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Short fat engineers are undervalued

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Re: Short fat engineers are undervalued

#261

Post by hackissimo123 »

dvdgsng wrote: post #258
hackissimo123 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the opposite position; I've spent almost my entire five-year career focusing on one quite narrow tech stack and I'm good at it but I'm also sick of it and desperate to learn something new. I just changed jobs and I took a substantial pay cut for the chance to get professional experience in a new tech stack, which isn't ideal, but I really want to work with a new language and I don't know what else to do (there…

I'm curious, what stacks did you trade?

Previously: Rails. New job: Elixir.

Re: Short fat engineers are undervalued

#262

Post by renerthr »

dohnuts1919 wrote: post #211
renerthr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it goes more the other way around. Successful people prefer to look attractive, so they take the necessary steps to achieve that. Elon M would be an example, I guess. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7378972

Wait, it's possible to look significantly more attractive through willpower alone? I dress okay and am not a total slob but I've never considered myself anything more than average-looking, and I've certainly never been told that I'm hot or that I should consider a career in modelling. What tricks can I apply to make myself as gorgeous as Elon Musk?

https://www.mcanhealth.com/elon-musk-hair-transplant-analysi...

Re: Short fat engineers are undervalued

#264

Post by w0mbat »

politelemon wrote: post #230
w0mbat wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed at Microsoft that the tallest people always got promoted. It never made any sense to me - we weren’t playing basketball.

It may have been other factors that were involved in their promotions. Did they perhaps walk around with their arms out to the sides, in a T-esque shape?

I think that only works in Tetris.

Re: Short fat engineers are undervalued

#265

Post by digikata »

smichel17 wrote: post #222
digikata wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too have a broken comb profile. Every now an then I get to have some fun and add or extend a few teeth. But for the most part the skills let me work through most tangles pretty well.

Aah, I was looking for a word to describe this shape! It's also what I consider myself. It's basically the result of being a generalist who is also willing to dive deep in order to solve a problem rather than stackoverflow my way to a workaround. "Key-shaped" might be another word here, for someone who does have an area of focus, but not as extreme as a T shape. For example, someone who does full stack web dev with a…

Key shaped is not a bad term, probably moot, but it doesn't quite have the aspect-ratio I was thinking of - of course it also doesn't have the word "broken" in it either...

Re: Short fat engineers are undervalued

#266

Post by smichel17 »

digikata wrote: post #265
smichel17 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aah, I was looking for a word to describe this shape! It's also what I consider myself. It's basically the result of being a generalist who is also willing to dive deep in order to solve a problem rather than stackoverflow my way to a workaround. "Key-shaped" might be another word here, for someone who does have an area of focus, but not as extreme as a T shape. For example, someone who does full stack web dev with a…

Key shaped is not a bad term, probably moot, but it doesn't quite have the aspect-ratio I was thinking of - of course it also doesn't have the word "broken" in it either...

I actually thought of one a while later: (city) skyline shaped.

Re: Short fat engineers are undervalued

#267

Post by purplecats »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #195
purplecats wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Constant abstract and compress can you expand on this? i feel like i do this but not quite sure what you mean

Well, taken to the limit, something like https://ncatlab.org/nlab . (I do endorse, but am no category theory wise by any stretch of the imagination.) By default being extremely skeptical of all things computing related, and general being dour about the mainstream trends also helps. Skepticism is what allows separating the accidental and essential complexity, as some term it. Only learn the essential parts.

I read some of the introductory pages such as their perspective, but unfortunately, I think this is mostly beyond my level of comprehension.

I don't really get category theory in layman terms.

However, it does seem like this is really powerful for whomever understands and adopts it.

Re: Short fat engineers are undervalued

#268

Post by sngz »

harpratap wrote: post #30
robertbalent wrote: post #19

Is it really true? A lot of companies are focusing on hiring "short fat" engineers. Especially companies having "dev ops" engineering model, where engineers must be able to work on all stages of the product lifecycle - from design, development, testing, to deployment and operations.

Devops is more of T-shaped role rather than short-fat

devops isn't a role

Re: Short fat engineers are undervalued

#269

Post by tacitusarc »

lostcolony wrote: post #247
tacitusarc wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hasn't been my experience. When the non-experts decide to break patterns and remove guardrails because they don't understand their purpose, and then they break the project, the experts are once again pulled back in to try and scavenge the remains and get something workable. It's fine if people want to do something different: just first become an expert.

'decide to break patterns and remove guardrails because they don't understand their purpose' Ensuring the non-experts understand their purpose is the role of the experts. NOT making the decision as to when to deviate. That's my point. An org that leverages an expert to make others experts is an org that ends up with a team full of experts. An org that leverages an expert to make decisions for the non-experts is an or…

Absolutely, but it's a three-way street. The experts must be willing to teach, the non-experts must be willing to learn, and the organization must be willing to allow them the time to do so.

If any one of those things is missing, it doesn't work. And in my experience, the most likely ingredient to be present is it willingness of the experts to teach. If you're good at something, it's fun to explain it to others.

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