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Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer

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Re: Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer

#481

Post by warkdarrior »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #441
goto11 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost any advice is useless if you write code purely for your own enjoyment. This is why the context is so important. If you enjoy writing convoluted unmaintainable useless code then who is to stop you? Just understand most advice does not apply to your context. Most software development advice tacitly assume you want to write code which works and is long-term maintainable (potentially by someone other than yourself…

> If you enjoy writing convoluted unmaintainable useless code then who is to stop you? Does anyone actually do this? I think it's the opposite. I've spent truly absurd amounts of time thinking about how to do things properly. I read books, read other people's code, read programming language implementations, I just read and learn as much as I possibly can before I even start doing anything. I want my code to be right.…

> > If you enjoy writing convoluted unmaintainable useless code then who is to stop you?

> Does anyone actually do this? I think it's the opposite.

Code style, structure, and design are more of an art than a science, so different people will have wildly different opinions (extreme examples notwithstanding).

Re: Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer

#482

Post by xyzelement »

Spooky23 wrote: post #470
shoemakersteve wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this line of thinking incredibly bizarre. If PTO is important to the candidate, why should they waste their time spending hours interviewing only to find out that the work-life balance in this position isn't going to work for them? To you that's having their head up their ass ? God that's strange to me. I'm sure glad I don't work for people who make sweeping judgements like that.

You’re looking for a job. You have 10 minutes to ask questions that make you stand out, to a individual who probably cannot answer the question. You do you.

That's so spot on. Your Q&A session is your chance to learn something real and convey what you care about. A good question might me like "what's the hardest thing you had to do this year" or "how did you make decisions in cases of disagreement?" or something like that. It shows you're thinking about the job and whether you're a right fit.

High quality questions say something about you. Low quality questions do too. Would you ever hire someone whose question is like "so, do a lot of hotties work here?" Probably not, because ... what kind of person is this? Similarly, if the person who doesn't have an offer and doesn't know much about the role is hyper-focused on their time-off, something is off too. PTO is important, it's just a thing you need to be thinking about once you have an offer and think the job is otherwise a match, not as like the #1 question.

Re: Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer

#483

Post by xyzelement »

chown wrote: post #474

> No one is going to tell you in an interview that they are going to be unreliable, abusive, pompous, or never show up to meetings on time. People might claim they have “signals” for these things… I had a great interview with one of the FAANG companies. The technical interviews, 6 of them in a row!, felt more like they were wanting to see me fail spectacularly rather than focus on my approach of solving whiteboard pr…

>> I struggle with work-life-balance and working on it. If I can overcome that and learn how to take breaks timely I might be more productive.". .. HR didn't like it because it was not one of the canned responses she was expecting ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Just curious, how do you know that (a) you failed in HR (b) that it was this question and (c) for this reason?

I ask because it's unlikely that this was literally the feedback given you. Also, "I work too hard" does sound a bit canned.

>> The technical interviews, 6 of them in a row!, felt more like they were wanting to see me fail spectacularly rather than focus on my approach of solving whiteboard problems.

I do think this is more "in your head" that real. Nobody shows up to an interview wanting the other person to fail, but "how they solve whiteboard problems" isn't the goal either. It's more about - how does the person, think, collaborate, make tradeoffs and drives to an outcome - the goal being specifically to translate that outside the whiteboard space.

Re: Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer

#484

Post by redisman »

ghaff wrote: post #398
hinkley wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlimited just means they don’t have to pay out when you quit or get laid off, doesn’t it?

Yes, but it also doesn't give any indication of norms around the amount of time off people take. Expectations may differ from how much time is in a traditional PTO bank but at least in general, it's OK to take accrued time off barring special circumstances.

We really need a new standard. Unlimited PTO Min 20 days/year. If you don’t put a number then it’s assumed to be 0

Re: Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer

#485

Post by kirubakaran »

majgr wrote: post #117
pjc50 wrote: post #6

This is a very insightful list. But there is one thing I'd quibble with: while it's inherently a super-subjective metric, I would say that 10x programmers do exist. Both in the "can support a company by themselves" sense and the "mad lone genius" sense. Not all the 10x programmers are good at working with other people or on other people's ideas. 0.1x programmers are often lost or afraid, although they may just be uni…

I like FactoryFactory devs, they are even worse than 0.1x. After some time every other team member who touches their code becomes 0.5x.

