exhibits some degree of analytical reasoning on something you've never before seen. You'd be surprised how many candidates can't even do that.