Why was this flagged? Just thought it was an interesting post and seems like it sparked a lively conversation
Dear CTO: it's not 2015 anymore
61–70 of 81 posts
Re: Dear CTO: it's not 2015 anymore
#62"Engineers have been spoiled rotten for the last two decades[...] employers offered unlimited PTO" In what world does unlimited PTO spoil engineers? It removes the companies liability for vacation days and shames employees into taking less time off.
My second time with "unlimited PTO." Two days in eight months. I attended a funeral. "There's never enough time. We need to get this milestone shipped. Maybe next quarter we can build in some slack for you."
Re: Dear CTO: it's not 2015 anymore
#63The further I go into my career, the more see the it the opposite way. I think business people are overvalued compared with most software engineers. If software engineers take the time to learn the "business", they can build their own companies that eclipse those started by the typical MBAs who view engineers as "pampered and coddled" cost centers. I think after the bubble pops, we'll see new companies that led by en…
It's not that skills prevents starting a company, it's the amount of risk & uncertainty people are happy to live with. Programmers like predictability because what you'd do if your compiler gave a different result every time you compile your code? A rational person getting a 300K salary would be better off on average than a small business owner after 5 years. Sales people are paid a high percentage of the deal they c…
> what you'd do if your compiler gave a different result every time you compile your code?
Start calling their job Prompt Engineering.
Re: Dear CTO: it's not 2015 anymore
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
That point did not come through AT ALL. Your article reads like the exact opposite - it has nothing about encouraging engineering leaders to spread humane work environments to other departments or even a suggestion that people deserve it. You called engineers "spoiled rotten".
LOL read literally the last 4 paragraphs. "Other functions would do well to bring the same kind of focus on enabling productivity, happiness, and autonomy to their workers. In fact, CTOs-turned-CEOs I know tend to be some of the most kind, creative, and abundance-minded leaders I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. They have an inherent understanding on the importance of culture and making people feel valued."
I read the article and I mentioned the positive part tacked on at the end and out of place with the rest of the article.
As I originally responded to you, if your goal was to convey that everyone should treat their employees well then that didn't come through for me. Frankly, writing about how spoiled and naive people are and how the time for wasteful fun is at an end is a weird structure if your intended point was that this is a good thing we need more of.
> The structured abuse makes the short blips of "I'm trying to help you" feel hollow and tacked on in response to someone's feedback on an early draft.
Re: Dear CTO: it's not 2015 anymore
#65The further I go into my career, the more see the it the opposite way. I think business people are overvalued compared with most software engineers. If software engineers take the time to learn the "business", they can build their own companies that eclipse those started by the typical MBAs who view engineers as "pampered and coddled" cost centers. I think after the bubble pops, we'll see new companies that led by en…
Funny, when I was a software developer I thought the same thing.
While there have been a few developers I have worked with who were total stars, most of them were distinctly average (unsurprisingly) and lacked basic curiosity. Even of the great developers, there are very few I would trust to do anything other than write software.
The other thing I have noted over my career is how developers consistently underrate the skills, experience and intelligence of non developers.
Re: Dear CTO: it's not 2015 anymore
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
LOL read literally the last 4 paragraphs. "Other functions would do well to bring the same kind of focus on enabling productivity, happiness, and autonomy to their workers. In fact, CTOs-turned-CEOs I know tend to be some of the most kind, creative, and abundance-minded leaders I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. They have an inherent understanding on the importance of culture and making people feel valued."
I read the article and I mentioned the positive part tacked on at the end and out of place with the rest of the article. As I originally responded to you, if your goal was to convey that everyone should treat their employees well then that didn't come through for me. Frankly, writing about how spoiled and naive people are and how the time for wasteful fun is at an end is a weird structure if your intended point was t…
I think we're talking past eachother. The entire point here is not about the objective reality of how well your engineering team is doing - I couldn't possibly know enough to make that call.
The point is that engineering leaders (not ICs, but leadership responsible for communicating their teams' success) need to be actively shaping this narrative. And to do that, they need to be aware of the negative stereotypes and pre-existing perceptions that are there already. You can't just walk in and demand better treatment, you need to understand how you're perceived, read the room, and structure your strategy accordingly. Other CXOs all do this - they know that they are working against stereotypes and norms so they actively structure their narrative to help reflect what's actually happening (ex: marketing execs tend to de-emphasize the creative parts of their job, because they don't want to be seen as profligate spenders who throw money around for vague concepts like "awareness").
