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Google Engineer: What I learned in the war

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Re: Google Engineer: What I learned in the war

#21

Post by dotBen »

rdl wrote: post #17
dotBen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there don't seem to be a large number of reservists/national guard in the tech community; Why do you/others think this is? I'm not a US citizen, so that counts me out. But even so I wouldn't become a reservest because I feel I have a lot of unique and valuable skills (engineering, thought leadership in platforms, and media technology) that wouldn't be capitalizable by the military - certainly not as a reservist. I wo…

I agree with some of your sentiment, but I think you don't have accurate information on all of the military. The big deal with the reserves/NG (in the Army, at least) is that there is a huge difference among units; the majority of army PSYOPs capability is actually in the reserve component, and is as good as anything in active duty; there are both active duty and reserve units in other specialties which are pretty wi…

Your argument, if I read it right, is basically that I'm wrong and that the military is good at capitalizing on people's skills - and you give psyops as one example and also talk about people's credentials.

Sure, I don't disagree with you that in general, you can specialize in the reservists.

The point I'm making is that specifically for tech/software engineers/startup folks -- which was the genesis for the OP comment -- there isn't a great deal of skill overlap and capitalization. I'm not sure anything you've said disagrees with that.

Re: Google Engineer: What I learned in the war

#22

Post by Dove »

chimeracoder wrote: post #6
rdl wrote: post #2

From what I've heard, Google does a particularly good job of taking care of reservists (there are federal laws about not firing, but good companies go beyond this). Outside of government contracting (where it makes a lot of business sense to hire reservists or former military), there don't seem to be a large number of reservists/national guard in the tech community; almost more foreign-country-compulsory-service vete…

> As well, the military is a more diverse organization in the US than almost any tech company. Agreed. I always get irritated when I see people referring to the military as some homogeneous, white-Protestant, politically conservative institution. It's very much not the case. Dan, the subject of this article, studied at Columbia, which has an incredibly large veteran population in the undergraduate student body. From…

There is a wonderful PBS series called Carrier about life aboard an aircraft carrier. You can see full episodes (with ads) here: http://www.pbs.org/weta/carrier/full_episodes.htm , or you can stream it via Netflix.

It focuses heavily on the people, and their stories. The sheer diversity of the crowd is amazing.

Re: Google Engineer: What I learned in the war

#23

Post by jholman »

thorie wrote: post #11

I like the point he made about not giving exact instructions on taking a box from point A to B. Looks like it's better to hire smart, capable people and not micromanage them - than it is to hire cheap people and tell them exactly what to do.

As hugh3 mentioned, it's not (necessarily) about hiring smart people, nor about people who arrive well-trained. The majority of entrants into the military system have no training (i.e. are 18y.o. kids), and I suspect that the mean intelligence is a tiny fraction south of that of the general population (because of the incentive structure).

From the FA, the military system is not "just trust everyone to get a job done, no matter what the job is".

From the FA, the system is: first you train people hard, then once they've passed testing you trust them to make autonomous decisions within the areas that they're trained to be competent on, and then you assess performance and as necessary retrain. AND REPEAT. (And, I suspect, on an ongoing basis you add training for new capabilities.)

I think it's a _serious_ mistake to simplify that very capable feedback cycle down to "hire clever people and get out of the way". Giving people feedback (and training as necessary) will beat leaving them hanging, hands down, every day.

(note: IANA soldier)

As for whether or not this is ideal for a tech company, it seems to me that one requisite of the train-trust-feedback cycle is that you have to be able to train and give feedback. That's incompatible when you hire people smarter or more skilled than you. And if you're trying to innovate on the bleeding edge, that complicates things hugely. So I humbly (IANA founder either) suggest that perhaps a good strategy for a tech company is to pursue this technique as far as possible, but no further.

Re: Google Engineer: What I learned in the war

#24

Post by spitfire »

thorie wrote: post #11

I like the point he made about not giving exact instructions on taking a box from point A to B. Looks like it's better to hire smart, capable people and not micromanage them - than it is to hire cheap people and tell them exactly what to do.

