171–180 of 189 posts
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The problem is who decides what really matters? Every department is biased towards their own needs. Upper management is usually clueless when it comes to technical needs, even if they've done the job before - because it was probably 10+ years ago.
I think it's less about does it really matter, and more about do we have a solution for this/is this something that will spread and we need to negotiate a price on.
Unless you can put on azure/AWS/Google cloud. I can't buy a pencil without approval, but I can spend thousands in our cloud without asking anyone.
And there's the magic of the Amazon marketplace. Let's you buy non-AWS services while still ending up on the AWS bill and contributing to any potential spending commitment the company has.
Specifically, if rsync.net service (for instance) were targeted as a non-Amazon backup location, would Amazon allow us to sell our service on AWS marketplace ?
This presumably competes with S3 and other storage options ...
It depends on the company. One company I worked for had a policy of "Just buy what you need that makes your work easier: books, licenses, and even hardware. Management time spent on decisions is too expensive, so we default to instant approval." Did developers go on a buying spree? No, the same amount of stuff was bought as before the policy. And it did make life easier.
My current company just has a few HR type people that take care of purchases like that. I literally email them a link to hardware or software I need and they get it delivered to me. This is the best way I've seen it done. I don't have to know anything about the order/deliver process the company uses.
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Anecdata yada yada, but both colleagues of mine with a Dell XPS had trouble with them. This is Dell's top of the line productivity laptop segment. Yeah we got top of the line service. But the damn things still broke down in the first place. Critically, I recall one of them blue screened in the middle of some important infra changes and triggered an outage...
Same story with Precision and XPS. $3k laptops last 9 months if you're lucky. I literally have a pile of dead ones now. They don't even bother with servicing them.
Monthly reminder that engineering is a cost center, not a profit center.
I purchase my own software licences and claim it on tax. Because it's a false economy. I've won awards at work, became indispensable on certain projects, and have been given pay rises, choose the work I want to do, through finding the affordable right tools for the job and purchasing them. My Jetbrains licenses are a classic example of this. I couldn't imagine refractoring code without it. If the cost cutting stopped…
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And there's the magic of the Amazon marketplace. Let's you buy non-AWS services while still ending up on the AWS bill and contributing to any potential spending commitment the company has.
Does Amazon allow competing services to be sold on AWS marketplace ? Specifically, if rsync.net service (for instance) were targeted as a non-Amazon backup location, would Amazon allow us to sell our service on AWS marketplace ? This presumably competes with S3 and other storage options ...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Excel is ubiquitous because literally anyone can use it. Unlike a database, there is a direct visual representation of what you’re building. It is included in all m365 licenses and has been relatively cheap for a perpetual license for years. As for allowing WSL for sales, have you ever actually worked with someone in sales? At 99% of companies, even the most technically literate sales person can just barely send an e…
Yes I have been on the senior management team of several companies and have worked with sales. Your lazy stereotype is as bad a suggesting programmers all sit in dark rooms with starwars T shirts and Body Odour issues. I have seen sales people create very complex excel models, and use low code tools to build their own pipelines because corporate IT were too pig ignorant to help them. I have seen them use screen recor…
And I’ve been in sales directly for over a decade, not “management that works with sales”. It’s not a lazy stereotype which anyone who has been directly involved would tell you. There are a very, very small number of technical folks that make the jump from SE to sales and retain their technical abilities, but the vast majority of successful sales people are borderline tech illiterate.
If your management doesn't get you the stuff you need to be productive your company is a failure. Move somewhere else.
Depends on the tool. I've seen engineers ask for an IDA license to try to debug a pretty simple memory overrun crash. The manager rightfully told that engineer to go use Visual Studio first. Otoh, if management isn't willing to drop $50 on a one time purchase that increases your productivity, it's definitely a flag. Maybe not a red one, but at least mauve.
You mean mauve, as in "the universally recognised colour for danger"? ;-)