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We will never have enough software developers (2020)

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Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#181

Post by Guid_NewGuid »

rootusrootus wrote: post #67
dt3ft wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can’t even push to a git repo unless it has a linked work item/story/task/bug. So, in order to say, upgrade packages or refactor difficult to read code, the work item needs to be approved by a non-tech PO. Guess how much gets done outside of planned/micromanaged? Answer: next to nothing.

That definitely sounds broken. I have a hard rule with my PO: 30% of the sprint is mine (read: the team's). He only gets to schedule 70% of the stories according to his priorities. I use that 30% for tech debt, primarily, but sometimes for spike projects and other things that interest us.

It sounds like SOC2 compliance requirements unfortunately. Plus process overhead on who can raise tickets.

I've found compliance makes it harder to write good code. If you get a PR approval with optional suggestions you're heavily disincentivised from actually addressing those comments since if you push those changes you now need to wait for review again.

Like everything process and compliance it's designed by low-confidence managers with an inate distrust of their teams.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#182

Post by pushingice »

jaredandrews wrote: post #54
cs137 wrote: post #10

There isn't a shortage of software developers. The pay isn't great--the kids getting $300K packages out of Stanford are an exception; it's a marketing expense. In fact, if you control for the level of intelligence it takes to be any good, SWEs make less (and get far less autonomy--do you think lawyers work on Jira tickets?) than any other professional, and they hit a salary/challenge plateau quick... after which, the…

> do you think lawyers work on Jira tickets? LOL, a lawyer in my family does. He actually meets with a whole group of lawyers every month or so and they all do a retrospective to figure out how well applying agile/lean/whatever principles to their firms has been working. He actually feels it gives them a real edge.

I've suggested this to my lawyer wife more than once. The problem is that she works for multiple partners with no visibility in to each other's tasks. So each partner thinks they can have 100% of her time whenever they want, and get upset when that turns out not to be true.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#183

Post by pawelduda »

ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #168
spicymaki wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't get on the "It is a hard-knock life for Software developers" train. We are very-very well compensated, and we are insufferable. I do understand the issue. Humans are prone to complain about any slight whether real or imagined. Millionaires will complain about not having enough money, A-list celebrities will complain about not having enough visibility, sports stars will complain about every foul play. Money ju…

The thing that really crystallises how spoilt we are is: https://nohello.club/ We take ourselves so seriously we cannot afford the time for someone to be polite!

Even the website itself states this pretty much on top:

> Do still be polite, and feel free to have social conversations!

Given that, I don't really see what's impolite about it, especially in an async conversations, where the other person is not expected to be on their feet, waiting for incoming messages.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#184

Post by dubswithus »

dt3ft wrote: post #24
cabraca wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its not just the best ones. If you remove people from the grind for 1-2 days a week, give them a small budget and enough autonomy to do what they want, most people will fix shit that bugged them for a long time. The main problem is how micromanage-y the current development processes are. Everything has to be a ticket/user story and has to be planned and approved by some people that never even wrote a single line of c…

We can’t even push to a git repo unless it has a linked work item/story/task/bug. So, in order to say, upgrade packages or refactor difficult to read code, the work item needs to be approved by a non-tech PO. Guess how much gets done outside of planned/micromanaged? Answer: next to nothing.

What happens if you do it anyway and don't put it on the board?

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#185

Post by qgin »

ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #168
spicymaki wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't get on the "It is a hard-knock life for Software developers" train. We are very-very well compensated, and we are insufferable. I do understand the issue. Humans are prone to complain about any slight whether real or imagined. Millionaires will complain about not having enough money, A-list celebrities will complain about not having enough visibility, sports stars will complain about every foul play. Money ju…

The thing that really crystallises how spoilt we are is: https://nohello.club/ We take ourselves so seriously we cannot afford the time for someone to be polite!

Don’t mix up engineer culture with being spolied. Engineers will find ways to trade social boilerplate for efficiency whether they get paid 500k or nothing at all.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#186

Post by whimsicalism »

psychoslave wrote: post #41
trashtester wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SWE's are not the only ones that think that their pay is low compared to their intelligence level, their education level, how tough, inconvenient or important their work is or what they feel they deserve for some other reason. For instance, I'm sure there are plenty of HR managers in various companies that are secretly furious about all the young young mostly males, mostly white or asian, still in their 20s, join the…

>SWE's are not the only ones that think that their pay is low compared to their intelligence level, their education level, how tough, inconvenient or important their work is or what they feel they deserve for some other reason. Sure, but it doesn’t mean some or all of them are not right, especially when the unequal distribution of wealth is well known and documented to evolve for the worst. https://en.wikipedia.org/w…

This has to do with ownership and inheritance, not that SWEs are poorly paid laborers. Many software engineers are in the global 1% richest.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#187

Post by dgb23 »

wes-k wrote: post #90
cabraca wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its not just the best ones. If you remove people from the grind for 1-2 days a week, give them a small budget and enough autonomy to do what they want, most people will fix shit that bugged them for a long time. The main problem is how micromanage-y the current development processes are. Everything has to be a ticket/user story and has to be planned and approved by some people that never even wrote a single line of c…

I've dreamed about a 20% policy like google had, except it's where you can work on anything, including code debt. I've tried to stress to managers in the past that developers feel the pain of code debt. It makes us slower! Enable us to spend time sharpening our tools and managing our codebase. One problem of course is, not all SWE can do this well. I wouldn't necessarily trust a junior hire to recognize and execute a…

How does a junior become a senior? By trying stuff that cannot do well yet and making mistakes.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#188

Post by codegeek »

rapind wrote: post #86
Gigachad wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cry me a river. Software development is some of the easiest, highest paid work in history. The majority of the population is grinding away in tough physical labor or abusive service jobs getting paid pennies while software devs moan about only making low six figures and getting a few boring jira tickets while they sit in their home office reading hacker news for half the day.

> Software development is some of the easiest, highest paid work in history. Nope this is an outdated opinion. You can do just as well or better in trades (source: my electrician buddy). If you’re referring to the FAANG salaries (sub 1%) you’re comparing to doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs in terms of opportunity cost. Your average joe programmer isn’t killing it like you seem to think, and they’d do just as well in t…

The point is that the trades lile electrician or HVAC get paid well but ut is much harder physical work just had my AC replaced and the guy was sweating through rhe day to put everything together I paid well but it wasn't harder than making a SWE salary.

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#189

Post by qgin »

mathverse wrote: post #156
keewee7 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading Indians on r/DevOps who were surprised they were earning more than Germans in DevOps/Ops positions.

Adjusted for costs of living or TCO? IT pays peanuts in Europe.

It doesn’t make sense to me why pay is so low in Europe. Is there actually that much less demand relative to supply?

Re: We will never have enough software developers (2020)

#190

Post by AyyWS »

cs137 wrote: post #10

There isn't a shortage of software developers. The pay isn't great--the kids getting $300K packages out of Stanford are an exception; it's a marketing expense. In fact, if you control for the level of intelligence it takes to be any good, SWEs make less (and get far less autonomy--do you think lawyers work on Jira tickets?) than any other professional, and they hit a salary/challenge plateau quick... after which, the…

> do you think lawyers work on Jira tickets

You want to represent a murderer, rapist or a Bernie Madoff? Lawyers deal with an order of magnitude more BS. You may feel bad when you work on a dead end feature. Imagine if your representation let a rapist walk.

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