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How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

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Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#171

Post by ornornor »

jowdones wrote: post #126

There was an article on HN a while ago saying that basically the secret to productivity is ... slack. In other words, excess capacity. I used to have a tight schedule switching from tasks to learning to meetings to more tasks and more learning, 50 minutes work, 10 minutes break, relentlessly, like a robot. Then I realized I'm not a fucking robot. Now I work 2 hours per day at most. Complete my tasks and can do this s…

What do you do for the rest of the time? I had a job like this where it was 80% bullshit so I’d either only need a couple hours a day to get actual stuff done, or I’d work a full day and then spread out my commits and PRs throughout the day.

While in office, it was pure agony. I was bored out of my mind.

While pandemic remote, it was slightly better (never played as much PS4), but it was not freeing either because I had to answer random voice calls or attend hours long BS meetings and keep paying attention in case I was asked something. So it was like working but worse.

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#172

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

astura wrote: post #122
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #33

> make time to be curious. This is kinda dangerous advice, because I've been involved in countless CRUD apps where the developers were bored and made things more interesting for themselves; NoSQL databases, difficult programming languages like Scala, microservices, CQRS, infrastructure-as-code that was never used in practice (it was wishful-thinking-as-code), home-rolled frameworks (one involved the CTO / lead develo…

I had a sudden realization that this is currently the biggest problem in "tech" after reading this hacker news comment - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25968087 Somehow we have an industry of people who believe that work needs to be a source of personal entertainment instead of, you know, work. Expectations need to change. Imagine if other occupations were like this? You hire a plumber to fix a clog and they sp…

It's probably more obvious how it affects the bottom line to those who make and do things in the physical realm. For example, I recently had a new septic system put in. The contractor decided to be clever, and ended up having to redo everything, taking up several people and machines for three more days. That probably cost them more than their profit margin on that whole job, and they're not going to forget about it any time soon.

Compare to product owners and engineering managers who either have no clue how bad it is, or have been conditioned to believe that it is completely normal or even desirable.

>Somehow we have an industry of people who believe that work needs to be a source of personal entertainment instead of, you know, work.

More importantly it should be a source of money for living without either burning yourself out or causing the poor sods who have to clean up after you to burn out. The current state of affairs is hurting both employees and employers. Just telling the employees off doesn't change anything or help anyone.

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#173

Post by EddieDante »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #33

> make time to be curious. This is kinda dangerous advice, because I've been involved in countless CRUD apps where the developers were bored and made things more interesting for themselves; NoSQL databases, difficult programming languages like Scala, microservices, CQRS, infrastructure-as-code that was never used in practice (it was wishful-thinking-as-code), home-rolled frameworks (one involved the CTO / lead develo…

TBH, I'm fine with people who want to flex refusing to work on CRUD apps. CRUD apps are my favorite. They pay well, rarely demand overtime, and never have me on call after hours. They're great for developers who just want to do a job, get paid, and have a life that doesn't revolve around tech.

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#174

Post by 8589934591 »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #37
AlwaysRock wrote: post #22

Eh. These all seem fine. My route? I work less. I have a typical 9-5 but 1-2 days a week I leave a little early and go to do something engaging. Never when I have meetings. Never when I have deadlines. Never when someone is waiting on something from me. But I, and I suspect most engineers, have the capacity to get my work done for a week in less than 40 hours. I used to spend time dicking off on my computer to fill t…

Is your manager just next level laid back? I feel like most places are going to notice and be bothered seeing the yellow circle on your Teams or Slack status consistently for long periods of time.

In microsoft teams you can schedule "focus" time for a max of 4 hours. This acts like DnD and books your calendar. What I did was copy the same slots into 2 more 4 hour slots. So every day I'm busy for 12 hours with DnD. It does not go to the yellow status during that time. Win-win situation if you have shitty management :P

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#175

Post by adamsmith143 »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #65
adamsmith143 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am definitely willing to concede I may be in a bad situation but are there really teams in Agile frameworks with fibonacci pointing where you can pick up a 3-5 point ticket, finish it before the end of a sprint and not work on anything else?

Yes, there are, though that question is weirdly specific. Is it important to you to work on a team using an Agile framework with Fibonacci pointing?

Not at all, just trying to make a concrete example.

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#176

Post by AlwaysRock »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #144
wreath wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A long Youtube video should do the “trick”

A youtube video won't work for me -- my work computer goes idle if the mouse or keyboard doesn't send input for more than 10 minutes. A lot of my work involves work off of my computer, so I just bought a USB mouse jiggler to keep my computer awake so I still get instant messages from my coworkers when I'm working offline.

Youtube didnt work for me either. VLC on the otherhand keeps my computer awake.

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#177

Post by AlwaysRock »

antod wrote: post #162
lovich wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manager here. I do the same thing and I suspect a few of my reports are as well. As long as they continue to complete their work to my satisfaction level I don’t question them on it. I’ve made clear to them that there’s a few core hours they need to make sure they can be available for meetings with other teams and our 5-10 minute standup is about the only checkin I need. I can already see their git commits and jira h…

Not directly related to your comment, it just triggered a random reflection on micro management... Being micro managed as a manager is even worse than as an IC - there's a certain level of badgering you have to pass on so you can satisfy higher management, and there's a limit to how much of that you can filter. So you get micromanagement of yourself plus the extra shitty feeling of having to do it to others.

I got out of management for this reason. It was far easier to do my work and otherwise be left alone as an IC. As a manager there were so many meeting that were just there to tell my manager how my reports were doing. It was incredible how much time I spent just relaying tiny updates up and down the chain. Time that could have been spent doing work.

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#178

Post by VyseofArcadia »

nunez wrote: post #147
VyseofArcadia wrote: post #8

I found this to be an incredibly depressing article. It boiled down to, "think about pleasant things that aren't work." For example, > Pick an activity that you've always wanted to try. Don't have ideas? Try Wikipedia for a good list of hobbies I already have plenty of hobbies, and I'd rather work on any of them than be at work! I've always been very self-motivated. I want to work on what I want to work on. Being for…

Unfortunately, many (many!) people are not intrinsically-motivated like you or I and would rather do other things (unpopular opinion: many people are perfectly fine with doing nothing, and I mean not a DAMN thing). This article is for them. Having intrinsic motivation for your work is a huge privilege. Be thankful for it!

> Having intrinsic motivation for your work is a huge privilege. Be thankful for it!

Just to clarify, I am intrinsically motivated for my work. I am not intrinsically motivated at work. I've actually begun to see the industry I work in as kind of dumb.

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#179

Post by nisegami »

wreath wrote: post #137
nisegami wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the faster you work the more work you get. It took me about 2 months to learn this after getting my first job. Nowadays I intentionally add minor bugs that turn up during demos so I have stuff to "go back and fix" later.

I’d be careful with this. You dont want to build a reputation of building buggy software and have sloppy work.

I'd be fine with that reputation, given circumstances not worth getting into.

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#180

Post by nisegami »

digisign wrote: post #84
nisegami wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the faster you work the more work you get. It took me about 2 months to learn this after getting my first job. Nowadays I intentionally add minor bugs that turn up during demos so I have stuff to "go back and fix" later.

That sounds... unnecessary. There is always stuff to refactor, and tests to add, folks showing up at the last minute with new requirements. Or you can just wait a day to push commits, etc. More honest, I think.

The only tests we have are some for a project I worked on that I wrote to prove it could be done. Automated testing might as well be dark magic to my coworkers.
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