21–30 of 228 posts
I don't disagree with the article, but after working in big tech, two HN startups, a couple unicorns and others, in two continents, I don't really find this too actionable. In the last ten years (and even in the 20-people HN startups), the day to day work of engineers has become so incredibly specialised and divorced from the needs of decision-makers and the customers that there is almost nothing I can do to influenc…
Is this sentiment the reason why a lot of "engineers" will provide terrible quality in code / tests (lack thereof) / documentation / etc.? If all that matters that someone at the top sees it and is happy about it at this specific moment in time, why bother writing code that can last and doesn't leave behind an absolute unmaintainable ball of mud? We don't need gold plating and yet billions could be saved by having in…
I can already hear the chorus of people that will scream "I'm not paid enough to care" or "it's just a job for some people", and those things are often true; but, nonetheless, people used to take much greater care in their craft even when they were paid less. There was a sense that, even if it was just a job, it should be done well. A certain sensibility of care and craftsmanship has faded away.
I don't disagree with the article, but after working in big tech, two HN startups, a couple unicorns and others, in two continents, I don't really find this too actionable. In the last ten years (and even in the 20-people HN startups), the day to day work of engineers has become so incredibly specialised and divorced from the needs of decision-makers and the customers that there is almost nothing I can do to influenc…
> At least the pay is alright. I don't know why but this part of your comment really stuck out to me. I have a whole different take on getting stuff done specifically at big tech companies, mainly that being "stagnant" is not such a bad thing at a place like Google or MS. Say you're like an L-whatever at one of these big tech companies and you bring home say $300k/yr. You don't live in a HCOL so the pay is astronomic…
Are we all embedded in absurd structures of primate dominance? Sure. Primates gonna prime. But that is no more the root of what's going on than being able to mark something done in Jira, or getting a compiler to stop complaining. Proximate hurdles are not ultimate goals.
Nobody gets to the end of a technical career and says, "Welp, that was 40 years well spent making a rotating series of bosses and grandbosses happy."
> this fact is a trap for competent but unagentic engineers Is “unagentic engineer” a euphemism for human/not-AI? Unfortunately for companies whose engineers work this way, they’re on a one-way trip to expensive cloud bills, data breaches, and frustrated customers. A good amount of that “never done,” work is: - Patching security vulnerabilities - Fixing mistakes made due to lack of planning/testing - reducing costs d…
Companies, departments and teams operate on a spectrum from reality-centred to status-centred.
In a reality-centred culture all the things you mentioned matter. Reality-centred management understands this, manages it, and rewards it.
Reality-centred cultures are better at medium/long-term planning and at handling issues rationally.
In a status-centred culture the most important product is status in the hierarchy. A "competent" engineer delivers status to superiors. That's their only job. The quality of the product, codebase, and the customer relationships is secondary - sometimes irrelevant.
Status-centred cultures tend to be reactive, not innovative, and the orientation is emotional, not rational. Hierarchies are strict, communication is poor, and low-status people are treated badly. (Because how else is everyone else supposed to know they're low-status?)
No one cares when things work smoothly, but if there's a problem that causes a loss of status, someone has to be blamed for it.
Status cultures don't necessarily implode. If they have an effective monopoly, they can survive for decades.
They're more likely to seem like huge players until suddenly one day they aren't any more, and everyone wonders what happened.
Is this sentiment the reason why a lot of "engineers" will provide terrible quality in code / tests (lack thereof) / documentation / etc.? If all that matters that someone at the top sees it and is happy about it at this specific moment in time, why bother writing code that can last and doesn't leave behind an absolute unmaintainable ball of mud? We don't need gold plating and yet billions could be saved by having in…
More and more you run into people who simply don't care about craft and quality. I can already hear the chorus of people that will scream "I'm not paid enough to care" or "it's just a job for some people", and those things are often true; but, nonetheless, people used to take much greater care in their craft even when they were paid less. There was a sense that, even if it was just a job, it should be done well. A ce…
If anything this is worse.
Is this sentiment the reason why a lot of "engineers" will provide terrible quality in code / tests (lack thereof) / documentation / etc.? If all that matters that someone at the top sees it and is happy about it at this specific moment in time, why bother writing code that can last and doesn't leave behind an absolute unmaintainable ball of mud? We don't need gold plating and yet billions could be saved by having in…
Now if you don't let engineers live out their passion, you made the choice to select for the ones who just do it for the money. That can be a legit choice, but comes with risks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At least the pay is alright. I don't know why but this part of your comment really stuck out to me. I have a whole different take on getting stuff done specifically at big tech companies, mainly that being "stagnant" is not such a bad thing at a place like Google or MS. Say you're like an L-whatever at one of these big tech companies and you bring home say $300k/yr. You don't live in a HCOL so the pay is astronomic…
That sounds great if you can ride that into retirement but if you get laid off and you start having to justify your existence again in the job market I dont think "I took home $300k for doing nothing and then got laid off" is a great sell.
It is defined as:
used to describe someone who works for a company at two levels higher than another person, or a meeting or relationship that involves an employee and a manager at two levels higher
by Cambridge's dictionary[1]. That makes it really complicated when the article talks about 1-3 skip levels, I'm not sure how to interpret that ... is it (my level + 1 + n) or (my level + 2 * n)?
Edit: the mathyness.
[1]: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/skip-lev...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds great if you can ride that into retirement but if you get laid off and you start having to justify your existence again in the job market I dont think "I took home $300k for doing nothing and then got laid off" is a great sell.
But that's kinda the beauty of it. If you get laid off from one of these places the next place doesn't know that you took 300k home to do jack, all they know is you worked for a super prestigious company for 10 years and you can plausibly make up the rest about what you actually did there.
I would never do this, and if you would do this I wouldn't want to work with you. Maybe I'm a sucker, but I sleep alright.