As much as it might hurt to confront the fact that some people have the wrong idea about you, it's your literal job as an executive.
And if you're an IC, you should be demanding this of your tech leaders. THEM neglecting this could cost YOU your job.
Re: Dear CTO: it's not 2015 anymore
#67And here I am thinking the rest of the workforce needs to be treated better, rather than using how poorly the rest of the workforce is treated as the ideal example to go by.
Hi! Author here - that's actually...kinda the point. The good treatment you mentioned doesn't organically happen. Your leaders have to fight for it and maintain it. And eng leaders...just aren't in the fight right now. If good eng leaders actually stepped up and brought the ethos of enabling creativity, autonomy, and well-being to the rest of the org, everyone would be in a better place.
Hi author. Just commenting to say I found your article to be very clear and insightful, thanks for writing it!
Re: Dear CTO: it's not 2015 anymore
#68IMO, these layoffs are not caused by AI or because Google suddenly doesn't need engineers. Instead, we're seeing at least four effects collide: 1. Growth can't last forever. Big tech is moving from an exponential phase to a sigmoidal one. Expect to see less spending and more focus on efficiency. It takes fewer people to keep the profit engine going than it does to build something totally new from the beginning. 2. Wh…
I feel like all of this is true, but represents the larger background forces. I think a big factor in why it's hitting relatively hard now is the Musk takeover of Twitter - he laid off a ton of engineers, and nothing much happened. I think that was a shock to much of Big Tech that most of their orgs are really feather-bedded with people who aren't actually doing much to support the core business.
Right wing & foreign disinformation campaigns took over.
He was already trying to end transparency, kick off researchers. Hoarding the wealth of ExTwitter rather than allowing free observation & exploration, like the Twitter days (open society being replaced by cloaked secrecy).
But there's been a bunch of absolutely brutal changes in the recent Terms of Service update. Anyone accessing too many tweets is liable for a 1.5 cent per tweet damages fine according to the ToS. And all disputes are court/forum shopped to a Northern Texas district with particularly right wing & Musk friendly judges, who were trying to strike down ACA judicially.
Technically Twitter seems kind of ok (there have definitely been some uptake of bad outages & foot guns), so your point remains. But driving out and kicking out all the governance & moderation teams and banning research & study has taken much of the light out of the universe, has eliminated the pre-requisites to finding out about and speaking about our local newly emerged online part of the universe. For that destruction of free speech and understanding, I am quite mad.
I still don't think that much of the "orgs are really feather-bedded" idea, and if they are, it's usually the org that can't let its people chase interesting stuff & political logjams or too much top down control. There are plenty of conservative engineers too, but a huge number of engineers love building things, love to boldly venture.
Re: Dear CTO: it's not 2015 anymore
#69IMO, these layoffs are not caused by AI or because Google suddenly doesn't need engineers. Instead, we're seeing at least four effects collide: 1. Growth can't last forever. Big tech is moving from an exponential phase to a sigmoidal one. Expect to see less spending and more focus on efficiency. It takes fewer people to keep the profit engine going than it does to build something totally new from the beginning. 2. Wh…
> Big tech is moving from an exponential phase to a sigmoidal one. I'd propose a modification of "Big Tech" to "Ad Tech" or "Marketing Tech". There's still exponential growth available in nascent or underdeployed technologies -- AR/VR, blockchain/crypto applications (beyond just ICO), AI, IoT, Autonomous machines (maybe that's AI to you), are a few that come to mind. I'd wager the next "Google" will be in one of thos…
[deleted]
Re: Dear CTO: it's not 2015 anymore
#70This is a re-run of the end of the first dot-com boom where the rest of the organisation got some payback against the pampered and coddled engineers who built the web sites in between foosball games. Except this time around when your engineers are able to create agents, what do you need the rest of the organisation for. Software is eating the world, and it's only just getting started.
>Software is eating the world, and it's only just getting started. More like software is eating software now. I don't think anyone is prepared for the fact that practically all junior/midlevel SWE roles are going to be automated away in the next couple years. We'll look back at the last 20 years as a golden age similar to the 20th century postwar period of manufacturing jobs in the US.
It'd be easier to develop an MBA in a box, and exactly zero people are prepared for dealing with that landscape. We're entering an era where the traditional Labor --> Management --> Capital structure no longer needs to apply, and yet everyone thinks Labor is the unnecessary middleman.