That's known as a mission type order. Or Mission Orders in marine. MCDP-1 and Maneuver warfare by William Lund are good books on the subject.

Re: Google Engineer: What I learned in the war

#25

Post by thrill »

dotBen wrote: post #21
rdl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with some of your sentiment, but I think you don't have accurate information on all of the military. The big deal with the reserves/NG (in the Army, at least) is that there is a huge difference among units; the majority of army PSYOPs capability is actually in the reserve component, and is as good as anything in active duty; there are both active duty and reserve units in other specialties which are pretty wi…

Your argument, if I read it right, is basically that I'm wrong and that the military is good at capitalizing on people's skills - and you give psyops as one example and also talk about people's credentials. Sure, I don't disagree with you that in general, you can specialize in the reservists. The point I'm making is that specifically for tech/software engineers/startup folks -- which was the genesis for the OP commen…

FWIW, I'm retired from the USAF. I also hold an ECE degree. In the military I did nothing that required my degree (though I got to fly fighters for a career, so it was awesome anyway). The military has a different mission than the "real world", and using your background and expertise and self-discipline and stamina and perspectives and judgement and ethical view are called upon at any given time, and occasionally, all at once - and sometimes there is failure - and you continue. The great value of such service is in learning to do the mission, to live with the frustrations of political vacillation that can decide what was worth great risk one day now might cost votes, to work with others that humble you with their own talent once you mature enough to recognize it, to absolutely be there when someone depends on it, and to develop and develop with those around you such that you know they will also be there when you need it. I did get to do a multi-year job once that drew heavily on my engineering education, and it was great too - but following Heinlein's thoughts on over-specialization, sometimes breadth is worth more than depth - sometimes much more. Vince malum.

Re: Google Engineer: What I learned in the war

#26

Post by lucasjung »

dotBen wrote: post #21
rdl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with some of your sentiment, but I think you don't have accurate information on all of the military. The big deal with the reserves/NG (in the Army, at least) is that there is a huge difference among units; the majority of army PSYOPs capability is actually in the reserve component, and is as good as anything in active duty; there are both active duty and reserve units in other specialties which are pretty wi…

Your argument, if I read it right, is basically that I'm wrong and that the military is good at capitalizing on people's skills - and you give psyops as one example and also talk about people's credentials. Sure, I don't disagree with you that in general, you can specialize in the reservists. The point I'm making is that specifically for tech/software engineers/startup folks -- which was the genesis for the OP commen…

The military has been making a huge push in recent years to grow capabilities for "cyber warfare." The Air Force has pushed especially hard to establish themselves in this area, because they see some of their existing core capabilities being marginalized, and they need to keep finding ways to keep themselves relevant. Although the Air Force is pushing hardest in this direction, the other services are also trying to expand their cyber capabilities, and the Navy even recently established a designator for officers to basically be hackers: http://www.informationwarriors.net/showthread.php?t=623

Re: Google Engineer: What I learned in the war

#27

Post by _delirium »

chimeracoder wrote: post #6
rdl wrote: post #2

From what I've heard, Google does a particularly good job of taking care of reservists (there are federal laws about not firing, but good companies go beyond this). Outside of government contracting (where it makes a lot of business sense to hire reservists or former military), there don't seem to be a large number of reservists/national guard in the tech community; almost more foreign-country-compulsory-service vete…

> As well, the military is a more diverse organization in the US than almost any tech company. Agreed. I always get irritated when I see people referring to the military as some homogeneous, white-Protestant, politically conservative institution. It's very much not the case. Dan, the subject of this article, studied at Columbia, which has an incredibly large veteran population in the undergraduate student body. From…

I always get irritated when I see people referring to the military as some homogeneous, white-Protestant, politically conservative institution. It's very much not the case.

