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Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

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Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#621

Post by maccard »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #374
pron wrote: post #310

> Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks. No, you didn't. You watched engineers use AI to ship in days something that looks like what used to take a team weeks. After enough rounds of feature evolution, you'll realise that what they actually shipped isn't at all the same. Anthropic's C compiler, which also seemed like a good start that would have taken people…

I am an engineer. I hire other engineers. I run a company that ships usable software for small businesses. We do this every day. I'm sorry to say, we are indeed shipping in days what used to take weeks.

Can you link to a changelog that shows the 5-10x feature increases? I keep hearing this, but I don’t see anything I use ever actually shipping like this, or people backing this up with any sort of proof.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#622

Post by amalfra »

pron wrote: post #357
Zetaphor wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the people making this argument vastly overestimate the quality of engineering and discipline that behind the software powering most corporations. CRUD apps are likely to be the most prominent type of application across industries, and most of them are crud

If the code is really simple, it's cheap to read it. When people don't read it (and when they need to use "fleets of agents"), it's because it's not so simple, and then the people who trust the outcome are those who don't know what it is that they've committed into the codebase. Their logic is no more than: the system hasn't collapsed under the load of 50 (or 500) changes so it probably won't collapse under the load…

> Because that's how engineered systems work, right? If they're fine under light stress, they're fine under heavier stress.

Isn't this wrong? I thought engineered systems meant something designed with limits.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#623

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

cloche wrote: post #87
wiseowise wrote: post #41

> - No pure managers: Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams. Geeks who didn't even stand near professional sports should really shut up about anything sport related, lol. I would really like to see professional, established coach running around with young prodigies on a peak of their bio…

> Geeks who didn't even stand near professional sports should really shut up about anything sport related, lol. I would really like to see professional, established coach running around with young prodigies on a peak of their biology. Player-coach used to be a thing in professional sports a long, long time ago. There's a reason you don't have it anymore. A coach can't be expected to take the long-term view while also…

Not true. You often see it semi-pro soccer. Previously, you could see player coaches even in top-flight elite soccer.

There's a reason for this change. As players became elite and specialized by position, the budget for specialization expanded. At the top, teams could afford a distinct role for coaching focus. Since the stakes are really high (the difference between 1-3 points is measured in dozens of millions of dollars of impact due to relegation - a concept that is missing on most US elite sports) it follows specialization drive is sky-high at elite levels.

Thus, soccer player coaches have mostly dissappeared at elite level. But the role is alive and well in the semipro tier.

In roles where there's no binary, extreme outcome from specialization, like in semi pro soccer, or at an ENG role at a random company , it is only natural to have someone wear multiple hats and not specialize.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#625

Post by smugglerFlynn »

BadBadJellyBean wrote: post #611
smugglerFlynn wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a problem if you are an assembly line robot making motions. People, however, are not robots. They get held accountable by their higher-ups for delivering on these (often nonsensical) priorities, they risk getting fired when expectations are not met, and high uncertainty of faulty planning systems like that is extremely stressful in itself.

Expectations will be raised until they can't be met anymore. There is always a ceiling. It is on every single worker to make sure that they don't please the system beyond what is reasonable. Often the problem is people who overwork themselves to please and set the bar over the reasonable amount of work. Still when the majority does not raise their output to an unhealthy amount that must be accepted as a ceiling.

I think you are mixing cause and effect in real life dynamics.

In real organizations people tend to raise their performance to the [often unreasonable] level of expectations, even when situation stops being sustainable long-term for the whole group.

Suggesting that people should simply avoid overperforming assumes a level of control they don’t really have.

What do you think will actually happen at Coinbase now? Is it more likely that people will start saying hard “no,” or that they would stretch to meet the new expectations despite the personal cost?

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#626

Post by johannes1234321 »

turtlebits wrote: post #118
vdnkh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This email was 100% AI generated. I just edited a similar sentence from a claude code doc I'm writing - "we're not just X, we're fundamentally Y" is an obvious tell. I guess he's putting his money where his mouth is

Who cares? If you're getting laid off, the only thing that really matters is the severance package. Its all lip service - either AI generated or hand written.

There are other audiences, too.

One group are the ones who are staying. They lose teammates, they have to restructure work and fear whether there will be another round soon, which may hit them.

And then there are customers, investors, ... who need to be assured they are not dealing with a failing company.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#627

Post by Spooky23 »

muzani wrote: post #530
kelnos wrote: post #515

> Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports. [...] Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams. Oof. So not only are they giving their remaining managers more reports, but those managers will be expected to do lots of other, non-management work. Sure, nothing can go wrong…

This jumped out at me right away too. What happened to the days when a dedicated manager would manage 8 reports? What now? AI is going to double the communication bandwidth with these reports and further double the free time they have? I do think the most efficient form of team is a "cell" of three people. One is a little unstable.

Flattening is a management fad right now. Loser leaders want to be like Elon or whatever.

It is pretty stupid and pathetic tbh, but easier than making an effective organization.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#628

Post by oytis »

satvikpendem wrote: post #527
MeetingsBrowser wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software engineer who also hires other software engineers, I’m curious about the disconnect in our experiences. I do systems programming. Before AI feature development roughly went like, design, implement, test, review with some back edges and a lot of time spent in test and review. AI has made the implementation part much faster, at the cost of even more time spent testing and reviewing, though still an improve…

> I do systems programming. I'll stop you right there. AI is not good at systems programming, it's good at CRUD web development, which is where most people are seeing the gains.

I think antirez mentioned somewhere he considered it particularly good at systems programming.

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#629

Post by pards »

arthurjj wrote: post #164

> employees will receive a minimum of 16 weeks base pay (plus 2 weeks per year worked), their next equity vest, and 6 months of COBRA As someone who lived through multiple rounds of layoffs at big tech companies this seemed quite generous.

For the non-US readers:

> COBRA is the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. It gives workers and their families who lose their health benefits the right to choose to continue group health benefits provided by their group health plan for limited periods of time under certain circumstances such as voluntary or involuntary job loss, reduction in the hours worked, transition between jobs, death, divorce, and other life events. [0]

[0]: https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/health-plans/cobra

Re: Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%

#630

Post by pron »

amalfra wrote: post #622
pron wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the code is really simple, it's cheap to read it. When people don't read it (and when they need to use "fleets of agents"), it's because it's not so simple, and then the people who trust the outcome are those who don't know what it is that they've committed into the codebase. Their logic is no more than: the system hasn't collapsed under the load of 50 (or 500) changes so it probably won't collapse under the load…

> Because that's how engineered systems work, right? If they're fine under light stress, they're fine under heavier stress. Isn't this wrong? I thought engineered systems meant something designed with limits.

I was being sarcastic.
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