281–290 of 347 posts
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> Software engineers have been tricked into thinking they are part of the in club because they are paid well enough to have the lifestyle that the middle class had between ww2 and the 80s This, and additionally we've been tricked into feeling guilty about it as well.
And still too busy smelling our own farts to unionize.
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> I don’t know which business school teaches people to say “ah can you smell that fresh mountain air” while they have their hands wrapped tightly around your neck … It’s all of them and the higher you get into management the more apparent it is. They sell a system of meritocracy where those who work the hardest get the rewards. Then you get into management and working side by side with people whose first job out of c…
> Software engineers have been tricked into thinking they are part of the in club because they are paid well enough to have the lifestyle that the middle class had between ww2 and the 80s This, and additionally we've been tricked into feeling guilty about it as well.
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Well, question is which part of the world you live in, of course. But I don't need to unionize. If I am not satisfied in my job I can switch. Each consecutive job hop past 15 years got me better pay, better benefits and sometimes a better job (sometimes it was equaly shitty as the prevous one but for better money). This does not happen for unionized workers. Maybe in the future we will have to unionize. Definitely no…
Would this not be the best time to form a union, though? If we start to hit tough times when programmers are treated like shit and the job market is tight, then your colleagues will be less inclined to rock the boat and management will be actively trying to crack down on any attempts to organize. Basically when you need a union it could be too late. Right now management will be off-guard, not expecting any unionisati…
Education still doesn't prevent us from falling in particular traps.
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I find myself quoting the mythical man month to various poeple at least 2-3 times a week. Unfortunately no one is familiar with it (obviously) or seems to understand the point. The other day I had PM complaining how they were going to keep their team (which has somehow grown to 10 devs!) busy after the highly sequential work was blocked by a dependency on another team...
...and who was it that failed at the outset to factor out that dependency into a clean,well-defined interface ? That would have allowed modules/components to operate independently ,reved on different schedules, and more, but evidently too much thought at the outset ,so they just didn't even bring it up ,or passed on the opportunity if it was brought up. They think they can't spend the resources to get it right, but t…
(see point about about the not understanding what is being built and constantly changing the scope)
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And still too busy smelling our own farts to unionize.
Well, question is which part of the world you live in, of course. But I don't need to unionize. If I am not satisfied in my job I can switch. Each consecutive job hop past 15 years got me better pay, better benefits and sometimes a better job (sometimes it was equaly shitty as the prevous one but for better money). This does not happen for unionized workers. Maybe in the future we will have to unionize. Definitely no…
also, for every engineer, there is one who will claim to be able to do the job cheaper. that is why we need unions. that, and to get rid of leetcode. people already went to college and that should be enough.
It sounds like the acquirer was at much fault as the company. Launching a musical instrument at CES is dumb - you go to NAMM (winter and summer), AES, or even NAB - somewhere where early adopters are, and press that will showcase the product to them. Requiring theory and practice to use an instrument isn't bad design. Compromising creative potential for potential market size just turns it into a toy, not something wi…
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Geniunely asking. As I live in a part of world where we stay in longterm jobs. Is it not stressful when switching jobs? - from paperwork, interviews, new colleagues, friendships, on-boarding, new place politics - especially for brain.
You get used to it. After a while if you become good at interviewing and going through the motions you are probably more secure than someone who has "job security", no matter how hard it is to fire someone a company can still go bankrupt. If I got fired tomorrow it would result in a vacation, probably followed by a raise. When you get to that place it isn't scary at all.
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Dealing with exactly 1 & 2 right now. #3 doesn't really apply in my case because 80% of the devs are budget staffing agency hires. But on that note, I'd add a 4th point: Management panics when they realize they won't make the self imposed deadline and start throwing bodies at the problem. In our case, we went from 2 teams to 8 over night. The very few engineers who actually were capable of shipping features became sw…
"start throwing bodies at the problem." and to save money they hire some newbies instead of experienced people. I have had it multiple times where the project got looded with people who had no experience or they were in India 12 hours away so onboarding was really hard. the result was always that the added people slowed the project down.
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Fred Brooks encountered a similar problem as a project manager at IBM in the early 1960s, working on the software for the System/360. In 1975 he wrote The Mythical Man Month about the experience. He said "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later". The increased communication needed was one reason. About half a century later, most businesses have still not learned these lessons.
I once on a company where a CEO did that 3 times in a row to an engineering team, and mentioned wanting that team to be 4x its current size in two years. In an interview, he mentioned The Mythical Man Month as one of his favourite books.
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Unionization does not magically change poorly managed companies into well managed ones.
No, but unionization gives you a seat at the table to negotiate the rules of the game with upper management. Collectively you stand a better chance than individually to improve the working conditions.
Hmm, but is this really the case?
I know it's how it's sold, but does it actually work like that?