Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're stuck because they work with proprietary tools on obscure tech. Nobody else wants them because their experience doesn't translate. I recently made the transition but it was extremely difficult. I ended up with 1 offer after ~10 or so interviews and ~50 or so applications.
Yeah, this is my situation. I am AWS certified and started working on a team that uses it, sort of. So maybe I can transition off of there in a year or two because the subject matter sucks.
Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer
411–420 of 510 posts
Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe. I've seen the opposite, where no one takes responsibility for anything, and it's also bad. In fact, the situation you describe could also be a lack of anyone else taking responsibility for disaster planning and etc. I think what is needed is a culture of -ownership-. That's basically people saying "I'm responsible". Not one where everyone tries to avoid responsibility, and not one where peopel point fingers.
Why does someone need to take responsibility when you can have a culture of blameless postmortems where everyone focuses on making sure what ever happened never happens again instead? In blameless postmortem culture, everyone is responsible by default
You could argue that "It should be assigned" - yeah, it should. But assigning it implies either "here is the team that is responsible for it", i.e., this is the team responsible and they need to be told to fix their shit (which very much sounds like blame), OR it implies "here is the team that I am entrusting to fix it DESPITE their obviously not being responsible for it", which is just as bad, since it implies that the team that 'is' responsible for it is incompetent.
The only healthy option is that the 'responsible' team stands up to say "hey, that's ours; we'll fix it", and the only way they'll do that is if you have a culture of safety and ownership.
Also, one thing to make clear - ownership = responsible = blame. They're all words for the same thing, just different implications. You can't have someone 'own' something without making them responsible, and apt to be blamed if you don't ensure the culture is one that does not attach blame. That's really what I was getting at; of course you shouldn't blame. But, you can't also avoid ownership. But ownership implies you know WHO to blame, and so blame comes very easily. And it's very easy to mistake pointing out responsibility/ownership for something as blame; I have had multiple managers tell me "it's not us vs them" when I've raised up the fact that I'm unable to deliver to deadlines because I have been unable to get anything from product.
Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer
#413>Don't meet your heroes. I paid 5k to take a course by one of my heroes. He's a brilliant man, but at the end of it I realized that he's making it up as he goes along like the rest of us. I thought they were going to go the direction of "he's an asshole" and was ready to accept that, but this particular criticism is actually disturbing. People with strong visions can often appear to be "making it up as they go along,…
Also which "hero" is charging 5k for courses and what form does the course take? (I work at Red Hat, and my programming heroes are also my colleagues.)
Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems to like you are refactoring an existing application, I'm personally in the middle of something similar but rather than doing it solo, I'm trying to engage other Dev's, grab their interests by demoing the new architecture and see if I can get a few more hands on this work. I'm doing all of this extra work because I think the best way to create value for a company is to make it easy for other/new developers to…
> It seems to like you are refactoring an existing application, I'm personally in the middle of something similar but rather than doing it solo, I'm trying to engage other Dev's, grab their interests by demoing the new architecture and see if I can get a few more hands on this work. The problem is they literally can't afford it. They looked at "near shoring" companies but they were too expensive. They said we got a q…
Enforcing code standards and reviewing pull requests is a suitable role for a senior engineer. Not all things need to be architected, there's ton of glue stuff and features that can be developed by juniors provided the code around them is laid out nicely. Focus on the bigger picture, if u implement every little detail, then it starts to feel like everything is so important that it can only be done by you. That's a trap.
Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're stuck because they work with proprietary tools on obscure tech. Nobody else wants them because their experience doesn't translate. I recently made the transition but it was extremely difficult. I ended up with 1 offer after ~10 or so interviews and ~50 or so applications.
Yeah, this is my situation. I am AWS certified and started working on a team that uses it, sort of. So maybe I can transition off of there in a year or two because the subject matter sucks.
Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
A quick tip for homebuyers/sellers to save on realtor fees. Contact the title company and they'll gladly tell you what you need to do to close the loan. Maybe not ASAP, but they are more vested in you doing the busy work and doing it right than they are the worthless realtors. Half the time realtors in my state wouldn't even sign the offer to purchase and include their info even though it's illegal and they can lose…
For the sellers, maybe, but I don't think I'd be at all comfortable selling a home without a (good) agent.
I'll 100% agree with you that most realtors are bad. The good ones are gold though.
Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're stuck because they work with proprietary tools on obscure tech. Nobody else wants them because their experience doesn't translate. I recently made the transition but it was extremely difficult. I ended up with 1 offer after ~10 or so interviews and ~50 or so applications.
Yeah, this is my situation. I am AWS certified and started working on a team that uses it, sort of. So maybe I can transition off of there in a year or two because the subject matter sucks.
You are almost assuredly more desirable in this market than you think. Consider making finding a new job your new hobby.
Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer
#418>I don't know why full stack webdevs are paid so poorly. No really, they should be paid like half a mil a year just base salary. Fuck they have to understand both front end AND back end AND how different browsers work AND networking AND databases AND caching AND differences between web and mobile AND omg what the fuck there's another framework out there that companies want to use? Seriously, why are webdevs paid so l…
Full-stack developer knows some frontend, some backend, some sql. They are paid good money because they are convenient, not for their knowledge. A dev who does only one thing knows way more about it that a team of full-stack devs.
Full-stack devs earn a lot and will probably earn only more in the future.
This is mostly a result of tech advancements like cloud infrastructure, tools etc that takes all the hardest things from you - like managing a DB, implementing security, managing infrastructure, deployments etc.
You don't need deep experts because of it, generalists are perfect for quickly shipping new features.
Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
Learn the skills for the job you want, claim you do that stuff on your current resume (within reason), and jump ship. Most prospective employers won't push too hard with needing references from your current place of employment. Find your best mate at your last job, edit that portion of your resume, and fill them in on the details.
I've been at the same company for 9 years straight out of college. The company doesn't allow employees to give any references for people who are leaving.
They'll likely run a background check and make sure your resume isn't obviously lying (they'll confirm start/end dates and title, basically), and make sure you're not a criminal, MAYBE do a credit and/or drug test.
Re: Drunk Post: Things I've Learned as a Sr Engineer
#420Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing wrong with making it up as you go, and I didn't mean to sound like I was knocking it, if I did. Sometimes everyone fumbles around trying to find solutions that work...it's a totally valid way to approach some problems. Sometimes it's a hybrid of knowing what you are doing but not knowing the implementation specifics. You know you need to connect high-level pieces A, B, and C with specific constraints, but it…
>I am concerned about how to effectively communicate visions to people, because it gets everyone rowing in the same direction. If nobody thinks that you have a vision, when you do, there is no reason they should choose your direction vs just do their own thing. I used to have visions. Now I have collaborative design discussions driven by some starting designs. I found that if people don't contribute to the overall de…