DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
11–20 of 86 posts
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#12Let's do some math.
So, say you're paying me $15 an hour. Really, if you own a business by the time you pay for taxes, infrastructure, capital outlay and insurance you are really paying about $45 an hour for me to hang out and do what you tell me to do at varying levels of competency. You need to make that much more value from my labor per-hour or you are going to go out of business.
Say I have a piece of software that, because of a miscommunication between the developers who wrote it and the people who have to use the software (ideally this is what management is for but, lolz) has added 30 seconds to a transaction I do 20 times an hour. This means that, suddenly, there are 10 minutes of labor added to this task on aggregate an hour.
If you have a piece of software that wastes 10 minutes of my time, you just wasted $7.50 worth of my labor. But, of course, I'm using this software for 8 hours a day. So that is $60 of money wasted a day.
So, really, you thought you needed to make $45 an hour from my labor, but you just added $7.50 to the total. So, $52.50, and now you have a morale problem to boot: because the folks who are using the software are now accomplishing less than they used to for the same amount of work.
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#13Without experience, an engineers understanding of a problem space is suspect.
In other words, the difference between a good engineer and a bad engineer often comes down to experience and understanding.
My guess is the company is also taking note of the engineer's attitude and reaction to this experience requirement as well.
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#14Seems like a great way for employees to become more intimate with the product they’re developing. This, I would expect, would lead to developing a better product and user experience.
Seems like a great way to assist the engineers in just finding new jobs...
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#15Requiring the engineer to actually use the product they are working on in real life is good. Maybe it can help make the experience better for the dashers, the restaurants, and the company.
That $400,000/yr engineer makes more money in a day than a DoorDash worker makes in 2 weeks working full time. I do not feel any sympathy for the 1 dash they will have to make a month.
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#16Seems like a great way for employees to become more intimate with the product they’re developing. This, I would expect, would lead to developing a better product and user experience.
Seems like a great way to assist the engineers in just finding new jobs...
Seems like a great way to filter out prima donnas who can't be bothered to put themselves in the place of their users. I would be happy to be rid of anyone complaining about this policy.
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#17Seems like a great way for employees to become more intimate with the product they’re developing. This, I would expect, would lead to developing a better product and user experience.
Seems like a great way to assist the engineers in just finding new jobs...
These engineers are paid incredibly well. If they can't handle spending 30 minutes once a month taking a delivery, then they can work somewhere else.
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#18One engineer who is getting nearly $0.5m total compensation and when asked to do one delivery a month, they are now throwing a tantrum over that. But you know what? Good. Maybe that is what they need since the drivers and riders get 0.01% of what these engineers earn and I'm sure that there were complaints about that. So when one is getting nearly $0.5m for the engineering work and told to do just ONE delivery a mont…
One of the issues I have in the whole software industry is the lack of empathy for regular folks and a lack understanding of how hard the average person has to bust their ass just to make it in life with just the basics. I personally believe it leads to products that are often disconnected completely from the people who actually use them and damaging to our social fabric.
I applaud DoorDash for this move and quite frankly this would make me more likely to take a job there.
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#19I remember one comment here in HN that mentioned how in the future society will be divided in those above and bellow the API. About the difference in quality of life of those that make the platform, and those that work for it, like the gig workers. It made me angry because was too cold, but in line with reality.
I really hope this type of strategies help in this regard. For the people developing those platforms, to remember that in the end those who work for those Apps are humans too, and not only a number in an A/B test or KPI spreadsheet.
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#20I notice that none of the comment think about scenario where the engineer doesn't know how to drive or doesn't own a car