Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985) • Hacker News Board

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#221

Post by scottLobster » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

paledot wrote: post #182

Oras wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hear hear! I wish one day the dev community will understand that its never about the tools and more about the delivery. The customer does not give a monkey if the backend is node, go or PHP. You do not impress anyone by using React, redux, amber, angular ... etc. All people care about is a solution to a problem they have. However, from my experience, this is not a popular opinion among developers.

Which is why I open my conversational interviews with, "There's an emergency, sales promised a customer a to-do list app yesterday. It's getting shipped out and forgotten, you're doing it on your own, only thing that matters is it's done fast. What do you use?". And then of course I spring the, "Okay, now it's becoming a flagship product. How do you onboard co-workers? How do you pivot to ongoing maintenance? What pr…

As a candidate that would be a hell of a red flag, particularly as an opener. After answering I would definitely follow up with "are situations like those an expected part of my day-to-day?" and minutely examine your response. Even if the rest of the interview went swimmingly that opener would give me pause after the fact.

That question translates to me as "your sister teams/leadership/communication infrastructure are completely incompetent/lacking and you're on the spot to pull an 18 hour shift to clean up their mess. What do you do?"

Sure occasional unforeseen emergencies/breakdowns in communication are expected even at the best of companies, but I'd replace it with a hypothetical that makes the company sound fundamentally competent. Perhaps something like "The company has promised the customer a To-Do List App, however automated testing failed to catch a mission-critical edge-case. This comes to light the day before it's supposed to be delivered. The flaw is so fundamental that the app will have to be re-written. Everyone else is handling other parts of the delivery, so you're on the spot to do it on your own. The only thing that matters is that it's done fast. What do you use?"

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#222

Post by prox » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:13 PM UTC

hpcjoe wrote: post #187

swat535 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why the more I think about it, the more I just want to git-push-heroku-goodbye and be done with it. I don't care about setting and maintaining AWS instances, docker containers and jenkins. The older I get, the more I realize how precious my time is and now I have very little patience for anyone or anything that wastes it. This is also why I've basically cut off all social medias from my life (except H…

This 1000x. Sadly the extended out of state family seems to like FB, and I try to follow science/math twitter. As you get older, something in you clicks, that you realize that time spent being angry, or combative, reduces the time you have for enjoying things (family, life, etc.). Your time on earth is a zero sum game. Maximize its utility, maximize your enjoyment, minimize your negativity (e.g. outrage of the day on…

Even better (imo) is going beyond the maximization maxim and realise the “beauty” of the analog, a world you directly see, hear, touch. Just existing without a specific goal, which is indeed similar as a vacation / holiday. However people seem to reserve the “no goal” mindset only on vacation, but you could also integrate it into your life.

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#223

Post by juancn » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

I makes me think about how I approach really difficult problems. I use a strategy that I call: "obsess and let go" that has worked wonders for me.

Essentially it has two parts:

- obsession: look at the problem intently, poke it, prod it, think about experiments, talk to other people until you're completely blocked and making absolutely no progress.

- letting go: forget about it, go do something else, exercise, take a vacation, paint, attack a different problem, go to a bar, whatever makes you let go (truly let go).

Eventually, as if by magic, at some unknowable time later (could be days or years), while doing something else the beginning of solution pops into consciousness, like a thread that needs to be pulled and as if by magic the whole problem untangles.

I have no clue why this works (I assume the subconscious part of the brain never really lets go after a good obsessive phase), but it does work more often than not.

The hard part is dealing with outside expectations.

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#224

Post by scottLobster » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:27 PM UTC

solipsism wrote: post #217

ric2b wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would give me a bad impression as a candidate. It's like you're aware of the issue (sales doesn't give two shits about the capacity of the engineering team) but you want someone that is good at wasting a lot of time efficiently instead of improving communication with the sales team.

And then as a hiring manager I get the impression that this candidate doesn't understand hypotheticals, which is a big red flag. Happily, we will come to mutual agreement on whether you proceed.

As a candidate I by definition know practically nothing about your company and how it operates internally save for maybe some glassdoor reviews, and you're supposed to be judging how I would perform as a part of said company, same way I'm judging whether the position is worth my time or not.

If all your hypotheticals revolve around cleaning up the mess of flagrantly incompetent coworkers/leadership I'm going to get the impression that that's what I'm expected to do all the time. You could get the same information with different hypotheticals, so there's no point in making your company sound like a horrible place to work.

Happily, we would come to a mutual decision that I should produce profits for someone else. It sounds like you're one of those managers who wants supplicants, not applicants. Good luck with that.

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#225

Post by majewsky » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:28 PM UTC

Uehreka wrote: post #203

goodpoint wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't want to spend my leisure time fighting with tools, debugging build processes that break all the time, make sense of docker's tagging system Now that CV-driven development is the standard, we are forced to learn new bloated "devops" tools and services every year. This type of knowledge expires very quickly. Also these tools and services do not develop communities: business users drop last-year tools like hot…

People on HN are always deriding the “tech hedonic treadmill”, but I find it interesting that this meme seems to have reached maturity in 2015, and the list of things they point to as “the new trendy thing this year” has been the same ever since: Some combo of Node.js, React, webpack, Docker and Kubernetes. I think this meme was still fairly true then: Node was at risk of splitting into Node.js and IO.js, React was s…

New hypothesis: People like to move on to the next thing once they have mastered the current thing, so in a weird co-evolution, those tools-of-the-year evolved to not be masterable and thus people haven't been able to move on yet.

