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“Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

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Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#511

Post by aleph_minus_one »

ultra-boss wrote: post #6
jaggederest wrote: post #5

I like this article particularly because I think the trope that there's something unique and different about software engineering is pretty toxic, both to we people in the field and people looking to employ people in the field. These days it feels a bit like another well known toxic field, finance, in that people conflate an outsized leverage for personal valor. It's laudable to do your work well and go home to the r…

Couldn't agree more. I read a book (okay, I half read a book...I couldn't finish it, it was so bad) where the author (a marketer!) argued that software engineers are the most skeptical audience, and I was like, "Um, have you ever met an investigative journalist? Or people in the many many other professions that require skepticism and analytical thinking?" The sooner the software engineering field can be rid of its be…

> Couldn't agree more. I read a book (okay, I half read a book...I couldn't finish it, it was so bad) where the author (a marketer!) argued that software engineers are the most skeptical audience, and I was like, "Um, have you ever met an investigative journalist? Or people in the many many other professions that require skepticism and analytical thinking?"

From my life experience, the claimed statement actually does have some truth in it: software engineers experience a lot more bullshit marketing than other professions that require skepticism and analytical thinking, thus they, in my experience, have indeed become more immune to exaggerated marketing claims.

Also it fits my experience that software engineers are much more vocal about calling out bullshit (just consider the "bullshit bingo" game) than other professions that require skepticism and analytical thinking, thus based on the audience reactions alone, any salesman would likely indeed come to the conclusion that software engineers are the most skeptical audience.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#512

Post by potterbarbatod »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #117

I could not disagree more with nearly everything in this article. Individuals ship software not teams, unless you are pair programming. Nearly all complex technical projects are owned by one super smart person (Ex: linux). You don't need to have a scientific measurement of productivity to know that in your median team of 12 there really are 2 people carrying the water for everyone else. A players hire A players, B pl…

[flagged]

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#513

Post by from-nibly »

pests wrote: post #259
from-nibly wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's someone who thinks they are 10x not someone who is.

I think that would apply to many of those 10x'ers were talking about here tho.

But they aren't 10x'ers. You could say they are wannabe 10x'ers or 10x mess makers, or "10x'ers".

But can we stop saying people who are good at there job are actually bad at their job and being mediocre actually means you are great?

Like I know I'm being pedantic but this kind of culture is toxic to everyone.

Edit: sorry for ranting under your comment. I'm sure you are a normal person just trying to get through your day. I just had to scream somewhere

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#514

Post by grandempire »

araes wrote: post #490
antonvs wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it may have been surprising to anyone completely out of touch with what was happening at the time. I'm only a little younger than Gates, and it seemed like, what else would you do? PCs were revolutionizing the world.

A slight addition to this topic. A lot of jobs also became software, even if your intention in signing up for the jobs was different to begin with. PCs were revolutionizing the world. For about a decade I worked as an engineer in a field where the expectation (at least starting) was that metal gets cut, stuff gets built, and there's physical hardware. Those existed. May have actually had more hardware interaction tha…

> decrement on anything involving capital expenditure

Boy is this true. I don’t think we ever recovered. Imagine trying to start a capital intensive business like mining in 2025.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#515

Post by npodbielski »

I wish people at my cccurent company would understand this. Right now even bringing what you think is good idea to improve project in any way seems like kind of like dragging yourself through barbed wire. Whole company seems to be built around group of 10 people and if you idea differs from what they think they, in best case scenario, thet will just simply ignore you. On better days you will get lengthy discussion that will lead to exactly nothing. On worst days they will just simply make fun of you or say something like 'this is just wrong' without going into details what is wrong exactly. There are plenty of good engineers there that learned to be just complicit, indifferent or afraid to speak up.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#516

Post by vacuity »

godelski wrote: post #460
sumtechguy wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You both are right. But ignore memory at your peril. I have one proj that has a 256GB instance. For a fairly boring CRUD app. I am asking a lot of questions as apparently we are having the yearly 'we need more memory' questions. Things that are leading to speedups. Just by using less memory. At the bottom of that stack is a L1 cache with less than a hundred KB. It doesnt matter right up until it does. I have seen hug…

I definitely agree with the greybeards and I think we see the results of not listening to them. We have these processors, buses, networks, and all sorts that are magnitudes faster and more powerful than what they began on but many things are quite slow today. Worse, it seems to but getting slower. There is a lot of value in learning about things like caching and memory management. A lot of monetary value. It's amazin…

As the base reality of computers and the inflated reality of software have diverged more and more, education and culture has tracked the software story and led to runaway irresponsibility. Forget not optimizing for performance; I think a lot of software today straight up fails to actually serve users some way or another. And those are paying users at that!