Oddly I usually hear the opposite stereotype: that the military is made up of minorities and poor whites. Also an oversimplification, though statistically has some truth to it (both minorities and poor whites are overrepresented relative to their shares in the population, because middle-class and upper-class whites are underrepresented). That's one reason that civil-rights activists like John Lewis have been pushing to reintroduce mandatory military service, since they argue that many of the well-off whites who also benefit from the U.S.'s military activities aren't equally shouldering the burden.

Re: Google Engineer: What I learned in the war

#28

Post by lucasjung »

rdl wrote: post #17
dotBen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there don't seem to be a large number of reservists/national guard in the tech community; Why do you/others think this is? I'm not a US citizen, so that counts me out. But even so I wouldn't become a reservest because I feel I have a lot of unique and valuable skills (engineering, thought leadership in platforms, and media technology) that wouldn't be capitalizable by the military - certainly not as a reservist. I wo…

I agree with some of your sentiment, but I think you don't have accurate information on all of the military. The big deal with the reserves/NG (in the Army, at least) is that there is a huge difference among units; the majority of army PSYOPs capability is actually in the reserve component, and is as good as anything in active duty; there are both active duty and reserve units in other specialties which are pretty wi…

>One problem I have personally is that they're very credential-focused; as a high school and college dropout, I'd be kind of screwed.

The military isn't really picky about where your bachelor's degree comes from (as long as it's credentialed), or what it's in (there are some career fields where they require specific majors, but even some of the more technically-oriented jobs don't have any such requirement). It's really just a check in the block. If you have nothing else on your resume, then you probably need something better than a BA in underwater basket weaving from the University of Pheonix, but in your case you could get exactly that degree and then go to an officer recruiter and leverage the rest of your resume to find an appropriate career field.

If you had a high school diploma, you'd still have lots of good opportunities. Most of the truly technical jobs in the military are performed by enlisted personnel. Some officer jobs are relatively technical (engineers and other acquisition-related career fields, aviators, nuclear power officers, etc.), but all officers are expected to be leaders first and foremost. Even officers in technical-sounding career fields (e.g. cryptology) serve primarily in a leadership/managerial/administrative role, with the enlisted personnel under them performing the hands-on work. In the early days of computers, all of the computer programmers in the Navy were enlisted, because their job title included the phrase "technician," and officers don't serve as technicians, enlisted men do. Lately there has been a realization that some technical jobs require a level of knowledge that most high school graduates simply don't possess, and so the Navy recently established a new officer designator for hackers: http://www.informationwarriors.net/showthread.php?t=623

An interesting thing about this designator is that it still preserves the idea that officers are supposed to be leaders, via a very unique and unusual mechanism: any officer with this designator must, after five years, either change designators or leave the Navy. I'm willing to bet that this requirement is based on the idea that this isn't really a leadership job, and that they're willing to have very junior officers in non-leadership positions, but that after a certain point they want them to shift their focus to leadership like all other officers.

Re: Google Engineer: What I learned in the war

#29

Post by codeslush »

I spent four years in the U.S.M.C in the enlisted ranks. This article is an interesting read, but only really scratches the surface of what one learns in the military. I didn't spend a single day in a war zone, and still learned patience and acceptance. I also learned much, much more - and they are skills that have helped me in my civilian life - personally and professionally.

I won't enumerate everything here; if I tried, I would fail. But I will attempt to highlight many of those that repeatedly surface:

1. Attention to detail. I don't think it matters what your military occupation is, you will certainly be subjected to this, at least in the Marines. It starts with boot camp, and continues through your career. The little things make a big difference. While some of the military training tactics leave you, this one seems to stay - at least that's been my experience.

2. Initiative. If something doesn't look right, can be done better, needs to be done - do it! I don't even think I recognized this was instilled in me until I was back in the civilian sector. It does wonders for a career!

