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The other kind of staff software engineer

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Re: The other kind of staff software engineer

#111

Post by didibus »

chadash wrote: post #65

Related to this article: The owner of a company (non-startup, but growing and profitable) I used to work for gave me great career advice. He said to always focus on things that produce revenue. If you aren't doing things that produce revenue, try to move into those areas if possible. His view was that revenue can soar 100%, 200%, 1,000%, 10,000% or however high. Cost savings, on the other hand, can only go down to a…

Cutting cost can often bring in revenue.

If you can provide the same product or service but with a smaller margin, you can out price your competitors and win the customers over.

I think Jeff Bezos is famous for saying: Your margin is my opportunity.

Re: The other kind of staff software engineer

#112

Post by rendall »

mgkimsal wrote: post #25
Goronmon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one place I worked full-time, the time-tracking software explicitly had a checkbox, "billable", which meant this time can be directly billed to clients, and you were expected to be able to check that for some specific percentage of your working day. The percentage I'm expected to bill to clients is 100%, 8hrs a day. We are even expected to make up time spent on non-billable things like company or department meetin…

I contracted at a place where this was expected, but any 'meetings' you were just supposed to bill to the client/project as well. Some folks were on longterm/large projects - like... 15 people on one client project. 1hr meeting? It's just... billable time. I was stuck on support dealing with 6-8 different clients. I was supposed to split up time between the clients. 1 hr 'all hands' meeting for the company? Just char…

I used to scroll through my github history, parseling out which precise minutes went where. No. Life is too short, and the bean counters don't really give a shit, they just want a number. 7.5 hours a day regardless, unless I worked 5 hours or 10 hours, then I put that.

Re: The other kind of staff software engineer

#113

Post by iguanayou »

jimmaswell wrote: post #82
adamgordonbell wrote: post #3

Author here. Working at a tech company as a developer vs working at a non-tech company are very different. These two types of roles were called line vs staff when I took a business school class and I think the differences between these two types of roles have a big impact on what the job is like, even if doing the same type of work. It's a bit confusing because it overlaps with 'staff software engineer' term. I recal…

I work at a non-tech company. I mostly write/maintain unexciting components for a website's CMS, and any tertiary work around that. Easygoing, remote, great work/life balance, good pay. Often go fishing or work on projects like an ebike for a lot of the day, sporadically checking the work chat and tuning into meetings from my phone. On the rare occasion something really important comes up I'm always ready to jump in…

I've got the same type of deal here. I just worry about skills getting outdated since I'm only working on an in-house system and doing mostly maintenance. But perhaps that fear is overblown.

I could easily hop to a gig with more responsibility and more opportunity for increasing my skills - but also more stress.

Re: The other kind of staff software engineer

#114

Post by [deleted] »

chadash wrote: post #65

Related to this article: The owner of a company (non-startup, but growing and profitable) I used to work for gave me great career advice. He said to always focus on things that produce revenue. If you aren't doing things that produce revenue, try to move into those areas if possible. His view was that revenue can soar 100%, 200%, 1,000%, 10,000% or however high. Cost savings, on the other hand, can only go down to a…

[deleted]

Re: The other kind of staff software engineer

#115

Post by Random_Person »

How about the third position (which I find myself in in): Staff->Line engineer.

I work primarily on an internal support product which the company decided to license to other entities... at a ridiculously low price. We support dozens of instances and thousands of users, yet bring in less than half of one developers net salary.

And, of course, my departments performance is judged on the Line work, not the Staff work.

Re: The other kind of staff software engineer

#116

Post by physicsgraph »

The claim that "You are line if your role makes up the largest fraction of the org chart" has a counter example: the number of pilots in the Air Force is relatively small compared to the number of non-pilot positions, yet the pilot is the only line role in the Air Force.

Re: The other kind of staff software engineer

#117

Post by icedchai »

wreath wrote: post #66
cushychicken wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'line' vs 'staff' distinction makes a ton of sense to me. I've been reading Will Larson's blog about staff engineers and trying to articulate what sets staff engineers apart, and I think you've nailed it. "Staff" more or less equals "support", but on an executive or strategic level. A problem I deal with personally is growing into "Staff" style work. I'd love to have bigger, wider impacts on a more strategic leve…

> My perception is that I'm considered too good on the "line"; I'd be a loss to the org to move up a notch. At a previous company, they moved a lot of their top performer “line” engineers to staff level and they all felt unproductive and eventually quit.

Yep. I've see this happen. People who are good at coding may actually want to code, not write "tech specs" and have review meetings all day.

Re: The other kind of staff software engineer

#118

Post by robertlagrant »

rubidium wrote: post #70
phkahler wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two thing. One, I always hated the cost center vs profit center distinction. These are accounting terms. It's super common in places that have embedded software (auto industry is close to me) where any manufacturing plant is considered a profit center, and engineering is often a cost center. When things are tight they tend want to reduce "costs" not realizing that engineering can also be seen as an investment in the…

“ I always hated the cost center vs profit center distinction.” You may hate it but ignore it at your peril. It’s how the company sees you.

I think the issue with it is that finance get to dictate how a company's strategy goes, which may not work well in any industry that's hard to understand (e.g. tech).

Re: The other kind of staff software engineer

#120

Post by robertlagrant »

fdasfsdfgasdfds wrote: post #76
drchopchop wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much easier to save money than it is to make it, and that's why revenue is valued more. You can hire any number of consulting firms or smart engineers that can tell you how to lower your AWS bill, or get rid of unproductive employees. It's much harder to figure out how to grow your business by 2x.

It's not linear. Cutting 1% of costs while maintaining the same revenue might be trivial. Cutting 10% of costs might be very doable. Cutting 50% of costs might be incredibly hard. And I assure you that growing revenue by 100% is far easier than cutting costs by 100% (while maintaining current revenue). Also, there's a human element to it. I'd venture that most CEOs would much rather the company make more money than h…

Cloud companies do present unique opportunities for easy saving, though.
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