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Vint Cerf’s career advice for engineers

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Re: Vint Cerf’s career advice for engineers

#21

Post by emodendroket »

anonylizard wrote: post #11
ggm wrote: post #10

My advice, (for what it's worth) is to value liberal-arts degree holders far higher than I find many engineers do: People misplace trust in the hard science side of study and neglect what the humanities can bring to the workforce. I value their input more and more highly. Oh, and I value the input from Lawyers too. I might discount it, but I listen. (late stage career, moving out. Not as late as Vint. I can't afford…

Oh, liberal arts is valuable, but the degree isn't. I've seen plenty of programmers who are very educated in history, philosophy, economics etc. The problem with the actual degree. 1. Liberal arts degrees have terrible economic returns, almost always negative, especially for men. Because... 2. Liberal arts is ill-suited for mass-market higher education. Can you really teach liberal arts with underpaid teach assistant…

> The degree introduces indoctrination.

I have yet to hear a principled distinction between "education" and "indoctrination" that doesn't boil down to whether the speaker agrees with the content being taught.

Re: Vint Cerf’s career advice for engineers

#22

Post by emodendroket »

FredPret wrote: post #16
totetsu wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with point 3 there. A well taught arts education requires you to use critical reasoning to make sure what you are writing or arguing for can be supported by sound arguments. Maybe you have some experience with some institution or department where there were individuals who only accepted work from their students that argued for the views that agreed with, but this not my experience at all.

Then most liberal arts educations are not well-taught. Look at the uniform political slant of everything coming out of the liberal arts sphere in the past 50+ years. There's a ton of value in a good liberal arts education, but I agree with anonylizard that this is not something that can be taught en masse.

I am not sure I see a "uniform political slant." People in the many fields that comprise liberal arts find many things to disagree with each other about, sometimes quite vehemently.

Re: Vint Cerf’s career advice for engineers

#23

Post by stakhanov »

emodendroket wrote: post #20
stakhanov wrote: post #19

> I tell my engineers that if they know I’m about to do something stupid, they have to tell me, so I don’t do it. My career advice: If your boss tells you to not be afraid to disagree with them, don't do it. It's a trap. I've been suckered into this one numerous times, and there was not a single occasion where it didn't backfire. People like to think of themselves as being that enlightened, but rarely (in my personal…

I think it depends a lot on your approach. Raising some concerns in a one-on-one and allowing them to change course or not will go over better than just shooting their idea down in a big meeting with many people.

I've tried many times, with many different approaches and many different people over the course of a 20-year career.

The variation in outcomes was absolutely zero.

To anyone who wants to believe that bosses are fundamentally capable of tolerating independent thought among their underlings, I would recommend the book "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt [1].

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Minds-Critical-Profession...

Re: Vint Cerf’s career advice for engineers

#24

Post by emodendroket »

stakhanov wrote: post #23
emodendroket wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it depends a lot on your approach. Raising some concerns in a one-on-one and allowing them to change course or not will go over better than just shooting their idea down in a big meeting with many people.

I've tried many times, with many different approaches and many different people over the course of a 20-year career. The variation in outcomes was absolutely zero. To anyone who wants to believe that bosses are fundamentally capable of tolerating independent thought among their underlings, I would recommend the book "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt [1]. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Minds-Critical-Profess…

I guess theoretically I could have had a career that's gone even better than the one I have had, but I haven't had any real problems with my approach so I think I'll stick with it.

Re: Vint Cerf’s career advice for engineers

#25

Post by holografix »

The implicit messages here are really interesting. Eg:

People are _resources_. Use them to your advantage, make the most of the opportunity:

“if they knew and didn’t tell me, that’s going to be reflected in their end-of-year fitness report.”

“get help, and preferably from people who are smarter than you are.”

“You can learn something from virtually everybody.”

Re: Vint Cerf’s career advice for engineers

#26

Post by stakhanov »

emodendroket wrote: post #24
stakhanov wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried many times, with many different approaches and many different people over the course of a 20-year career. The variation in outcomes was absolutely zero. To anyone who wants to believe that bosses are fundamentally capable of tolerating independent thought among their underlings, I would recommend the book "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt [1]. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Minds-Critical-Profess…

I guess theoretically I could have had a career that's gone even better than the one I have had, but I haven't had any real problems with my approach so I think I'll stick with it.

Were you trying to say "My success proves me right"?

Because the other reading is: You're not good at independent thinking, therefore you've never had those independent thoughts that made your bosses dislike you, and that explains why you had a good career. So, your success proves me right.

Now enter into some introspection. Do you dislike me, now that I've suggested this? Or do I get brownie points from you for being an independent thinker and voicing my disagreement?

Because I genuinely believe that there's a valid and interesting thought in what I just said that we can all learn from. Also: If you were my boss, I would have just killed my career prospects.

Re: Vint Cerf’s career advice for engineers

#27

Post by mjevans »

stakhanov wrote: post #19

> I tell my engineers that if they know I’m about to do something stupid, they have to tell me, so I don’t do it. My career advice: If your boss tells you to not be afraid to disagree with them, don't do it. It's a trap. I've been suckered into this one numerous times, and there was not a single occasion where it didn't backfire. People like to think of themselves as being that enlightened, but rarely (in my personal…

I think if someone wants that, they need to be under someone else's tree as part of a 'watch dog' / 'watcher' structure.

As far as leader's go, I thought 'we' had this solved with frequently rotated elected presidents. Though maybe not with the current balloting system (better have been proposed, 'path vote' is my current fave). However the political party, or corporate ownership, systems seem to wreck that idea. This might be a spot where least privilege is the best answer.

Re: Vint Cerf’s career advice for engineers

#28

Post by emodendroket »

stakhanov wrote: post #26
emodendroket wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess theoretically I could have had a career that's gone even better than the one I have had, but I haven't had any real problems with my approach so I think I'll stick with it.

Were you trying to say "My success proves me right"? Because the other reading is: You're not good at independent thinking, therefore you've never had those independent thoughts that made your bosses dislike you, and that explains why you had a good career. So, your success proves me right. Now enter into some introspection. Do you dislike me, now that I've suggested this? Or do I get brownie points from you for bein…

If your approach is personal insult then I can see why it isn’t that well received. To answer your question, though, I was saying I feel I have had success raising disagreements and didn’t ask for or particularly want to read something explaining to me why I should ignore over a decade of my own experience. Hey maybe I’m just really dull like you suggest.

Re: Vint Cerf’s career advice for engineers

#30

Post by chambers »

stakhanov wrote: post #19

> I tell my engineers that if they know I’m about to do something stupid, they have to tell me, so I don’t do it. My career advice: If your boss tells you to not be afraid to disagree with them, don't do it. It's a trap. I've been suckered into this one numerous times, and there was not a single occasion where it didn't backfire. People like to think of themselves as being that enlightened, but rarely (in my personal…

I think your advice is a safe assumption that has some truth to it. For a rare counter-example, there's this fascinating article about a strongly opinionated minister who disagreed with the Tang Dynasty Emperor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wei_Zheng#Emperor_Taizong's_re...

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