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#517

Post by pests »

from-nibly wrote: post #513
pests wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that would apply to many of those 10x'ers were talking about here tho.

But they aren't 10x'ers. You could say they are wannabe 10x'ers or 10x mess makers, or "10x'ers". But can we stop saying people who are good at there job are actually bad at their job and being mediocre actually means you are great? Like I know I'm being pedantic but this kind of culture is toxic to everyone. Edit: sorry for ranting under your comment. I'm sure you are a normal person just trying to get through your…

You're fine no worries. I think you are making my point.

People who claim they are 10x'ers are often not. They are mess makers or wannabes. They appear 10x to those who do not take messes or tech debt into account.

You screaming (to use your lingo) that my buddy above is not a 10x is what the rest of us have been screaming about our co-workers!

I'm not claiming people can't be 10x'ers. Nor am I saying being good is actually bad.

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#518

Post by lysace »

imetatroll wrote: post #428
lysace wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've rarely seen those 10x engineers to bring massive long term added value. I've seen it first-hand. We ended up building a support team around the 10x:er to keep things working, but it was easily worth it. It worked very well for the life span of the product - about a decade. Many eventually graduated to pretty fancy places. They learned a lot. This particular 10x:er loved sharing knowledge via pair-programming.…

I'm a bit jealous. I currently work with an exceptional engineer but he is very condescending and acts somewhat pissed off by "simple" questions or people asking for help. The product is fantastic thanks to his work and I am learning, I think, what it really means to attempt to write excellent code - he really nit picks the hell out of my PRs - but to be honest I wish I didn't have to work with him. He has really dem…

Well that sucks.

I've met that an instance of that kind of 10x:er (well, 5x:er, in this case). He defaulted to dismissing everyone until they had proven themselves.

I don't think there is much you can do to "improve him".

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#519

Post by gavmor »

TZubiri wrote: post #472
gavmor wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and neither will a software engineer wash her hands of a bug , but a construction engineer isn't responsible for the layout of a building being overly labyrinthine—that's on the architect. Likewise, product managers and designers who are talking to customers and conducting user experience research have the context to make decisions that engineers can't reasonably second guess.

We may be thinking of two different roles, which might fall under the engineer umbrella. When I think of an engineer (and especially so a 10x or elite engineer), they design and invent and create and have absolute control over what they do. If an engineer doesn't have control or follows the designs of an architect, they are merely in an executor role, and their engineering skill is put to use not in inventing or solv…

> they design and invent and create and have absolute control over what they do.

In this dream, what is the role of UX researcher? Of product manager? How many such "elite" engineers are working on the product at one time? What's her relationship with the customer or end user? Are all the engineers on her team "elite", or is there only one? How does she interface with stakeholders? At what stage of her design process does she submit wireframes, prototypes, or plans for review? How much of her time is spent accessibility testing? How does she receive feedback about the product?

Like you, I've been happiest in my role when invited to share in the full discovery, design, and implementation processes from end to end; as a software engineer, I always look forward to engaging with customers/users and participating in--even leading!--research and design activities. But I also recognize that should our team be so lucky as to acquire a person more expert in those methods than I, the artifacts of their intelligence are only more grist for the mill.

> their engineering skill is put to use not in inventing or solving a problem

As Feynman put it, "there is plenty of room at the bottom," and as Cook said, "all ambiguity is resolved by actions of practitioners at the sharp end of the system," but if the first seven layers bore you, by all means, hack the eighth!

Re: “Normal” engineers are the key to great teams

#520

Post by hinkley »

logsr wrote: post #496
hinkley wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> engineering is all about efficiency See, that’s a problem. Engineering is all about effectiveness. Not efficiency. Focus is great for slamming out a bunch of code that everybody else hates and has to tiptoe around you about because focus also made you so goddamned proud of your monster. Slow down and check the signposts before following your good intentions all the way to the end.

effectiveness, professionally, is creating value for your clients and employers. the ratio of value to cost is how efficient you are as an engineer. it is all efficiency.

I think you need to pay more attention to the contexts in which your coworkers and bosses use the word efficiency. You’ve got a good definition there but you’re not often in good company.
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