3. Respect. Respect for everyone - above, beside and below you. This was especially difficult for me during my first two years of enlistment. I thought I knew it all. The promotion structure in the military has a huge time factor built into it. For me, I thought many of those of higher rank were ignorant. Guess what? It doesn't matter! You learn to respect them. You learn to understand you're ignorant too. You learn how to work with all different types of personalities, levels of intelligence, ethnicity, etc... - and you learn how to respect each of them for what they bring to the table. You never know what a person has been through to get to where they are now or why they make the decisions they make. There is almost always a reason. Respect them enough to try to understand. This has allowed me to work with and for all types of people in the civilian sector and I somehow manage to get along with almost everyone. In the rare event that I don't get along with someone, I'm able to deal with it without trashing them. It's usually representative of some flaw of my own anyway.

4. Camaraderie. Especially true during times of war, but also true in times of peace. The "bond" Dan spoke about comes from a lot of factors, but they all boil down to difficult, common experiences and trust. Civilians don't always understand some of the methods in which these bonds are created. By the time I got my blood stripes pinned on, it was not an accepted practice because of media exposure. But I wanted to earn them and my unit allowed it. It's a hazing ritual that is very painful to go through. My wife thought I was nuts. I feel that I earned those stripes and I know my unit had my back during the process. You've seen stories in the media where some of these events have gone bad. Examples include: Blood/Wing Pinning and Shellback Ceremony. I would suggest boot camp is largely a hazing ritual in and of itself. Controversial as it may be, I believe these rituals play an important part in the life of a soldier. It may not look good on TV, but neither does some of the stuff that happens while fighting for your life in the middle of a battle (things I know nothing about).

5. Tenacity. Everything isn't always easy. You don't quit at something just because it is hard or because you can't figure it out or because someone pissed you off. Keep pressing forward.

6. Integrity. Integrity is more than just telling the truth. It's being the truth. It's being true to you and to your (fill in the blank). It's being professional. It's standing up for people when they aren't there to stand up for themselves. It's not gossiping. It's not trying to cheat to get ahead of the next person. It's about doing your best and when success comes, you know you earned it honestly.

7. Adapt and overcome. Speaks for itself.

Some of the comments here speculate about why the military doesn't have a larger tech representation. Other comments question the intellectual capacity of some of the soldiers. Let me say this: I worked with some of the smartest people of my life while in the Marines. I worked with some of the more challenged too. I worked with some of the smartest people in my life while in the civilian sector. I worked with some of the more challenged too.

I didn't reenlist for two primary reasons: (1) I wanted to make more money as a provider for my family and (2) I didn't want to relocate my family every two or three years. Yesterday represented 16 years since my last day of active duty service, and I can reflect back and say it was one of the best experiences of my life.

Happy Veteran's Day to all past and present military members.

Re: Google Engineer: What I learned in the war

#30

Post by lucasjung »

rdl wrote: post #18
hugh3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the enlisted men in the military aren't all that smart, and most of 'em are pretty darn cheap. If there's a takeaway lesson it's that even not-so-smart, cheap-to-hire people are actually surprisingly capable of doing stuff, if you create a management environment where they have to do it and know they aren't gonna get any mollycoddling from the higher-ups. Here is the task. Go do it. Come back to me when it's…

The argument of elite selection vs. elite training is interesting. I think USMC, particularly in WW2 and in general during the draft period, had general-population induction, but through training and organization produced an elite force. Other elite units, like the Navy SEALs, seem to focus on elite recruitment and selection. I'm not sure which works better for a tech company. Clearly only the USMC process scales onc…

The SEALs do both: they are very picky about who gets into BUD/S, BUD/S weeds out all but the best, and then they continuously train to stay the best.

I actually believe that the USMC's formula for success doesn't scale without limit. They are way smaller than the Army, and I'm sure that's a big part of how they are able to maintain the kind of cohesive culture needed to sustain excellence.

Also, even during the draft era, the Marines had another tool that you didn't consider: attrition. I don't mean the combat kind, I mean washing out the people who can't cut it. It's amazing how thoroughly they can transform a young person, but even so there are some people that just aren't good enough, and the Marine Corps has always been the most willing of all services to get rid of dead weight. So it's not selection vs. training, it's a three-way combination of selection, training, and attrition.

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