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What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional companies do not

blog.pragmaticengineer.com

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Re: What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional companies do not

#81

Post by bigiain »

courtf wrote: post #24
opportune wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! The proliferation and role of "business people" in traditional companies is IMO their defining characteristic. It shows how much or how little a business trusts engineers (and also engineer's "status" within the company, e.g. are they respected and valued or treated as a disposable resource) to run the business as general problem solvers. The ironic thing about Agile is that it has a cottage industry of "scrum c…

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Re: What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional companies do not

#82

Post by u678u »

meh I feel like SV companies are great to work at the last 10-15 years because they're making loads of money in a growing area.

Oil, Pharma, Banking have all had great times when employees there had lots of autonomy and made bank.

True with SV Engineers are the main type of employee so probably do better than at firms where engineers are helping other divisions make money.

Re: What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional companies do not

#83

Post by [deleted] »

arexxbifs wrote: post #60
qppo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A question I like for non-tech businesses is: "do you see this as a software business or transitioning to become one?" Because these days every business has to be investing into software products, and the ones that don't recognize that the software is key to all their products are the ones that are dead folks walking. They're also great targets for SaaS consultant vultures.

I dearly hope my cast iron skillet will never require a firmware upgrade.

[deleted]

Re: What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional companies do not

#84

Post by tester756 »

lxe wrote: post #79

Software engineers can't always be the best or effective at solving problems that require specialized non-software engineering knowledge. In an SV-style company that develops a SaaS product, engineers can make all sorts of decisions, since they are solving a problem they are intimately familiar with. What about other industries that require specialized knowledge or regulatory bureaucracy, like finances or healthcare?

this, I work with mid-size ERPs that deal with some law, some tax, invoices and all this shit that ERPs deal with and I wouldnt trust myself to commit any "business logic" decision in that environment

there's so much stuff happening

Re: What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional companies do not

#86

Post by jtdev »

abalashov wrote: post #58

It all depends on who you're hiring and what you're building. Definitely applicable to startups and innovators coming up from the bottom. But, there are absolutely companies maintaining low-growth Clunky Java Accounting Application for Insurance Companies #574 for whom this approach is contraindicated. Those companies can hire relatively entry-level, average graduates, at commensurate salaries, and assign them highly…

Those companies will die...

Re: What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional companies do not

#87

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

From my experience, the triangle communication is great within the engineering department. It can cause big problems if persons from outside engineering wander in and communicate with an engineer. Typically, this is a problem when the engineer happens to want to be helpful and winds up spending time on a matter unrelated to the task they have committed to delivering. We've seen hours, days and even weeks of time consumed by such side-tracking.

We've had to smack it down pretty hard in a couple of cases, and pretty strictly enforce the triangle when communicating with non-engineering departments.

Re: What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional companies do not

#88

Post by cm2187 »

jedberg wrote: post #33

The best way to tell if a company values engineers is to ask which cost center they are in. Is it IT? Then they will treat you like a cog and consider you just a cost to the company. Is it Product? Then they will consider you valuable and critical to the company's success.

And the geography too. If a european company outsources its development to India, even if they hire the top of the basket there, and they often can’t, the devs are so remote from the business that I hardly see how it could emulate the sort of dynamism you have in the SV.

Re: What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional companies do not

#89

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

mettamage wrote: post #52

What European companies are like this? I've been trying to apply for ages at US companies, for the reasons such as this. Reading HN for 6 years and being US-centered in general (thanks to tech) made me want to work like this. I've noticed that at European organizations people indeed try to pin me in a box, and then I can't thrive when I'm working there.

Another comment mentioned that a good indicator is whether or not software is a company's raison d'être or not. Compared with trad companies like old-school banks, B&M retailers, etc. If the entire value of the company is and always has been their software, it's likely they value engineers more.

Re: What Silicon Valley gets about engineers that traditional companies do not

#90

Post by bigiain »

jedberg wrote: post #76
arexxbifs wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dearly hope my cast iron skillet will never require a firmware upgrade.

A company that makes cast iron skillets can still have software as a core part of their business. Logistics, monitoring the manufacturing process, forecasting demand. All of these things can be software that is core to business. Or even more important, having a useful website for selling their products.

Sure, but Le Creuset will never describe themselves as "a software business"...

(And if they did, I'd immediately be looking for a different cookware supplier.)

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