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‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups

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Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups

#121

Post by ukoki »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #118
ukoki wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was talking about buying - why throw rent money away. London has some of the lowest rental yields in the UK, especially as you move towards the higher end of the market. Renting is merely "very expensive", compared to buying which is "very, very expensive".

Bad use of money, certainly in the UK mortgages are cheaper per month than renting and that's not counting the value of the asset..

> UK mortgages are cheaper per month than renting

That's definitely the case outside of London where rental yields are higher but London rental yields are averaging 3-4% [1] (lower as you go up the ladder). Mortgage rates are currently a bit cheaper (1.5-3%) but owning a home also incurs additional costs such as stamp duty, repairs and (sometimes) ground-rents.

1. https://www.knightfrank.co.uk/research/uk-residential-invest...

Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups

#122

Post by Techonomicon »

5trokerac3 wrote: post #120
Techonomicon wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm tired of the whole "if you're doing x at a startup you're foolish" You only live once, it's amazing to be an engineer now and have all the choices of being able to actually work somewhere that you ENJOY working at, that you align with and find interesting. If that job happens to pay you $250k / year then great, but if it pays you only $150k and you actually enjoy half your waking hours then seems like you're the…

But in startups that whole "work somewhere or on something you enjoy" is a front. Programming is programming, as long as you find a challenging problem. Everything else is ego. Some of the most gratifying work I've done is on extremely tedious problems for majorly boring products. The fact that the product is boring and technical lowers the amount of drama around it, allowing you to focus on the programming you love.…

> "work somewhere or on something you enjoy"

Definitely not true, and a generalization. I've worked at the shittiest of shitty culture game startups in the early 2010s to places that really strive to build a great culture for everyone at work, is empathetic, and cares about putting employees on a career track they care about.

Just because you haven't been at such a place doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because you had a bad experience doesn't mean that speaks for everyone.

At this point you can definitely work for interesting startups remotely, I've personally consulted for several in the past year on the side. They use interesting tech, have great people, and are working on interesting problems.

Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups

#124

Post by catchmilk »

new_here wrote: post #65
jermaustin1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about London took its toll? I've been contemplating a switch from NYC to London. I know it will be a 30-50% pay cut, but I've been told by other's who have lived and worked in both that it is worth it for the better work/life balance.

Haven't worked in NYC but I've worked in London for 3.5 years and am in the process of leaving/going remote because I don't rate the quality of life here at all and I'm exhausted from it. Things that take its toll for me: 1. Too. Many. People. You can barely book a restaurant or get a seat anywhere. 2. Nothing works. Trains, airports and mobile network reception. 3. Commuting. Rush hour is crowded, the tubes are disg…

Been on HN for over a year, never created an account, but I just had to reply to this.

Where in the hell have you been living?

1. Barely book a restaurant? London is so over-saturated with restaurants/bars/pubs, one can barely keep up. I've been living in London for 7 years and there's still an abundance of places my friends and me want to try. I can _maybe_ remember once or twice that we couldn't book due to it being full - but those were overly fancy places.

2. You've got to be kidding me. You mean the tube that comes every 2 minutes? Or the express trains to every airport (apart from Luton) that are spot on most of the time? I've traveled around America, Europe and Africa - London airports are by far some of the most efficient ones I've encountered (again, apart from Luton. Luton can suck it)

3. Is commute enjoyable anywhere in the world? You're talking as if people in Stockholm or Berlin loved sitting in public transport next to strangers for 30 min straight.

4. Point taken. The real estate market is one of the worst industries here, agents suck. That's what happens when a city has such high demand and barely any supply.

I've seen people complain about a lot of things in London, but never #1 or #2 like you. Pretty unrealistic view of the city.

Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups

#125

Post by 5trokerac3 »

Techonomicon wrote: post #122
5trokerac3 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in startups that whole "work somewhere or on something you enjoy" is a front. Programming is programming, as long as you find a challenging problem. Everything else is ego. Some of the most gratifying work I've done is on extremely tedious problems for majorly boring products. The fact that the product is boring and technical lowers the amount of drama around it, allowing you to focus on the programming you love.…

> "work somewhere or on something you enjoy" Definitely not true, and a generalization. I've worked at the shittiest of shitty culture game startups in the early 2010s to places that really strive to build a great culture for everyone at work, is empathetic, and cares about putting employees on a career track they care about. Just because you haven't been at such a place doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because yo…

> Definitely not true, and a generalization... Just because you haven't been at such a place doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

That in itself is a false assumption and generalization.

Are we talking product or culture? Because, if it's culture, then startup vs. established company doesn't matter anymore. Either can have good or crap culture, and what is good/crap is wholly subjective, and usually more dependent on where the employee is in their life than the company.

For example, I could care less what amenities I have and how nice everyone is if I don't get to go home and put my kids to bed except once in a blue moon. I could care less about working from home if I'm expected to crawl out of bed in the middle of the night and work during fire drills that always seem to happen.

The question is, are you in programming primarily because you love the art, are you in it to stroke your ego, because it's bleeding edge, or a combo of both?

Startups convince low-level employees with minuscule equity that they should care as much about the company as the founders through stroking of egos. I'm not making the argument that you shouldn't work for a startup, I'm making the argument that working as a everyday software engineer at a startup is almost always a bad, long-term career investment for experienced engineers.

Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups

#126

Post by arpa »

triceratops wrote: post #113
dangerface wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every language has valid criticism, you use the right tool for the right job. When you single out one of your tools as "bad" it just highlights that you don't understand what job the tool is for. learn your tools.

It's funny you should mention tools. This article uses exactly that analogy to explain why PHP is an awful tool for any job. https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

Actually, hating on PHP is much older. Heck, if we are to descend into depths of history, let's go straight to the unix haters' handbook and let's find out just why the most ubiquitous and popular server operating system sucks on the most fundamental level.

Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups

#127

Post by arpa »

ionforce wrote: post #111
arpa wrote: post #23

Would people please stop shitting on php. It's no better nor worse than let's say, ruby. It gets shit done. It is a valid tool very widely used in the wild.

This is a false equivalence. Its popularity doesn't make it "valid" for some criterion.

The amount of successful systems based on it is a valid criterion.

Re: ‘Product engineers’ vs ‘Software engineers’ in startups

#128

Post by arpa »

sterileopinions wrote: post #110
notyourday wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would people please stop shitting on php. It's no better nor worse than let's say, ruby. It gets shit done. It is a valid tool very widely used in the wild And this, ladies and gentlemen, is whom you should hire as your tech leadership. He will get your product shipped in a reasonable amount of time, rather than rewrite an app that is making you $2 million a month in Go because some new log ingestion framework want…

That's a really big claim based on a single post that was whining into the void about someone else making a joke about a language. It even says "(JOKING)" in the article.

It says JOKING about using php, because hurr durr php is stupid caveman language hurr durr of course you shouldn't use it. Idiot. That's dismissive, belittling and straightforward insulting. Yet of course everybody jacks off about elixir or scala or blogs running on custom assembly coded httpd. Because THAT'S smart. And php's bad and stupid. Okay, gotcha.

You converted me. I will stop whining and go code my homepage in haskell. That should keep me busy for a year or so.

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