Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for • Hacker News Board

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#181

Post by yuhong » Wed, Dec 21, 2011, 4:23 AM UTC

moocow01 wrote: post #122

sbisker wrote: post #108

About six years ago, I decided to become a "desingineer", by accident. Here's how it went down: After getting a BS and M.Eng in Computer Science, everyone was pleased as punched to let me code for them. But I wanted to code and design interfaces as well. What a strange idea - a programmer also making the interfaces. Well, it turned out no one would take me seriously unless I had designed interfaces in a professional…

I think in general, being a generalist in any field puts a ceiling on your career path after a while. And like you said the ceiling is not so much about the generalist being mediocre at many things, its more about others getting confused about how you would be best moved up the career track. But the problem with the concept of a career track is that you are on a track defined by other people. I'd say the only way out…

Or maybe a manager at a bigger company.

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#182

Post by sliverstorm » Wed, Dec 21, 2011, 4:35 AM UTC

sbisker wrote: post #108

About six years ago, I decided to become a "desingineer", by accident. Here's how it went down: After getting a BS and M.Eng in Computer Science, everyone was pleased as punched to let me code for them. But I wanted to code and design interfaces as well. What a strange idea - a programmer also making the interfaces. Well, it turned out no one would take me seriously unless I had designed interfaces in a professional…

their "first designer hire" posts often forget that everyone starts somewhere.

"We understand that- they just didn't start here- or anywhere else that is hiring, for that matter..."

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#183

Post by schraeds » Wed, Dec 21, 2011, 4:37 AM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #104

schraeds wrote: post #30

I am proficient in: Photoshop, Illustrator, Expression Blend, Sencha, HTML/CSS/Java, WPF, ExtJS. I possess: Taste, attention to detail and aesthetics, an understanding of human factors as they relate to computer interaction. What does that make me? :)

HTML/CSS/Java <-- the lumping together of these three is either wrong (you meant Javascript) or bizarre, too.

I was referring to javascript, I think in that regard it would fit the others as front-end development.

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#184

Post by schraeds » Wed, Dec 21, 2011, 4:41 AM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #37

schraeds wrote: post #30

I am proficient in: Photoshop, Illustrator, Expression Blend, Sencha, HTML/CSS/Java, WPF, ExtJS. I possess: Taste, attention to detail and aesthetics, an understanding of human factors as they relate to computer interaction. What does that make me? :)

Webmonkey.

I recently made the jump from doing freelance web development work with most of my clients coming from craigslist to being the Director of User Experience at a software startup developing algorithmic trading software and doing UI/UX consulting for another company.

Right now I am working in C#/WPF for one company and Sencha (ExtJS) for the other.

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#185

Post by schraeds » Wed, Dec 21, 2011, 4:59 AM UTC

fiznool wrote: post #40

schraeds wrote: post #30

I am proficient in: Photoshop, Illustrator, Expression Blend, Sencha, HTML/CSS/Java, WPF, ExtJS. I possess: Taste, attention to detail and aesthetics, an understanding of human factors as they relate to computer interaction. What does that make me? :)

Big-headed?

Sorry if I came off that way. I am confident in my abilities to create awesome interfaces but I still have a lot to learn and a lot of time/practice to put in. My original comment was meant to be from the viewpoint of a "desingineer".

I know the article is probably referring to someone who is equally talented in development as they are design, able to create the backend along with the frontend, but I feel that being able to implement my designs in Windows Presentation Foundation, ExtJS, JQueryUI, Wordpress, etc make me a desingineer as well.

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#186

Post by Stormbringer » Wed, Dec 21, 2011, 5:12 AM UTC

sbochins wrote: post #147

jameshart wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conway's Law, degenerate case. "Organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations" When the organization structure of a project is 'there's just one guy who does it all', the software architecture will tend towards 'the big ball of code' pattern. However, if the team on a project has people who are engineers, and people wh…

I don't know if I agree with this. It seems like the more people there are working on a project, the more likely you will end up with a complicated ball of code. The reason being is people generally aren't working with the same mental model on the system they are implementing. So, some of the engineers will think its obvious to do things one way, and others will do the opposite. It doesn't make sense for complete rew…

How can you possibly disagree?

If we accept the initial premise that designers who are also engineers are as rare as ninja-unicorns, then surely the logical thing to do is to turn them into managers?

