We will never have enough software developers (2020) • Hacker News Board

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

#431

Post by webel0 » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 10:03 PM UTC

shagie wrote: post #426

usrn wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH CS degrees don't really produce people who can code in general either. As far as I can tell they take people who already understand the basics and teach them to formally communicate.

They typically also require 1000-2000 hours (over the course of the entire degree) of instruction time in things relating to software development. Part of that is homework and the practice of the craft of software development. One of the key things that self taught developers miss is the instruction and review of the code. You write code differently if you're going to be graded or if its a throw away script. In theor…

As a self-taught programmer, I tend to be pretty self-conscious about my code quality for precisely this reason. As such, I’ve never had issues on this front.

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

#432

Post by trashtester » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 10:07 PM UTC

grumple wrote: post #376

trashtester wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe some HR managers believe that empathy and "EQ" are more important than IQ? Maybe they even think that intelligence is a social construct invented by the Patriarchy for the purpose of oppressing people who are not "cis white males"? Who knows, maybe for some, these ideas may even have been part of their education....

> Maybe some HR managers believe that empathy and "EQ" are more important than IQ? Have you ever interacted with HR? I'm pretty sure they are trained to be cold and uncaring, and to apply business rules without exception. Never heard an ounce of empathy from any of them, it always feels like interacting with an automaton that was somehow annoyed with you.

> Have you ever interacted with HR?

Plenty of times. Some that are really smart, some that are not. Some that are cold and "corporate", some that are getting way too personal. (As in a "metoo" moment.)

Politically, I've met at least one that was secretly a eugenicist and others that are pretty far left.

All of them individuals, but several of them collectivists.

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

#433

Post by deathanatos » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 10:10 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #186

psychoslave wrote: post #41

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. 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.

> Many software engineers are in the global 1% richest.

I mean, some are, yes, but … I'm not, and I know many SWEs who aren't.

> According to the 2018 Global Wealth Report from Credit Suisse Research Institute, you need a net worth of $871,320

(https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/01/how-much-money-you-need-to-b...)

I miss that cutoff. But if you narrow to my country, the requirement for being in the top 1% jumps to $11M.

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

#434

Post by namaria » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 10:13 PM UTC

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #247

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…

> If you remove people from the grind for 1-2 days a week The modern office seems hellbent on killing every last bit of slack in their workers, then wondering why they leave or get burned out. I realized the other day that a big part of my drive to move towards self-employment is really just a way to carve out time to take adequate care of myself. I have significant doubts that it is possible to continue to advance i…

>I have significant doubts that it is possible to continue to advance [as a worker under capitalism] (...), be a good spouse, parent, and friend, and not run myself into the ground with physical/mental issues.

It's heartbreaking how much human suffering is entirely avoidable in a post scarcity society where it is still artificially enforced to avoid the "moral hazard" of commoners daring not to toil or worry every waking hour

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

#435

Post by sirsinsalot » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 10:15 PM UTC

Guid_NewGuid wrote: post #350

sirsinsalot wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fundamentally disagree with this. In our product, a change has the potential to cost businesses lots of money and also bring our customers into legal trouble, potentially making us liable too. That's why we have heavy-handed change control, code vetting and so on. Yes it makes things slower, but due to the risks involved. I've also worked on embedded projects where field updates are HARD and costly. We had heavy-ha…

I see your point, I think this is the crux of the matter though: > Sure, it isn't appropriate in many cases I think where low-confidence management comes in is the application of the process without reference to whether the process is appropriate. It's easier to require all changes to be reviewed, every change to have a ticket and all post-approval changes to require re-approval even if the thing being edited is CSS…

The same rigid application of process is often done in the name of Agile, when it is in fact the opposite

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

#436

Post by Cd00d » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 10:15 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #210

rootusrootus wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely think "we do not do leetcode interviews" and maybe "we only have three interviews total" would be selling points on a job posting. People who are experienced in the field don't want to go through the same hoops that newbies do just to prove they know how to write basic algorithms.

Personally I do because I enjoy working with very smart people. The backlash against leetcode is the same as backlash against other types of tests: most people are going to fail and most people don't like failing, so they blame the test.

No post body was provided.

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

#437

Post by namaria » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 10:17 PM UTC

Frost1x wrote: post #400

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you remove people from the grind for 1-2 days a week The modern office seems hellbent on killing every last bit of slack in their workers, then wondering why they leave or get burned out. I realized the other day that a big part of my drive to move towards self-employment is really just a way to carve out time to take adequate care of myself. I have significant doubts that it is possible to continue to advance i…

Pretty much. I often wonder where people find positions claimed on the internet where they're working 2-3 hours a day. I've increasingly throughout my career saw more and more slack evaporate to a point it's almost nonexistent. I always wondered why people complained about how much time certain aspects took up they could automate away and my question was always: well, once you automate away that nice simple task, wha…

I think the low hour anecdotes come overwhelmingly from Europe, where 45K is considered a high salary

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

#438

Post by highwaylights » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 10:18 PM UTC

mettamage wrote: post #171

highwaylights wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On one hand, I agree with you that on the whole we're a bunch of spoiled crybabies. Totally grant you that. On the other hand, saying that the majority of the population is grinding in tough physical labour is just not true. Most other jobs are generic office jobs that don't need to be done (just like 80%+ of software engineering jobs don't need to be done). Most of us are just doing things for money. Are most people…

We need data for this. More importantly, we need data for how tough it is to get certain jobs. That means stuff like: * Time spent on finding a job * Time spent on studying in order to attain a job * Actual amount of hours worked (hard to get accurate data on it) * Actual amount of effort per hour (hard to operationalize) It's a very tough discussion to have, but I have a gut feeling that you're simplifying too much…

Am I to assume you're not happy to trust ma gut?

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

#439

Post by deathanatos » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 10:18 PM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #33

nicoburns wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s housing that’s the anomaly there though, not SWE salaries.

It is both IMO.

No, it's housing. Housing is expensive b/c there is no supply, and you can't fix a supply side problem by putting more money on the demand side: that just enables people to bid higher than they already are, and the people selling what scant supply exists will pocket the additional cash. The same amount of people that today are below the point where supply meets demand will remain below it.

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

#440

Post by sirsinsalot » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 10:21 PM UTC

Frost1x wrote: post #413

sirsinsalot wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But when something major breaks, and the answer to the question of "why?" is ... "well, I just thought i'd make that change, but nobody asked for it" what happens then? I wouldn't want to be accountable in that situation. Every change carries risk.

And what if the same major thing breaks but you were asked to do it? Your necks on the line and you did something wrong that you were asked to do correctly. The problem is that part of current micromanagement environments isn't just about micromanagement but also passing down risk and responsibility to developers. You can do the change work in a feature branch and propose the idea after the fact. If there's interest…

Because if you're asked to do something, someone has presumably thought it through and accepted the risk to the business/client.

I'm not sure I'd keep someone on the team who did a branch AWOL and proposed the idea after the fact. Doesn't show much respect for the team, that time could've been spent working towards goals agreed by the whole team.

If you don't have a lead or management environment with ears open to exploratory change, tech debt payoff or "do it better" tasks or whatever... and you have to manage up so much... that sounds like an issue to me.