41–50 of 171 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How often did features come from engineering, from an insight into what the technology could do?
My team probably did 10-12 tickets per sprint and at least one of those were always technical debt related in some way.
However, my comment wasn't referring to technical debt.
This is a subject I deeply care about. Throw me an email if you want to talk deeper!
It's interesting that your feeling that "academia is dying, and dare i say irrelevant", to me, is exactly what brought us here and to the status quo you're complaining about. Maybe return to academia and improve things there?
> is that the industry seemed to shift into something else.
I bet the industry was always the same. Look at Neo's cubicle in the Matrix! There always were MBAs, and there always were glorified hackers. You just do not notice all the people who work on exciting things now.
> academia is dying, and dare i say irrelevant
That is a huge oversimplification. It's true that 99% of research will be put into the table and never applied anywhere. Yet the academia is responsible for studying fundamental aspects of life, which directly affects you and your family. We can now sequence the genomes of cancer patients to create a personalised treatment plan, just to give one example. Where do you think that knowledge comes from? Applying the same logic, we could say that VC and startups are completely irrelevant, since all they do is burn money without producing useful products. But that would simply not be the case.
Starting the company is definitely not a panacea. Imagine having to deal with sales yourself, when you call MBAs the conmen!
I'd encourage you to deeply reflect on what you want to do in life and which areas are of interest to you. https://www.principles.com was exceptionally useful in this regard.
Many companies have interpreted Scrum Agile as a blueprint for a software factory line, where features are drawn up by product management, sprints are scheduled and work items cranked through with little discretion or agency for engineers, for immediate deployment once implemented and off to the next feature on the product management's roadmap. Sprint sprint sprint until sprints are a slog through technical debt, agi…
At my previous company we did Scrum with a capital S. We did planning poker, daily stand-ups (where we actually stood up), bi-weekly retrospectives and so on. However, we (the engineers) had also made it clear to management that we needed time slots for technical debt, which of course we got. It was a pleasure to work in a so oiled machinery. So while we were still chasing features, we also had a say in when to do te…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At my previous company we did Scrum with a capital S. We did planning poker, daily stand-ups (where we actually stood up), bi-weekly retrospectives and so on. However, we (the engineers) had also made it clear to management that we needed time slots for technical debt, which of course we got. It was a pleasure to work in a so oiled machinery. So while we were still chasing features, we also had a say in when to do te…
How often did features come from engineering, from an insight into what the technology could do?
Shit, are you me? You're just being over 30, welcome. Those documentaries you watched on your old CRT TV while growing up were showing you fiction. The tech industry is an ad mill. Academia is about innovation killing fiefdoms. What you need to realize is that for an institution, the first priority is maintaining homeostasis, and that means not letting you do something that might risk resources or upsetting the estab…
To some extent it's always been this way, but I think a combination of extreme financialization, globalization, and practices like scrum (which means well, I think, but is often used as a cudgel to 'inspect' developer performance) have made average developer life even less pleasant in the last decade.
It sounds like most of your disillusionment is with the profit seeking. Now, sure there are still some caveats here, but have you considered working in defence? While private defence contractor companies still make tons of money, there is not the noticeable profit incentive floating around since government contracts are taken for granted, very lucrative, and last a long time. The pace is slower, but I've found manage…
USAjobs often has ambiguous postings unfortunately. This is sometimes intentional. Networking in the defense department as a STEM guy is pretty easy, and whatever first gig you land can take you to something else in a few years. Recently had a coworker who was on our malware analysis team move positions and now works on software for DoD satellites, for example - something more inline with what he wanted to do.
If you want some more background on my experience or you feel like this is something you'd be interested in feel free to pm me.
I think the problem is a more fundamental societal one, namely that we have moved to a highly financialized, business-driven economy that is by its very nature trying to turn all aspects of our lives into tradable goods. In this context engineers (and tech workers in general) are more like factory workers than craftsmen (this is a fact that has yet to sink in for may of us).
There are however niches where you can find some of what you're looking for. Starting your own business is of course a valuable route. I think you can also find smaller companies that have more of a craft ethos, where people are driven by the work itself.
Perhaps one thing that may be required is an acceptance that more meaningful/satisfying work might bring fewer financial rewards. Once you become comfortable with that idea, I think many interesting avenues open up.