Also, you shall shortly be smited for not having included Rust in that list. :)

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#226

Post by paledot » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:29 PM UTC

scottLobster wrote: post #221

paledot wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why I open my conversational interviews with, "There's an emergency, sales promised a customer a to-do list app yesterday. It's getting shipped out and forgotten, you're doing it on your own, only thing that matters is it's done fast. What do you use?". And then of course I spring the, "Okay, now it's becoming a flagship product. How do you onboard co-workers? How do you pivot to ongoing maintenance? What pr…

As a candidate that would be a hell of a red flag, particularly as an opener. After answering I would definitely follow up with "are situations like those an expected part of my day-to-day?" and minutely examine your response. Even if the rest of the interview went swimmingly that opener would give me pause after the fact. That question translates to me as "your sister teams/leadership/communication infrastructure ar…

I'd make a note of that response and count it in your favour. But if you get sidetracked enough that you never end up answering the question, that's also not a good sign.

IMO your counterexample is wildly implausible, and is likely to sidetrack the candidate. "Is nothing salvageable? What was the flaw? What automated testing? Do I have to use that testing in my alternative fix? How does that reflect on the rest of my tech stack choice?"

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#227

Post by majewsky » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:37 PM UTC

fuzzy2 wrote: post #69

Netcob wrote: post #44

Goal-oriented work, creativity and motivation definitely have a difficult relationship. In programming, I learn the most things simply by experimenting at home on my own. I'm thinking about switching jobs, so I wanted to learn some new frameworks and concepts to help with that, and I decided to make my personal projects a bit more "professional". Use continuous integration, focus more on web stuff, build and automati…

Hm, it’s different for me. Since at work I don’t really do the Continuous Integration/Delivery stuff (or anything with “real infrastructure”), I find it very enjoyable to fiddle with it at home. There’s no pressure to accomplish anything and I can just leave it alone for months or even years before coming back to it. There’s a nice side-effect, too: The CI definition documents how to compile the project. I recently d…

> There’s a nice side-effect, too: The CI definition documents how to compile the project.

Okay, sure, but that's not an argument for CI. That's an argument for a Makefile.

In fact, I find myself going back to Makefiles all the time not in spite of all these specialized build tools, but because of them. Even if the steps are straight-forward for someone who's familiar with the tools, just having a Makefile there in the repository root will be helpful documentation to help someone new (or myself in 2 years) get started with how to build the stuff. For example, for LaTeX, it could be something like:

  build: slides.pdf handout.pdf

  %.pdf: %.tex
    pdflatex $*
    pdflatex $*

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#228

Post by SavantIdiot » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:39 PM UTC

This reminds me of my first year out of college in 198x at my first job when I really really enjoyed learning and playing and growing. Fast forward 20 years into my career I was burned out and forced higher and higher up, to the point where every misunderstanding or new idea was a chance for me to stumble and be overcome by interdepartmental competition. Constant joy turned into constant fear in just two decades.

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#229

Post by dkdk8283 » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

prox wrote: post #222

hpcjoe wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 1000x. Sadly the extended out of state family seems to like FB, and I try to follow science/math twitter. As you get older, something in you clicks, that you realize that time spent being angry, or combative, reduces the time you have for enjoying things (family, life, etc.). Your time on earth is a zero sum game. Maximize its utility, maximize your enjoyment, minimize your negativity (e.g. outrage of the day on…

Even better (imo) is going beyond the maximization maxim and realise the “beauty” of the analog, a world you directly see, hear, touch. Just existing without a specific goal, which is indeed similar as a vacation / holiday. However people seem to reserve the “no goal” mindset only on vacation, but you could also integrate it into your life.

I have no goals, it’s great!

Absolute freedom. I do as I feel most of the time and I’m very lucky to be able to do so.

Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)

#230

Post by scottLobster » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

paledot wrote: post #226

scottLobster wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a candidate that would be a hell of a red flag, particularly as an opener. After answering I would definitely follow up with "are situations like those an expected part of my day-to-day?" and minutely examine your response. Even if the rest of the interview went swimmingly that opener would give me pause after the fact. That question translates to me as "your sister teams/leadership/communication infrastructure ar…

I'd make a note of that response and count it in your favour. But if you get sidetracked enough that you never end up answering the question, that's also not a good sign. IMO your counterexample is wildly implausible, and is likely to sidetrack the candidate. "Is nothing salvageable? What was the flaw? What automated testing? Do I have to use that testing in my alternative fix? How does that reflect on the rest of my…

True, just came up with it off the top of my head. I suppose it is possible to be too detailed in such questions. Point being it at least makes it sound like the company was doing the right things and got hit out of left field, vs stepping in a pile of their own making and making you responsible for fixing it.

Perhaps a more innocent miscommunication like the customer failed to clearly communicate requirements, and it was just discovered in an email conversation that they were expecting and as-of-yet un-implemented To-Do List App in the current release, which is shipping tomorrow/this week/etc. I've experienced situations like that before, not sure how applicable it is to your business.