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Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

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Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#201

Post by PascLeRasc »

martinraag wrote: post #146
_ywdj wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's all part of the technique; breaking down the issue, understanding why you're having negative emotional reactions to it, and deciding whether the problem is your emotional reaction (in which case, change that), or the outer-world situation (in which case, figure out the steps needed to change the situation). It's taken a while to learn it (indeed I'm still learning it), but it's powerful the more it start…

That sounds very interesting. Would you happen to have any pointers (i.e. books, links etc.) for anyone interested in learning more?

This sounds a lot like what I learned going through the Headspace introductory meditations. I'd give them a look if you haven't already, it's a great program.

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#202

Post by AnarchoYeasty »

anoncoward111 wrote: post #155
coldtea wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What job wouldn't fire you for leaving in the middle of the day? Many. Especially smaller shops in laxer countries.

Willing to bet you that it's less than 50% of total shops, therefore less than the word "many".

Many doesn't mean majority. I've worked at multiple places that are ok with me leaving during A shift. Just because you work at a shitty place doesn't mean everyone does.

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#203

Post by acpetrov »

whack wrote: post #165
itronitron wrote: post #7

> Great engineers understand computers all the way from the silicon up through the different layers and protocols and systems. I find this a bit limiting, certainly they should think across multiple layers but some of those layers exist beyond the systems.

I've worked as both a hardware & software engineer. I've generally found that people who make statements like the above, don't really have proficiency across all the layers from silicon to code. Heck, there are probably a few layers that they aren't even aware exist. And yet, despite this "gaping" hole in their knowledge, it barely hinders their productivity at all. Software, and life in general, is an exercise in ab…

Tricky part is when one of your underlying systems doesn't quite behave as you thought. Once you figure out the problem (which could take a while since you won't expect it to be there) you get a sense of how much complexity you're building on top of

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#204

Post by deepGem »

sulam wrote: post #128

His reason for why he’s a vi guy was funny! (He only had 60M free for his Linux partition and emacs wouldn’t fit). It did sound mildly apocryphal but so did most of it. My reason for vi is equally random. I learned Unix at college, but I wasn’t allowed on the systems because I wasn’t an engineering student. I had to resort to nefarious means to get online, so I needed to keep a really low profile. The easiest way to…

Back in college around 1996 or so, the only Unix workstations we had were shared DEC Alpha machines. Nobody in our university knew anything about Unix. It was basically a Win95 shop. The only way to edit a file on DEC Alpha was using vi or that's what we were told. I still remember struggling for the entire exam. I think you passed if you were just able to type out the program lol. 3 years later, once I graduated and started working all of the unix guys were using vi. I had not even heard of emacs. So naturally I started using vi. 2002 some of my friends started using emacs but I was too embedded in vi to learn anything new so just didn't bother.

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#205

Post by HiroshiSan »

boto3 wrote: post #138

> startups have tremendously high variance. Most startups are s t. There's a few of them that are really exceptional, and if you land at an exceptional one, you can do really well. If you randomly pick something, you'll probably have a bad time. Great words of wisdom. How does one find a great one though? Even for YC with their expertise and experience, most of the startups they fund are not great.

Are they trying to solve hard problems? Do they have talented engineers? (Though I guess you only find out after working there for some time)

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#206

Post by PascLeRasc »

username3 wrote: post #189
sokoloff wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This question misses the point I think. The differences aren’t going to be that they type 1200 wpm or something that would be interesting or obvious on video. It would more likely look like someone spending time thinking carefully, not (necessarily) at a keyboard, thinking about really needs doing, how to best do it, what the user needs and will value, and they might write 1/3 of the code of a median engineer. The ac…

I’m not saying 10x are fast at typing. I just wanted to see how fast someone can use emacs as the person from the interview.

It's not emacs, but you might like this: https://www.vimgolf.com/

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#207

Post by jsutton »

pvarangot wrote: post #170
mendelk wrote: post #168

Welp, now that my Imposter Syndrome has returned in full force, any concrete advice on leveling up in engineering skill (other than getting hired at Google circa 1999)? Edit: I now see that Paul coined the "Don't be Evil" slogan[0]. I'm curious what his thoughts on its removal and what that portends for Google today. u/paul? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22540

Get hired at any place where good engineering is done, or at a startup where no engineering is really done and you get to make the calls about how engineering is done. Work for 10+ hours a day, and on your free time read about engineering from blogs or books, see conference videos, and go to conferences. After 4 or 5 years of doing this you'll maybe know enough about how "everthing works" and what books says how to d…

This seems like generally good advice, except for having to spend every waking moment using your brain for work. Balance is important. Spending some of that free time on learning engineering is good advice, just not all of it. Make sure you spend some free time with friends/family, physical activities, and relaxation.

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#208

Post by kelukelugames »

mendelk wrote: post #168

Welp, now that my Imposter Syndrome has returned in full force, any concrete advice on leveling up in engineering skill (other than getting hired at Google circa 1999)? Edit: I now see that Paul coined the "Don't be Evil" slogan[0]. I'm curious what his thoughts on its removal and what that portends for Google today. u/paul? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22540

I got better when two things happened.

1) Write a lot of code. Like a ton, more than anyone else on the team. 2) Get feedback from people on that code.

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#209

Post by ryanklee »

philote wrote: post #188
mthom wrote: post #184

The title could really benefit from an Oxford comma.

This is my new pet peeve, especially when it's at all programming-related. Anyone dealing with code should know readability is a big deal. I can parse a sentence better with that extra comma without having to reread any part of it. I don't see why its ever left out.

It's an optional feature of the language. Sometimes its exclusion does lead to ambiguity, but other than that, it's a stylistic choice, and preferences on usage diverge.

Re: Paul Buchheit on Joining Google, How to Become a Great Engineer, and Happiness

#210

Post by adamnemecek »

mendelk wrote: post #168

Welp, now that my Imposter Syndrome has returned in full force, any concrete advice on leveling up in engineering skill (other than getting hired at Google circa 1999)? Edit: I now see that Paul coined the "Don't be Evil" slogan[0]. I'm curious what his thoughts on its removal and what that portends for Google today. u/paul? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22540

I quit my job to hack on things and to read. My skills have gotten like billion times as good as when I quit.
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