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Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer

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Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer

#351

Post by quantum_solanum »

not a single comment in here addressing two of the most important points brought up by the OP. the redditors managed to do it constructively. while gender and racial politics are clearly orthogonal to the concerns of the average HN poster, the tech we build is imbued with them and we are responsible for the issues produced by the lack of their consideration.

> There's not enough women in technology. What a fucked up industry. That needs to change. I've been trying to be more encouraging and helpful to the women engineers in our org, but I don't know what else to do.

> Same with black engineers. What the hell?

I'll start. I have experienced multiple occasions of men being derisive towards women in the workplace, and have been nowhere near forceful enough in shutting it down. I have offered support after the fact, but I need to become more confident at voicing my displeasure in the moment. This applies to all of my male co-workers, and I would bet nearly all of you as well.

Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer

#352

Post by retsibsi »

robocat wrote: post #313
ridethebike wrote: post #286

>> Third party recruiters are leeches Can confirm this and it was surprise for me when I discovered it. I assumed they would try to maximize $$ in my offer in order to maximize their profit. Yet most of them were trying to get offer accepted as quick as possible. Seems like more offers with less money in each is preferred over less offers with more money in each.

The same dynamic occurs with real estate agents. A successful agent optimises for quick sales, while giving the appearance of trying to get the best price. Very important to know when dealing with agents if either selling or buying a home.

Some real estate agents will, if asked, agree to a more top-heavy commission -- e.g. instead of x% of the total sale price, y% of the amount over $z. (I don't know the exact details, but my dad did this when selling his flat.)

Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer

#353

Post by b20000 »

erdo wrote: post #275

> Good code is code that can be understood by a junior engineer. Great code can be understood by a first year CS freshman. The best code is no code at all. Couldn't agree more

which is why leetcode makes no sense, as it focuses on premature optimization and writing the most advanced code possible which no freshman will be able to understand, at least not without dissecting it for a few hours first.

Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer

#354

Post by b20000 »

dmlittle wrote: post #212
dehrmann wrote: post #169

> Algorithms and data strictures are important--to a point For me, 90% of day-to-day algorithms use is not writing O(nm) or O(n^2) code, and knowing which data structures to use to avoid it (usually a hashtable, occasionally a heap or balanced tree).

It all depends on your use case. If your input is bound to a small N, I’ll take the simplest to understand implementation regardless of algorithmic complexity. Future you and other people will thank you later.

in my 25 years of software development, 90% of the time, you don't need to optimize the code and the worst solution in time complexity is totally fine. then there is another 8% of situations where trading in space for time complexity is the solution, i.e. using lookup tables. the remaining 1-2% of the cases you might need a combination of some data structures or containers from the STL or boost (in the case of C++). I've never had to roll some special version of a data structure or container or algorithm myself from scratch, and I work on some really complicated real time software.

Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer

#355

Post by totorovirus »

"My self worth is not a function of or correlated with my total compensation. Capitalism is a poor way to determine self-worth."

This is gold. I think the whole industry is failing to value an engineer. For 5+ yoe, I think performance is a function of eagerness to code and innate intelligence. Yet the industry is paying engineers largely on function of yoe

Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer

#356

Post by sidlls »

ng12 wrote: post #211
sidlls wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I just would have to think really hard to recall a front end specialist who didn’t get bogged down in fad chasing or wrote code better than a backend dev half-assing it.

I would say then that your project is simple enough that an underpaid full-stack dev is exactly what you want.

Possibly, but my experience is that front-end dev specialists tend to over-complicate things (usually so they can tinker with some new javascript flavored garbage).

Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer

#357

Post by retsibsi »

quantum_solanum wrote: post #351

not a single comment in here addressing two of the most important points brought up by the OP. the redditors managed to do it constructively. while gender and racial politics are clearly orthogonal to the concerns of the average HN poster, the tech we build is imbued with them and we are responsible for the issues produced by the lack of their consideration. > There's not enough women in technology. What a fucked up…

If you care about this issue can you consider editing your first paragraph? It's likely to preemptively derail the discussion you're trying to get started.

Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer

#358

Post by parsimanically »

quantum_solanum wrote: post #351

not a single comment in here addressing two of the most important points brought up by the OP. the redditors managed to do it constructively. while gender and racial politics are clearly orthogonal to the concerns of the average HN poster, the tech we build is imbued with them and we are responsible for the issues produced by the lack of their consideration. > There's not enough women in technology. What a fucked up…

Man, that was rude. Feel better now?

[flagged]

guess not!

Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer

#359

Post by TwelveNights »

frereubu wrote: post #17

This, and the current “sober” posts on r/ExperiencedDevs, makes me think of Herodotus describing the way the Persians made important decisions - once sober, once drunk, and if the drunk and sober decisions were the same they knew it was a good one.

The Persians also have an expression for "drunkenness and truthfulness", masti o rasti. مستی و راستی

Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer

#360

Post by mechEpleb »

quantum_solanum wrote: post #351

not a single comment in here addressing two of the most important points brought up by the OP. the redditors managed to do it constructively. while gender and racial politics are clearly orthogonal to the concerns of the average HN poster, the tech we build is imbued with them and we are responsible for the issues produced by the lack of their consideration. > There's not enough women in technology. What a fucked up…

I don't think derisive attitudes in the workplace adequately explain it, because there are a lot fewer women in CS/engineering school too.
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