701–710 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similar concept: If one was tasked to move a 10-ton block, 1000 yards in 10 days. You can use brute force move it 100 yards a day for 10 days or spend 5 days inventing a way to move it 1000 yards in day and get it done in 6 days.
You might also be familiar with the Abraham Lincoln quote: If I had four hours to chop down a tree I would spend three hours sharpening the ax.
I am disappointed to see so many folks here do so little work, mostly because it means I am accepting insufficient pay for the amount of work I do.
I don’t think that what you’re doing is very common, but it’s not uncommon either. What you need to do this is to work in an environment where not being productive is not harmful. There are plenty of environments like this. For example, not doing any work but still getting paid doesn’t do any harm at Google. The company is making money anyway. At a small startup that’s under immense pressure people would realise what…
As someone who worked at both Microsoft and Google... you can get await with doing little work at those companies for maybe a year, two years at most, but after that you're gone. The expectation at those places skyrockets after the first year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, compensation is based on what the company has to pay . There are some other rules, like they have to (overall) pay less than they make from the output. But in general, a company never pays their employees more than they think they have to. 10x programmers don't make 10x the pay. They might make slightly more, but not even 2x what a 1x programmer (of the same level, no comparing seniors to juniors) makes at…
If a company is doing its job correctly, a 10x engineer should not be leveled the same as a 1x engineer. (It's more complicated than that but, y'know.)
if the engineer is doing their job correctly, they are negotiating to be paid more than tne 1x
In the last year or two, I have not "worked" more than 1-2 hours a day on average--some days for a grand total of zero hours. The quote/unquote is not there by accident. I manage a team and some projects, and most of the time I let other people do the technical work while I get to chat with higher ups or give some general direction on where the work should go. I consider myself very competent in my field even though…
I think there's also something to be said for passive processing. Sometimes I'll know I need to write some code or some function and I'll just think about it in the back of my head while doing other things, sometimes for a whole day or two. Then I'll sit down and write it in like 20-30 minutes. Did I work 20-30 minutes, or have I been working for a day or two? I would say a day or two, and the 20-30 minutes was the t…
Adding my voice to this one. I think a lot of work 'normal people' i.e. the PMs the non-technical management, the sales people etc. really don't get how we techies work. Because they have to do 'active' work all day long to keep on top, they think everyone is like that, where in reality we are really efficient in short bursts. I can ponder a deliverable for days and then just churn it out over a few hours, only takin…
Starting out, if I spent a whole day thinking over a problem or writing code that I ultimately had to scrap, I would tell people I got nothing done that day and it was a waste.
Now if I do that, I see if as the necessary troubleshooting that all must go through to solve the problem.
In the last year or two, I have not "worked" more than 1-2 hours a day on average--some days for a grand total of zero hours. The quote/unquote is not there by accident. I manage a team and some projects, and most of the time I let other people do the technical work while I get to chat with higher ups or give some general direction on where the work should go. I consider myself very competent in my field even though…
I've been there. Maybe not 5 hours a week but certainly 10. I was in a small company that got acquired, and the organizational bloat really killed my productivity. Having to deal with paperwork for payroll and pointless meetings was a distraction from the actual work. I think this contributed to a creeping burnout, which led to me actually working 10 to 25 (tops) hours per week for maybe a year or two. Eventually I w…
edit: also wanted to say that billable hours are NOT the same as working hours, pretty much for all the reasons outlined elsewhere in this post. so don’t beat yourself up about it. just work the system.