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#187

Post by Stormbringer » Wed, Dec 21, 2011, 5:20 AM UTC

tibbon wrote: post #87

danielmason wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the scarcity of your skillset is the main contributor to your relative scarcity of opportunities. At a previous company I helped found, we realized that we were trying to find people who were pretty good designers, front-end developers, and really good on the phone with clients for support stuff. We didn't have the margins to split these into different roles, and that was the insight that allowed me to real…

Your last sentence has been my experience so far. Essentially, when a company gets me, they seem to realize that month that they got more than they expected and its a good thing. One thing I've noticed about some (not all clearly) people who are very good at one thing (let's say back end programming) is they might not really want to do something totally different. Dealing with customers? Writing documentation? Writin…

The problem with finding programmers that are good at the social stuff (phone support, dealing with customers) is that the great conceit of programmers is:

That knowing things is more important than knowing people

Hence (most good) programmers will find dealing with customers and doing phone support a tedious chore.

What you are looking for then is a programmer that doesn't passionately love programming. If you find them I am willing to bet that as far as their programming skills go they are not so good.

----

Alternately, look for someone who used to be a hot-shot programmer, but then dialled it back, "got a life". Look for programmers in their 40s or 50s who are more into the social aspect of life. The problem is, they won't work 80 hours if you're only paying them for 32.

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#188

Post by nbashaw » Wed, Dec 21, 2011, 5:47 AM UTC

sbisker wrote: post #108

About six years ago, I decided to become a "desingineer", by accident. Here's how it went down: After getting a BS and M.Eng in Computer Science, everyone was pleased as punched to let me code for them. But I wanted to code and design interfaces as well. What a strange idea - a programmer also making the interfaces. Well, it turned out no one would take me seriously unless I had designed interfaces in a professional…

I've had the opposite experience.

I started messing around in photoshop making paintings of websites and dreaming up ideas in high school. In college, I convinced a programmer to help me build one of my ideas, and he agreed on the condition that I had to code the front end HTML and CSS. So I learned how to do that and surprisingly enjoyed it.

Then I realized I could quit my job making websites for people, so I got even better at building and deploying static sites.

I started going to meetups and built more side projects and sites with friends and started to get more comfortable with Rails, JavaScript, Git, etc.

After college, I went to work for Olark (YC 09) and realized that I could be far more useful if I knew how to program. So I've been working hard to get better at the various languages and frameworks that comprise our stack. And I'm well on my way to becoming a desingineer.

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#189

Post by sbisker » Wed, Dec 21, 2011, 6:08 AM UTC

ahoyhere wrote: post #161

sbisker wrote: post #108

About six years ago, I decided to become a "desingineer", by accident. Here's how it went down: After getting a BS and M.Eng in Computer Science, everyone was pleased as punched to let me code for them. But I wanted to code and design interfaces as well. What a strange idea - a programmer also making the interfaces. Well, it turned out no one would take me seriously unless I had designed interfaces in a professional…

Funny, I'm purely self-taught and have worked for little local cos as well as big ones such as Pepsi & Bear Stearns (as a consultant at $hundreds per hour). Never had any problems with the fact that I had zero "official" credentials whatsoever. They all hired me for what I had already shown I could DO. I even put on my resume "School of Hard Knocks" - back when I actually had a resume. If I were you, I would wonder t…

You defined yourself - as a product of your experiences - and you sold yourself, brilliantly. That's cheating. ;)

But seriously, I'm more concerned with the student who is interested in doing both and is still unsure of their career, than in the competent professional like you or me. It is obvious that the field wants desingineers, more than self-teaching can produce - what can we do to encourage them, either at the educational or at the job title/industry level?

Re: Desingineer – the mythical person every startup is looking for

#190

Post by Mazer23 » Wed, Dec 21, 2011, 6:40 AM UTC

sbisker wrote: post #108

About six years ago, I decided to become a "desingineer", by accident. Here's how it went down: After getting a BS and M.Eng in Computer Science, everyone was pleased as punched to let me code for them. But I wanted to code and design interfaces as well. What a strange idea - a programmer also making the interfaces. Well, it turned out no one would take me seriously unless I had designed interfaces in a professional…

Where did you study Interaction Design? I'm getting in a masters in it at CMU after getting an electrical engineering BS. The masters here is a great program.