I'm not claiming to be a 10x developer or anything like that, but I have a related story to share:

Once I had to tweak a 7000 line signal generator (ie spits out wav files) written in Java. It had a mind boggling structure, and I'm sure whoever wrote it was a mad genius of some kind.

I rewrote it in less than 100 lines of Python, where each signal primitive was basically a few lines of code max, which you can functionally combine.

Since this new program was not even 100 lines long, we were able to do a LOT more with it, and in a super flexible manner.

It's one of my happiest accomplishments.

Re: Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer

#486

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

DantesKite wrote: post #459
didibus wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your quote of the article made me think I was going to hate the advice, but then I realized you quoted it out of context, here's the full quote: > People might claim they have “signals” for these things… “if they ask about time off in the first interview then they are never going to be there!” But these are all bullshit. If you’re using signals like these you’re just guessing and turning away good candidates

That’s a pretty huge distinction. Can’t believe he misrepresented the author like that.

Vote with the down arrow. Why is it the first comment in this thread eden is complete nonsense?

Re: Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer

#487

Post by qez »

DantesKite wrote: post #459
didibus wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your quote of the article made me think I was going to hate the advice, but then I realized you quoted it out of context, here's the full quote: > People might claim they have “signals” for these things… “if they ask about time off in the first interview then they are never going to be there!” But these are all bullshit. If you’re using signals like these you’re just guessing and turning away good candidates

That’s a pretty huge distinction. Can’t believe he misrepresented the author like that.

He didn't misrepresent or disagree with the author. He added extra commentary on something the author brought up.

Re: Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer

#488

Post by redisman »

Cyph0n wrote: post #430
mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I've just found that it can be helpful to clarify intent is all, especially when you're dealing with someone you've just met - e.g. maybe the interviewer is mostly reasonable, but is scarred from past negative experiences with colleagues who were legitimately lazy. This phrasing might help such a person understand where you're coming from a bit more easily.

If you need to clarify intent for something as fundamental as work/life balance, wouldn’t that be (at best) a yellow flag?

This needs to not be a taboo. It’s very important how many days I get off, how many hours I’m expected to work and if I’m expected to work nights and weekends. Those are like my top 3 concerns, I don’t really care about your snacks or vision or stack to be honest.

Re: Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer

#489

Post by knorker »

davemp wrote: post #165
knorker wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long would it have taken you or me to write Doom, or Quake? How long would it have taken Carmack, if it'd just been him? I think you have a false dichotomy here. Carmack isn't 10x better a C or assembly than me. But in his domain he's easily 10x smarter and more productive than me. And on top of that, he has a quarter century more experience in graphics programming than me. That shit accumulates. Yes, actually. I…

> How long would it have taken you or me to write Doom, or Quake? Almost definitely not 10 years.

Almost certainly you would just plain have not been able to do it at all. Not in 1993-1996. Not without it already having been done once.

And if you had, it would have taken you more than 10 years to realize what the right thing is, and to solve all very complex problems that showed up on the way.

Quake doesn't even have any load times! Not even with the hardware available at the time.

Re: Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer

#490

Post by bluGill »

cat199 wrote: post #390
Barrin92 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and also importantly people who have family to take care of. If someone comes to me and asks for time off because they have children or partners or parents to take care off and they take that seriously that certainly deserves some respect would make a better impression on me than someone showing up with a Patrick Bateman business card in hand

plenty of people have families and abuse the crap out of them, and people without families that want one still need to socialize enough to meet people to eventually have a family book != cover

We interviewed someone a while back and she said (without being asked - asking questions on this line is illegal) she was prepared to leave her husband and kids to move here. It didn't affect our results, but we all agreed in the discussion after that was a negative sign if we were allowed to consider it. She probably would have been good, I hope her search went well.
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