Never work as a software engineer in a startup
buildingstartups.co
Never work as a software engineer in a startup
1–7 of 7 posts
Re: Never work as a software engineer in a startup
#2I think the title might me slightly misleading, but I completely agree. I appreciate the distinction between "product engineer" and "software engineer".
Personally I prefer a lot more the role of product engineer, all the way from talking with customers to debugging PostgreSQL sequence that went astray. Looking a jobs around me and how specialized and (in my view) limited in scope...
I'd choose working on a startup any day, with a loose job description, figuring stuff out and delivering to customers than the traditional "assembly line programmer" that I see around me.
Re: Never work as a software engineer in a startup
#3Clickbait title, but I wholeheartedly agree with the article’s main assertion, that startups need product engineers who think about more than just code. Engineers who can make decisions for the benefit of the customer, and ultimately the business.
This is all the more reason to delegate responsibilities, rather than tasks (as argued in Little Tasks, Little Trust [0]), so programmers actually get the necessary experience with UX, design, interacting with customers, etc., and exposure to the consequences of what they build, in order to grow into full-fledged product engineers.
I fear though that such roles, and consequently such engineers, are few and far between.
Re: Never work as a software engineer in a startup
#4Meh! You assume that a "Software Engineer" doesn't already solve domain specific problem in whatever domain or organization they're in.
bE a "prOdUcT eNgiNeEr" bEcAUsE a "sOfTwaRe EngInEeR" iS aN iDiOT coDe mOnkEy, aMiRitE?
Re: Never work as a software engineer in a startup
#5I think the title might me slightly misleading, but I completely agree. I appreciate the distinction between "product engineer" and "software engineer". Personally I prefer a lot more the role of product engineer, all the way from talking with customers to debugging PostgreSQL sequence that went astray. Looking a jobs around me and how specialized and (in my view) limited in scope... I'd choose working on a startup a…
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product engineer, all the way from talking with customers to debugging PostgreSQL sequence that went astray. Looking a jobs around me and how specialized and (in my view) limited in scope...
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Fully agree with you on this, I think its just the nature of the game that roles get more specialised as time flows, but the bond between customers and engineers should always exist
Re: Never work as a software engineer in a startup
#6Clickbait title, but I wholeheartedly agree with the article’s main assertion, that startups need product engineers who think about more than just code. Engineers who can make decisions for the benefit of the customer, and ultimately the business. This is all the more reason to delegate responsibilities, rather than tasks (as argued in Little Tasks, Little Trust [0]), so programmers actually get the necessary experie…
Thanks so much for sharing the above, I really loved the thesis and approach.
Fully agree to the process, delegating tasks is a bandaid approach that still has bottlenecks
Re: Never work as a software engineer in a startup
#7I wanted to hate this post. But then I had to acknowledge that what he's saying basically true.
Except for a small handful of programmers who are really, really good - in the scheme of things (at least as far as those who run the company are concerned) the vast majority of us are, to use Blade Runner terminology - "little people".