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Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

susanjfowler.com

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Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#671

Post by euphoria83 »

scurvy wrote: post #569
scurvy wrote: post #126

What is Uber doing with 150 SRE's? Wow talk about bloat. The rest of the story is horrible to hear, too.

Asking why Twitter is so bloated gets 300 upvotes, but asking why Uber SRE is so bloated gets downvoted? My, what a fickle crowd HN is. My assumption was that Uber SRE's played roles similar to Google SRE's. If that's not the case, someone can please say so instead of just downvoting? If you lump all ops people (DBA, sysadmin, network, storage) into the SRE term then 150 isn't huge. But if it's mainly sysadmin and de…

I think your latter guess is correct. SRE@Uber = Ops + DevOps + DBA + DCOps + ... . I spoke with their recruiter recently.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#672

Post by SwellJoe »

cjhanks wrote: post #606
SwellJoe wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bizarre and backward way to look at it. In a growth company, employees provide value in a lot of indirect, but important, ways. Having employees speak at conferences is a very common recruiting tactic; often, good people are at conferences, and when they hear about a great company to work for with smart people who give good talks, they want to work there, too. Books are similar. Reading Site Reliability Engi…

I suppose my in my life I have found people with ~20 months of real-world experience who write books about technical topics in domains which are well understood... are kind of problematic. Sure, sending out your experts with 5+ years experience in a specific field is great evangelism. But that's not what's being discussed here.

So, you're saying she isn't competent to write a book or give talks, despite the fact that she's written a book for a publisher with a very good reputation for high standards and has been hired by two top tier tech companies to work in the field.

On what do you base your assertion that she is incompetent?

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#675

Post by pbecotte »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #378
um_ya wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions originated as a way to commoditise labor. It has since grown into a way to keep out freelance competitors, and to force employers into doing things (both of which I don't agree with). In terms of commoditsing labor, tech is a very skill specific profession with no cookie cutter employee to sell, which makes it a bad candidate for unions.

It doesn't really matter what unions become in certain cases, does it? Unions were reinforced by the NLRA to enable workers to bargain collectively. That can mean a lot of things A union for software engineers is a blank slate. It hasn't been done before. It could be anything someone makes of it.

That's... not true. I was in a unionized software development shop at L3 communications in Camden. It was... different. Having a published document showing how the "top performers" were going to get a 3.5% raise this year while the average people would only get 2.5% was odd. Counting my hours (including signing out for lunch and getting management approval for overtime) was very different. Getting paid overtime was nice!

The problem is that if I had stayed there for thirty years, I would have been pretty much guaranteed to make good money. By changing jobs a couple times, I made that same money in 2. So... people who are capable of getting better jobs and willing to risk change simply left, while people looking for stability or who had trouble getting jobs simply stayed. This didn't lead to the type of environment that I enjoyed working in. Your mileage may vary.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#676

Post by pbecotte »

rifung wrote: post #408
srpablo wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm of the opinion that the average software engineer in the USA is already overpaid and underworked with excellent benefits and low incentive to unionize. I happen to agree that, relative to other industries, we're overpaid and get to live pretty lavishly for the little sacrifice that working on building systems with code entails. That said, when you look at the value we generate for the people we work for, and re…

I don't think the value you generate actually matters in regards to compensation though. What matters is how easy you are to replace.

It matters. The floor is how easy you are to replace. The ceiling is the marginal value that you provide to the company. Considering how incredibly high that marginal value is, there is a lot of upward pressure at the top of the scale.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#677

Post by taneq »

kartickv wrote: post #520
throwaway729 wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" I don't doubt that has been true on all the teams you've managed. My experience differs significantly, and there's a lot of data which indicates my experiences may have been more representative. Caveat Emptor, of course

Can you share that data? "My experience differs significantly" might sound like "I can't pick up new technologies and work on them". What did you have in mind?

It might also mean "I can make things work in a way that none of the other people on my team can do, and if I leave, they're gonna be boned."

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#679

Post by flootch »

tezka wrote: post #670
flootch wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did any of you folks talk about the enormously unethical ways you treat drivers? Those folks who are mostly poorer than you who do the actual work that provides value? I find it laughable to hear Uber engineers cry about how unfairly Kalanick treats them. Self-awareness 0.

this is almost on the same level of stupidity as "All lives matter".

Must be nice to be a woke young webdev able to ignore how Uber mistreats the poor, and the POC. How Uber breaks laws. How Uber uses VC money to undermine taxi drivers who are paid a living wage, how Uber uses VC money to undermine public transit that serves the poor, blind and disabled.

Dude you are so woke you are blinding.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#680

Post by Frondo »

jasonlingx wrote: post #577
knucklesandwich wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This notion that there is a wide distribution in engineer competency has come under a lot of criticism for many reasons (not the least of which being that its often used as a cover for discrimination on the basis of gender): https://lwn.net/Articles/641779/ If you believe there to be such a wide distribution in talent and that salaries at your company are commensurately paid, I suggest you ask your employer if they w…

Rock stars don't need unions.

Sounds like someone hasn't heard of the American Federation of Musicians.
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