What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers • Hacker News Board

Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers

#41

Post by hef19898 » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 9:56 AM UTC

Like everything from pragmatic engineer so far, that is an insightful article. As someone with a more traditional, read half mechanical, engineering background who is working for quite sometime now at the interface between mechanical, electrical (hardware basically) engineering, commercial and software (because no modern piece of machinery works without that), I'd like to add some things.

At the core of the difference between "traditional" and SV type companies is a fundamental difference on how they view software developers (and I am firmly in the non-SV camp myself): are they engineers or not? In SV, yes. For almost everyone else definitely not. And there lies the problem traditional, engineering heavy companies have integrating software.

that does cut both ways so, most of the SV-software engineering practices are simply as incompatible with hardware engineering as hardware engineering practices are with software development. And for most non-SV-pure-software companies, any piece of software is just another part number in the final product configuration, in that environment, software developers are nothing special. And it takes a special kind of software developer and company culture to properly manage that.

That being said, I agree with the articles conclusion. And I'd add that hardware engineering could benefit a lot from treating their engineers the way SV does their software devs. I do have a question so, where does all that significant horsepower of SV companies go nowadays? From the outside, it seems to go into ad tech, social media (with the aim to sell more ads), crypto (nothing to show for besides bitcoin and ethernum as new stuff to speculate with when gold isn't fun enough anymore) and "AI" (the latest hype which still has to show some real world benefits).

The true innovation to come needs a combination of software and hardware, each bit for itself got as far they could. There isn't much world left software can eat without some allies, at least until the next cycle repeats.

Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers

#42

Post by Fluorescence » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 9:56 AM UTC

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #33

Fluorescence wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is so disingenuous to snip out the reason they gave and then pose a sanctimonious question as if it wasn't clear. They said it's to increase supply and lower labour costs. You can argue with that or not but don't pretend you do not understand the capitalist ideal of an excess supply of labour so that salaries and benefits can be driven to legal minimums with desperate people still waiting to be hired no matter the…

>It is so disingenuous to snip out the reason they gave and then pose a sanctimonious question as if it wasn't clear. They said it's to increase supply and lower labour costs. Oh please, don't act so 'righteous-than-thou'. With this logic, aren't we all here who got into SW development responsible for increasing the labor supply and decreasing wages? What's disingenuous, is people in traffic complaining there's traff…

Those are valid questions, you are describing the problem. It is a tension. It applies to immigration and any number of other social issues. What was wrong was to frame the flooding the market with new software developers as an entirely noble intent. It's like saying the abuse of h1b visas has also been noble and not about labour costs / control over staff.

The problem is that it is a fundamentally unfair game which requires some people to lose. If you want a solution then it's to remove desperation from the labour market. Remove the implicit threat of destitution and ruin if you don't take the work that is offered to you at the minimum cost an employer can get away with. This is what takes people to ideas of basic income and basic services.

Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers

#43

Post by freddie_mercury » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 9:57 AM UTC

omscs99 wrote: post #28

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #4

It’s kind of a miracle engineers are treated as well as we are compared to most traditional office jobs. IMO there’s probably a good reason for it, namely some institutional memory of when engineers would just defect en-masse and literally destroy your company if you pissed then off enough. But it also makes me a little sad that other white collar jobs don’t have the same benefits. There are probably a ton of jobs wh…

> It’s kind of a miracle engineers are treated as well as we are compared to most traditional office jobs. Other office jobs are treated better. They don’t get pinged at random times outside of business hours. They don’t have to attend late night meetings because of foreign time zone I know a bunch of AWS people and have heard worse things from them Frankly, I love programming but would rather have a regular office j…

I know tons of office jobs that have to attend late night meetings because of foreign time zones.

Just like I know lots of developers that don't.

What a weird generalisation to make.

Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers

#44

Post by jokethrowaway » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 9:57 AM UTC

tomduncalf wrote: post #38

omscs99 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s kind of a miracle engineers are treated as well as we are compared to most traditional office jobs. Other office jobs are treated better. They don’t get pinged at random times outside of business hours. They don’t have to attend late night meetings because of foreign time zone I know a bunch of AWS people and have heard worse things from them Frankly, I love programming but would rather have a regular office j…

I replied to your other similar post too, but why not look into working for smaller companies or contract/freelance work? Not all tech jobs are big tech type work. You’ll make less money perhaps but it sounds like you might be happier based on what’s important to you.

Smaller companies are less stressful but they often give you no autonomy or purpose.

It can be a good economic / stress tradeoff but it will suck your soul.

Left job with a unicorn because of stress, I make more than double that by contracting with smaller businesses and working less - but I'm way more depressed about the job.

I think a happy medium might be to run your small product company. I do that on the side as well, but it brings 1/10th of what I can make contracting.

Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers

#45

Post by freddie_mercury » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 9:58 AM UTC

Glawen wrote: post #29

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #4

It’s kind of a miracle engineers are treated as well as we are compared to most traditional office jobs. IMO there’s probably a good reason for it, namely some institutional memory of when engineers would just defect en-masse and literally destroy your company if you pissed then off enough. But it also makes me a little sad that other white collar jobs don’t have the same benefits. There are probably a ton of jobs wh…

> institutional memory of when engineers would just defect en-masse and literally destroy your company if you pissed then off enough. Got some good examples?

Probably a reference to the "Traitorous Eight". You can Google more about them.

Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers

#46

Post by sverhagen » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 9:59 AM UTC

omscs99 wrote: post #28

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #4

It’s kind of a miracle engineers are treated as well as we are compared to most traditional office jobs. IMO there’s probably a good reason for it, namely some institutional memory of when engineers would just defect en-masse and literally destroy your company if you pissed then off enough. But it also makes me a little sad that other white collar jobs don’t have the same benefits. There are probably a ton of jobs wh…

> It’s kind of a miracle engineers are treated as well as we are compared to most traditional office jobs. Other office jobs are treated better. They don’t get pinged at random times outside of business hours. They don’t have to attend late night meetings because of foreign time zone I know a bunch of AWS people and have heard worse things from them Frankly, I love programming but would rather have a regular office j…

I think you're glossing over how much people in other office jobs get gaslighted (gaslit?) into showing up at odd times too. To finish a report. To coordinate with an offshore accounting team in a foreign time zone (not unique to Engineering). To be always reading their email. Not for nothing are some states and countries writing rules against being "always on" into their laws, recently. So, sure, a small contingent of Engineering folks might be on-call, but you should be able to make good working agreements about that, put boundaries around it, and keep your sanity. If not, you're maybe being gaslighted like any other old regular office worker.

Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers

#47

Post by nologic01 » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 10:07 AM UTC

There is only one central difference of "Silicon Valley" type companies with "the Rest of the World". It is the recognition (or not) that we are in an accelerated information processing age where the wiring of information flows in society is upgraded dramatically. While this realization is not new (from Negroponte's Being Digital [1] to the perennial VC cry "software will eat the world") the disruption story is for at least two decades broadcast to deafening volumes. But it is by no means universally adopted.

For most organizations "IT" is just a utility. While information flow and processing is vital for most businesses, the control of these particular "means of production" is not deemed central to the business model. Like the provision of electricity, water etc, it is a stylized something that happens in the basement or outsourced. The C-Suite is clueless of digital tech and will at best include some tech consultant types rotating in and out.

In fact the very strange period of tech we are going through is a testament to how the alien forces of this new landscape have turned everything upside down. Google, Amazon, Meta are not "tech" companies. They are advertisers, retailers, publishers that have made information flow and processing central to their business model (and for now at least, have cornered the market).

What is mildly interesting though is that there are many major sectors where information processing is 100% what they do (finance and insurance the easiest example). A universe where the information market is cornered by, e.g. banks is actually less absurd than one cornered by advertisers.

With the above framing, the role of developers in decision making etc. is in reality just an epiphenomenon and circumstantial. Form follows function and it is the functional difference (what the company does) that is the driving force in organizational matters, remuneration etc. This also gives you some hints as to when things might change: When senior industry personalities are equally comfortable both in digital technology and the details of the particular sector they are in.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_Digital

Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers

#48

Post by DrDroop » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 10:08 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #21

DrDroop wrote: post #11

This is the reason why I am trying to move away from being a software engineer. I don't like to complain but it is honestly degrading how SE are treated in some places. I've been on teams with 4 project managers/analysts and 3 developers. They will expect you to do all the real hard work while they sit in meetings all day making UI mockups and architecture diagrams. There is just no way in winning this.

> They will expect you to do all the real hard work while they sit in meetings all day making UI mockups and architecture diagrams You could also look at this the other way. They are the ones doing the real hard work i.e. making tough decisions, dealing with stakeholders, incomplete and poorly conceived requirements whilst you just get to build what's written down on a page. Everyone plays their role in companies and…

I think the point of the article was that to be valuable as an engineer you have to do things like "making tough decisions, dealing with stakeholders, incomplete and poorly conceived requirements". My problem is that a lot of people have your attitude and pretend that they are doing me a favour by having this being written down all the while limiting the actual design space for a problem, and in the same breath patronise me on what teamwork is really like.

Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers

#49

Post by sanitycheck » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 10:09 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #21

DrDroop wrote: post #11

This is the reason why I am trying to move away from being a software engineer. I don't like to complain but it is honestly degrading how SE are treated in some places. I've been on teams with 4 project managers/analysts and 3 developers. They will expect you to do all the real hard work while they sit in meetings all day making UI mockups and architecture diagrams. There is just no way in winning this.

> They will expect you to do all the real hard work while they sit in meetings all day making UI mockups and architecture diagrams You could also look at this the other way. They are the ones doing the real hard work i.e. making tough decisions, dealing with stakeholders, incomplete and poorly conceived requirements whilst you just get to build what's written down on a page. Everyone plays their role in companies and…

Oh, how I laughed.

Mostly they just pass those things on to the developers to deal with. Then we have to figure out how to bypass them and communicate with the stakeholders ourselves to figure out what the real requirements are and what we can build which solves their problem and yet is still broadly recognisable as the specified deliverable.

After that, coding it is easy.

Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers

#50

Post by tomp » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 10:11 AM UTC

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #4

It’s kind of a miracle engineers are treated as well as we are compared to most traditional office jobs. IMO there’s probably a good reason for it, namely some institutional memory of when engineers would just defect en-masse and literally destroy your company if you pissed then off enough. But it also makes me a little sad that other white collar jobs don’t have the same benefits. There are probably a ton of jobs wh…

Name another white collar job that’s simultaneously as complex and as creative as being a programmer.

Architects build houses.

Software engineers build whole cities, and they exist only in their minds! (i.e they can’t even see them, they’re just abstract concepts of enormous complexity)