Coders Automating Their Own Job • Hacker News Board

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#361

Post by jwally » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 11:40 AM UTC

jwally wrote: post #238

auxym wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is RPA?

Mostly screen scraping / macros. A lot of what I see is over marketed woo (“cognitive RPA”), but it’s basically a watered down version of selenium that (in theory) a programming novice could use to automate tasks. The tricky part is that there is a finesse involved to make it reliable and the exercise becomes more process improvement than programming. Most people struggle with this and you end up with a 2000 line-of-…

Following up on this is how heavy these things are marketed. We’ve spent around $1MM in the last two years on Automation Anywhere and around $2MM hiring consultants to implement it.

Part of it is because our IT department is underfund and dysfunctional and RPA is the only “controllable” way to improve processes (in execution it’s not) and part of it is because our management have drank the cool aide that automation anywhere puts out about the impending singularity.

I’m all for automation, more for process improvement; but at 2.5MM for a bunch of brittle macros running critical functions; it’s way oversold and too immature

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#362

Post by intellix » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 11:48 AM UTC

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #303

peteforde wrote: post #119

You know how sometimes you love an article so much that you are annoyed you didn't write it? This does a better job than I could have of tieing together a dozen threads of conversation that I've had with various friends for years. I actually believe that there's a culture war implied in this debate; the question of who deserves to reap the gains of automation is more than just philosophy or ethics. The question "is t…

One thing I find fascinating about the article is that it's assumed the cleverness was the code written to automate. This is incorrect; the cleverness is in noticing when a task can be automated. Typically, the code itself is trivial. I have told my work more than once that if they wanted to get the most out of me they should put me on the "front line" for a month or two, and let me decide what needs to be automated.…

or just do it?

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#363

Post by jsprenne » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 11:52 AM UTC

Automating data entry work or similar is one thing, there are many companies out there automating a high-value-added work like IT project management. Most of the work project managers do today will be automated in the coming years. Mark my words!

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#364

Post by goombastic » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 11:53 AM UTC

Not sure why so many people here are surprised that benefits of efficiency accrue to the owners of capital. That's the basic premise of capitalism in a way.

Profits float upwards, hard negotiation pushes downwards on actual workers and managements try as much as possible to reduce what's owed to actual "doers" of work.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#365

Post by coj337 » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 12:00 PM UTC

I used to intern for a large Australian bank and we had a fairly complex access management workflow.

A month into the job after I'd figured out how it all works, I spent a week automating it and was promptly told I was allowed to run my scripts do it if it was kept secret from the higher-ups (to avoid the red tape and the intern they don't trust much).

This automated a backlog of work that had a team of 5-10 people scheduled on for a good year along with any future requests, a month or two after my internship I bumped into my boss again they told me they had gone back to doing it the slow way because the bosses wouldn't approve it, despite showing a 0 failure rate compared to a pretty big one from the bored employees.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#366

Post by snarkyturtle » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 12:02 PM UTC

jsprenne wrote: post #363

Automating data entry work or similar is one thing, there are many companies out there automating a high-value-added work like IT project management. Most of the work project managers do today will be automated in the coming years. Mark my words!

One thing that PM's do that I don't ever see a computer doing is managing clients/workers. It's the classic idiom: technology is easy, it's people that's the hard problem.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#367

Post by matchagaucho » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 12:04 PM UTC

Moore's Law seems so ingrained in Silicon Valley, that not questioning automation opportunities every 18 months is a guaranteed predictor for obsolescence.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#368

Post by endymi0n » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 12:04 PM UTC

sambe wrote: post #347

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because you're asking "Put me in charge and I'll tell you what needs fixing", instead of telling them what needs fixing first. I'd see if you can start with a thing or two, making sure to organize a presentation or something to present your work and the direct benefits from it - making sure to invite the managers' manager if possible. Alternatively, send an email to important people about the success. Show, do…

I don't think that's what is being suggested. They aren't asking to be in charge, they are asking to experience the (potentially automatable) problems first. The leaders do not tend to be associated with the front lines.

And yet that‘s exactly how to create the most value. I believe deeply in the concept of „transferring pain“, as it‘s usually an order of magnitude easier to teach a good developer some domain knowledge than teaching a domain worker thinking in automation.

If I want something looking repetitive working smooth, I‘ll let my best devs do the work themselves for a week and dig their way out of it.

Heck, that‘s exactly how I got serious about coding in the first place. The guy in the post automated his job, decided not to tell anyone and played games all day. I told my employer about my automation back then and they were like - „so you wanna quit now or join Engineering?“

Whatever floats your boat — I‘m CTO by now.

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#369

Post by mrhackerpoland » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 12:09 PM UTC

Once i automated my colleague's job, boss fired her and i got a big raise :)

For me programming is run or die.

Just automate your colleagues job, then show your boss how you managed to reduce the employee cost and you'll soon be making way more money

Boss loves automation because humans are less reliable than algorithms and replica sets :)

Re: Coders Automating Their Own Job

#370

Post by datavirtue » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 12:10 PM UTC

sambe wrote: post #347

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because you're asking "Put me in charge and I'll tell you what needs fixing", instead of telling them what needs fixing first. I'd see if you can start with a thing or two, making sure to organize a presentation or something to present your work and the direct benefits from it - making sure to invite the managers' manager if possible. Alternatively, send an email to important people about the success. Show, do…

I don't think that's what is being suggested. They aren't asking to be in charge, they are asking to experience the (potentially automatable) problems first. The leaders do not tend to be associated with the front lines.

It is perceived as "let me show everyone what you have been missing." They are not going to allow that, just as a smart person is not going to tell everyone that they automated thier job if they don't think the environment is going to promote them for it.