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CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

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Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#21

Post by bryanrasmussen »

helge9210 wrote: post #11
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #6

What CTOs did not notice yet is that cheap code exposes inefficiencies elsewhere. Migrating Spring Boot apps from 3.x t 4.x is now easy given all the tooling available. But the administrative load can't be reduced by faster code delivery and that's the new bottleneck.

CTOs noticed it. When product pipeline is empty, because engineers finished all the outstanding tasks, the engineers are awarded with more work: "The new software engineer is a product leader. Someone thinking about what the product is, not just how it works", or, in other words, engineers are going to be tasked with putting more content "the what" into the product pipeline.

It has been my experience that nobody wants to hear the software engineer's opinion as to what will improve the product however.

Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#24

Post by coffeebeqn »

sxx0 wrote: post #16

My worry is that AI will make these companies product-obsessed, the public will mistake the output for AGI, and the real engineering underneath will keep getting overlooked.

Isn’t engineering always overlooked? It’s like a means to and end to non-engineers.

The best case for engineering is always: nothing went horribly wrong in public.

Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#26

Post by bsenftner »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #21
helge9210 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CTOs noticed it. When product pipeline is empty, because engineers finished all the outstanding tasks, the engineers are awarded with more work: "The new software engineer is a product leader. Someone thinking about what the product is, not just how it works", or, in other words, engineers are going to be tasked with putting more content "the what" into the product pipeline.

It has been my experience that nobody wants to hear the software engineer's opinion as to what will improve the product however.

Nobody wants to hear anyone's opinion but their own, we have a poverty of effective communications.

Nobody wants to communicate because it is pointless to communicate: what you say will be misunderstood, it will be repeated incorrectly and attributed to you, people will play games with your messaging and with you for trying to communicate.

The management bully game activates, and they all participate in keeping the engineer down.

This is normal at every engineering organization, it is lord of the flies.

And this is how we educate people, This situation is created. All because we refuse to recognize that learning how to debate controversy and learning how to manage disagreement is completely unrecognized as a valued skill.

So we avoid controversy and any disagreement is an opportunity to bully and force one's way. Which is completely avoidable, with basic effective communications training. Debate to understand, disagree to learn.

Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#27

Post by cik »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #21
helge9210 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CTOs noticed it. When product pipeline is empty, because engineers finished all the outstanding tasks, the engineers are awarded with more work: "The new software engineer is a product leader. Someone thinking about what the product is, not just how it works", or, in other words, engineers are going to be tasked with putting more content "the what" into the product pipeline.

It has been my experience that nobody wants to hear the software engineer's opinion as to what will improve the product however.

This sounds like dysfunction. As engineers, we're not necessarily any more correct than anyone else. But we do have a seat at the table, and good organizations at least listen.

Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#28

Post by uberex »

abroszka33 wrote: post #20

They should think about what happens when expectations are so high that a single dev must deliver and maintain multiple products. What stops that single dev from leaving and offering the same product on his own.

Yep there is the grind em to be so efficient they may as well start on their own. And now the sales and marketing side of things can ne assisted with AI, albeit not as good as pros but better than a dev and no AI to help.

Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#29

Post by olsondv »

helge9210 wrote: post #11
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #6

What CTOs did not notice yet is that cheap code exposes inefficiencies elsewhere. Migrating Spring Boot apps from 3.x t 4.x is now easy given all the tooling available. But the administrative load can't be reduced by faster code delivery and that's the new bottleneck.

CTOs noticed it. When product pipeline is empty, because engineers finished all the outstanding tasks, the engineers are awarded with more work: "The new software engineer is a product leader. Someone thinking about what the product is, not just how it works", or, in other words, engineers are going to be tasked with putting more content "the what" into the product pipeline.

Has that not been what a senior SWE is? You’re making it sound like engineers need to be asked to implement features rather than contribute to design. At my company, if you are not coming up with new features or applications, your days are numbered.
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