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Coders Automating Their Own Job

theatlantic.com

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Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#81

Post by s73v3r_ »

arif_sohaib wrote: post #39
pathseeker wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and finding other companies who are probably paying employees to do the same thing. Then start your own company that does whatever this task is as a service. Careful, if it gets out that you wrote the code to automate your job as a coder while actually at your job, your company most likely owns that IP.

I am still in academics so I have a question about this. If your company owns this is, what shouldn't they be rewarding you generously for making it? They are making money out of your extra effort/work. I get that employees who want their own ip should have the right but if the company is paying you extra and giving other rewards and removing the headache of managing your own company, is that not good?

"If your company owns this is, what shouldn't they be rewarding you generously for making it?"

Cause they have more power than you. That's about it.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#82

Post by Itaxpica »

This can be good when companies and incentive structures are set up to reward it. The entire concept at the core of SRE is "if you have skilled engineers do your ops work, they'll automate as much as possible, freeing up their time to work on bigger and more interesting problems". At Google, automating a huge swath of your own job is one of the fastest ways for an SRE to get promoted.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#83

Post by hinkley »

kradroy wrote: post #33
dropit_sphere wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopping or starting a company to sell your work are becoming the fastest ways to get "promoted."

I was going to suggest this from my experience. I hate to burst GP's bubble, but the attitude and environment at his next job probably won't be any better in regard to "best practices." It's extremely difficult to gauge how your attitude toward development compares with a prospective team's after an hour of chatting. I became a manager last year and quickly discovered that changing others' behavior and habits is next…

I've had very good luck changing the behavior of junior developers and moderate luck changing the behavior of mid level developers that are hungry for a promotion. I can count on my fingers (couldn't say if that's one hand or two) how many senior devs I've gotten to come around.

If you're interested in progress and growth, I can say with a high degree of certainty that what you don't want to do is apply to work on a very stable team. These people are always confident that they know what they're doing - even when they agree that the outcomes aren't great. They've had lots of time to practice their rationalizations and that kind of cognitive dissonance can be pretty jarring/aggravating.

By definition, starting your own company or contracting will avoid that situation, but you don't need to take your ball and go home just to get the right kind of environment.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#84

Post by s73v3r_ »

y4mi wrote: post #43
arif_sohaib wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still in academics so I have a question about this. If your company owns this is, what shouldn't they be rewarding you generously for making it? They are making money out of your extra effort/work. I get that employees who want their own ip should have the right but if the company is paying you extra and giving other rewards and removing the headache of managing your own company, is that not good?

They're entitled to the code without any extras though. That is what employment is.

Only if your employment agreement says so. Most people hired as programmers, yes, that's true. People who are hired as other things, and end up automating things, well, that's not so clear.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#86

Post by alistairSH »

wvenable wrote: post #8

It should be noted that programmers are not automating themselves out of programming jobs . They're automating themselves out of data entry, or testing, or any number of other mindless tasks easily done by computers.

Exactly. Automate away the mundane tasks, so you can spend more time on the interesting tasks. In some regards, programmers are fortunate to have this ability; many careers do not have the skills to automate away the boring parts of their own jobs.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#87

Post by pmiller2 »

kradroy wrote: post #33
dropit_sphere wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopping or starting a company to sell your work are becoming the fastest ways to get "promoted."

I was going to suggest this from my experience. I hate to burst GP's bubble, but the attitude and environment at his next job probably won't be any better in regard to "best practices." It's extremely difficult to gauge how your attitude toward development compares with a prospective team's after an hour of chatting. I became a manager last year and quickly discovered that changing others' behavior and habits is next…

Why would one need to become a contractor to switch gigs every 2 years? Seems like that’s the new normal with employers not wanting to invest in employees anymore.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#89

Post by josephjrobison »

kradroy wrote: post #33
dropit_sphere wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopping or starting a company to sell your work are becoming the fastest ways to get "promoted."

I was going to suggest this from my experience. I hate to burst GP's bubble, but the attitude and environment at his next job probably won't be any better in regard to "best practices." It's extremely difficult to gauge how your attitude toward development compares with a prospective team's after an hour of chatting. I became a manager last year and quickly discovered that changing others' behavior and habits is next…

As a non-developer, how can I hire someone (or a team) like OP that focuses on automating menial stuff and focuses on the most important?

Does a development agency that focuses on this model exist? Of course they should be paid more per hour (or other unit) than your average, less optimized agency, but the sum total should be less than hiring inefficient agencies.

(P.S. I understand the best developers probably don't want to start or work at development agencies, but assuming there are some.)

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#90

Post by s73v3r_ »

JakeWesorick wrote: post #3

Yes the employer is dumb for not realizing the job can be automated. Yes you are smart for writing code that automates the job. But I feel, as an employee of the company, it is un-ethical for you to knowingly see an extreme inefficiency and hide it for your own personal gain. Also, it seems like a huge way to waste your life. Find another job where they can actually use your skill set to do something meaningful.

Why is it unethical for me to do something for personal gain, but that sort of thing is what many companies are created to do?
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