I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#71

Post by abyssin » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 8:54 AM UTC

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #61

My dream was always to be hired into obscure government bureaucracy and automate the data entry job away, while hiding it. After that, you basically exist in a free incubator. Imagine the software you can write, if freed from societies expectations of sweat, tears and busy work. Not to be rich, just to be technical excellent, productive and at peace. I wonder why this has not yet happened with open source. If a suffi…

I’ve met at least two developers living that life. One worked for a big German corporation. Sometimes he wouldn’t have any work to do for weeks. He got the authorization to work on a hospitality exchange network while in the office. Another one knew how to live on little money. He lived in squatted houses and was an adept dumpster diver. His lifestyle cost him one day of paid work per month. The rest of the time was spent volunteering code, among other activities.

I was deeply inspired by these lifestyles, but it turns out not working for a boss doesn’t fit my personality. I’m too much in need for social validation. Work and suffering are a religion where I live. Programming makes me mostly anxious and I need to be surrounded with colleagues to get comforted. Consumerism is also a religion. I have a hard time being surrounded with people who are able to indulge in consumption while I’m not.

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#72

Post by BerislavLopac » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 9:00 AM UTC

froddd wrote: post #66

trashtester wrote: post #64

> “the top tier of engineers that are 10x more productive than the average” 10x engineers are not 10x the average, they're 10x the median. And they probably know the difference. I would guess that 1-5% of engineers are 10x the median, while less than 0.1% or so are 10x the average.

Given the rather arbitrary nature of ‘10x’ I’m not sure this kind of precision is relevant here

Not to mention that we actually have no idea which unit comes to the other side of that equation, after "x".

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#73

Post by ArekDymalski » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 9:00 AM UTC

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #61

My dream was always to be hired into obscure government bureaucracy and automate the data entry job away, while hiding it. After that, you basically exist in a free incubator. Imagine the software you can write, if freed from societies expectations of sweat, tears and busy work. Not to be rich, just to be technical excellent, productive and at peace. I wonder why this has not yet happened with open source. If a suffi…

> free incubator (...) freed from societies expectations of sweat, tears and busy work

The fact that the most successful ideas&products weren't born in such places might cast a shadow on the attractiveness of this perspective. I think that without a challenege the mind is at risk of atrophy.

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#74

Post by littlestymaar » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 9:10 AM UTC

enriquto wrote: post #69

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #61

My dream was always to be hired into obscure government bureaucracy and automate the data entry job away, while hiding it. After that, you basically exist in a free incubator. Imagine the software you can write, if freed from societies expectations of sweat, tears and busy work. Not to be rich, just to be technical excellent, productive and at peace. I wonder why this has not yet happened with open source. If a suffi…

Have you ever heard about the entire concept of academia? It is more or less like that.

Maybe used to be like that (or maybe it's just prejudice against researchers), but from what I'm hearing it's pretty far from the truth today.

Before you get a tenured position, you're basically stuck in the publish-or-perish rat race and when you eventually get a tenure, you now have an enormous responsibility towards the younger non-tenured reseachers of your department, who will eventually lose their job if the department isn't “productive” enough, so unless you're a complete insensitive assh*le, you'll still be under pressure.

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#75

Post by cko » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 9:13 AM UTC

abyssin wrote: post #71

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #61

My dream was always to be hired into obscure government bureaucracy and automate the data entry job away, while hiding it. After that, you basically exist in a free incubator. Imagine the software you can write, if freed from societies expectations of sweat, tears and busy work. Not to be rich, just to be technical excellent, productive and at peace. I wonder why this has not yet happened with open source. If a suffi…

I’ve met at least two developers living that life. One worked for a big German corporation. Sometimes he wouldn’t have any work to do for weeks. He got the authorization to work on a hospitality exchange network while in the office. Another one knew how to live on little money. He lived in squatted houses and was an adept dumpster diver. His lifestyle cost him one day of paid work per month. The rest of the time was…

Hey, do either of them have a blog? I'm interested in these lifestyles, especially the dumpster diving dude. My wife wouldn't let me squat or dumpster dive but I could always live vicariously through him.

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#76

Post by rvense » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 9:19 AM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #60

rvense wrote: post #59

What's the difference between a 0.1x engineer and a 10x engineer? Their manager.

What if both are solo developers?

Some developers are good managers, some are bad managers.

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#77

Post by gyulai » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 9:28 AM UTC

> Let’s not build that feature.

> Let’s not add this functionality.

> Let’s not build that product yet.

> Let’s not build/deploy that development tool.

> Let’s not adopt this new technology.

> Let’s not keep maintaining this feature.

> Let’s not automate this.

Working alongside (or even worse: under) an individual who sees it as his job to just say "no" to everything sounds like hell.

It also reminds me a bit of the Dilbert character "Mordac, the preventer of information services" alternately also called "Mordac, the refuser.

[1] https://dilbert.com/search_results?terms=Mordac

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#78

Post by eloox » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 9:33 AM UTC

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #61

My dream was always to be hired into obscure government bureaucracy and automate the data entry job away, while hiding it. After that, you basically exist in a free incubator. Imagine the software you can write, if freed from societies expectations of sweat, tears and busy work. Not to be rich, just to be technical excellent, productive and at peace. I wonder why this has not yet happened with open source. If a suffi…

That's how I became a software developer. I was working for a big tech firm as a data entry "specialist". Everything (except some pricing calculations) was done manually. I was hired as the 7th member of the team. It started with copy/pasting some simple VBA scripts to automate small tasks. In a year I managed to automate most of the tasks. More notably: A monthly task that took 2 days(and quite prone to human errors) of the entire team into a less than an hour job for a single person. And automated discrepancy checks between the data sources.

It was quite satisfying and made me realize that I should be doing this for a living. I quit that company for way better pay as a software developer. I don't know if I'll be able to find such a job again, but I really enjoyed it.

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#79

Post by namaria » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 9:46 AM UTC

ArekDymalski wrote: post #73

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #61

My dream was always to be hired into obscure government bureaucracy and automate the data entry job away, while hiding it. After that, you basically exist in a free incubator. Imagine the software you can write, if freed from societies expectations of sweat, tears and busy work. Not to be rich, just to be technical excellent, productive and at peace. I wonder why this has not yet happened with open source. If a suffi…

> free incubator (...) freed from societies expectations of sweat, tears and busy work The fact that the most successful ideas&products weren't born in such places might cast a shadow on the attractiveness of this perspective. I think that without a challenege the mind is at risk of atrophy.

Einstein was a patent office clerk. Gregor Mendel was a monk. Sergei Brin had a scholarship. The myth that struggle breeds success is just a narrative intended to keep working class folks grinding.

Re: I strive to be a 0.1x Engineer (2016)

#80

Post by philderbeast » Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 10:00 AM UTC

gyulai wrote: post #77

> Let’s not build that feature. > Let’s not add this functionality. > Let’s not build that product yet. > Let’s not build/deploy that development tool. > Let’s not adopt this new technology. > Let’s not keep maintaining this feature. > Let’s not automate this. Working alongside (or even worse: under) an individual who sees it as his job to just say "no" to everything sounds like hell. It also reminds me a bit of the…

Saying no is just as important as saying yes.

There is no value in reinventing the wheel, and not doing so gives you time to do other things that will give you value so someone should always be asking the question of if something should be done.