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What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

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Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#91

Post by Alex3917 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #87
rileymat2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting I did a bit of Googling, I guess it varies by sport quite a bit. https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/around-the-league-nfl/20... Some sports, most coaches came from players, but the NFL notably does not.

"Most coaches came fro players" is very different from "players are expected to become coaches". I can't think of any sport where players are expected to become coaches.

> I can't think of any sport where players are expected to become coaches.

In amateur sports it's common. E.g. in rowing, cycling, fencing, cross country skiing, etc., people are generally expected to coach at some point. Albeit usually while they're doing the sport, and not necessarily as their primary careers.

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#92

Post by nkassis »

bradstewart wrote: post #50
rileymat2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting I did a bit of Googling, I guess it varies by sport quite a bit. https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/around-the-league-nfl/20... Some sports, most coaches came from players, but the NFL notably does not.

I wonder if team size has anything to do with that. Football teams are much larger than those in other sports.

Football team coaching staff are almost like another team. Position coaches usually are ex players of that position but as you move up the chain it gets more into strategic management and thus by the HC level it's more of a manager role with architects underneath for offense and defense so less position technical knowledge more game knowledge.

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#93

Post by huhtenberg »

GrinningFool wrote: post #63
huhtenberg wrote: post #3

https://outline.com/6GdLnT

I'm not sure the benefit? Reader mode makes it readable, and it seems like outline.com does some weirdness where it traps history back-navigation.

The original link wasn't working.

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#94

Post by tiborsaas »

lrossi wrote: post #49
marcus_holmes wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I entered the industry with no degree, having taught myself to code. After approx 15 years as a developer, I decided to get a degree, because it was becoming a problem (Australia is very sensitive to qualifications). I decided to get an MBA because all the hard problems I'd met were people and/or business problems. The tech is generally easy in commercial coding. There is usually a definitive answer, and if not then…

What kind of resources would you suggest to someone who wants to get better at handling people problems?

You can also try therapy.

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#95

Post by BossingAround »

nahname wrote: post #62
SPBS wrote: post #8

> Computer Assisted Software Engineering (CASE) tools, COTS, Enterprise Resource Planning products like Peoplesoft and SAP and, yes, even Ruby. They claim amazing reductions in cost and time if you buy into their holistic development philosophy. What is not always as obvious is the significant up-front costs or the constraints you may be committing yourself to. Lock-in used to primarily happen with vendors, but now i…

It's hard not to become jaded when every framework turns out to be just another team's personal preferences. I would say the statement is generally true about frameworks, but not true about rails. Perhaps the author did not spend enough time with rails.

> It's hard not to become jaded when every framework turns out to be just another team's personal preferences.

Isn't that a definition of a framework? A more or less opinionated way to structure a particular type of an application?

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#97

Post by spicymaki »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #38
Accujack wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expecting a talented software engineer to "upgrade" to become a manager of a development team makes exactly the same amount of sense as expecting a talented accountant to gain a bit more skill and suddenly become a lawyer.

There are other paths at Google than upgrading to mgmt, but all of them involve "cross-team collaboration" and other quasi-political (with a small-p) aspects. Actually just writing code at Google is, from my experience, a small part of the job and not rewarded. The faster you get out of writing code and get into designing and delegating it, the better you're off. Sucks if you don't like it. Coming up with a way to re…

Personally I "think" I want to just code forever, but I migrated from coder to more of an architecture role. However, for me, the growth is just not there. It is in the cross-collaboration, mentoring and industry influence is how you develop. In some companies time in grade is a factor in layoffs. Due to ageism companies might not be looking for someone at a certain age and experience to just grind out code full-time, but to work on a product holistically.

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#98

Post by [deleted] »

lrossi wrote: post #49
marcus_holmes wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I entered the industry with no degree, having taught myself to code. After approx 15 years as a developer, I decided to get a degree, because it was becoming a problem (Australia is very sensitive to qualifications). I decided to get an MBA because all the hard problems I'd met were people and/or business problems. The tech is generally easy in commercial coding. There is usually a definitive answer, and if not then…

What kind of resources would you suggest to someone who wants to get better at handling people problems?

[deleted]

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#99

Post by phamilton »

Alex3917 wrote: post #91
marcosdumay wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most coaches came fro players" is very different from "players are expected to become coaches". I can't think of any sport where players are expected to become coaches.

> I can't think of any sport where players are expected to become coaches. In amateur sports it's common. E.g. in rowing, cycling, fencing, cross country skiing, etc., people are generally expected to coach at some point. Albeit usually while they're doing the sport, and not necessarily as their primary careers.

Yeah, but this might be closer to "actors are expected to wait tables". It has more to do with paying the bills than career advancement.

Re: What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

#100

Post by milesvp »

lrossi wrote: post #74
marcinzm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not much real advice on the behavioral side, to the point that people often take trainings for behavioral interviews and memorize “leadership principles” and other nonsense. This is what FAANG interview generally look for so why is it a surprise that potential hires focus on it? Amazon literally says that you need to highlight all the leadership principles in the stories you tell when answering behavioral questions.…

Do you know why Amazon is focusing so much on the Leadership Principles questions, yet there seem to be so many horror stories from people who work there? I am genuinely curious why they don’t manage to filter out the jerks.

I recently looked at some of their hiring material, and one of the before after leadership showed a lot of bullshit in the after. The content was nearly the same, but it felt embellished in a way that left me feeling hollow. It was some oncall event, of which I’ve experienced dozens, and the second version just felt oddly misguided for the sake of saying the magic words the interviewer wanted to hear. The leadership principles seems to be reinforcing bullshit. We’ll tell you what we want to hear, and you’ll tell us what we want to hear. Do our principles line up? ‘Who cares? You told us what we wanted to hear.’ It’s effectively a jerk pass filter at that point.

Mind you, there’s some of this in all interviewing, but from some people I’ve talked to, Amazon seems to really love these leadership stories.

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