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How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

jasont.co

81–90 of 183 posts

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#81

I found this to be an incredibly depressing article. It boiled down to, "think about pleasant things that aren't work." For example, > Pick an activity that you've always wanted to try. Don't have ideas? Try Wikipedia for a good list of hobbies I already have plenty of hobbies, and I'd rather work on any of them than be at work! I've always been very self-motivated. I want to work on what I want to work on. Being for…

i need to purposefully avoid thinking about my hobbies at work or i'll get too distracted daydreaming

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#83

> make time to be curious. This is kinda dangerous advice, because I've been involved in countless CRUD apps where the developers were bored and made things more interesting for themselves; NoSQL databases, difficult programming languages like Scala, microservices, CQRS, infrastructure-as-code that was never used in practice (it was wishful-thinking-as-code), home-rolled frameworks (one involved the CTO / lead develo…

I wonder if a plain old CRUD app in a fill-in-the-blanks framework really is the best kind of job for a developer. I'd like to try it at least once in my career and see if there is any truth to it.

It would also be nice to have a job solving interesting computer science problems, like building compilers, tools, optimisation systems, etc. But that's unlikely unless you're actually a genius, or at least an accomplished academic, but some of the things you have to do to get ahead in academia seem even more demeaning than writing CRUD apps.

Instead every single job in my career has been the mess that you describe, and I'm starting to lose hope that there is anything other than it in this industry. I think it's the absolute worst of both worlds. You're solving completely trivial problems, but you're forced to do it in the most convoluted way possible. You sit all day racking your brain under maximum cognitive load trying to accomplish something so trivial and mundane that every single fill-in-the-blanks framework already does for you out of the box.

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree but from a SWE perspective on any kind of Agile/Scrum team I think the expectation is usually that you pick up another task if you finish early and there's still time during a sprint for example. This also obviously breeds other bad incentives i.e. the faster you work the more work you get.

>the faster you work the more work you get. It took me about 2 months to learn this after getting my first job. Nowadays I intentionally add minor bugs that turn up during demos so I have stuff to "go back and fix" later.

That sounds... unnecessary. There is always stuff to refactor, and tests to add, folks showing up at the last minute with new requirements. Or you can just wait a day to push commits, etc. More honest, I think.

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#85

Eh. These all seem fine. My route? I work less. I have a typical 9-5 but 1-2 days a week I leave a little early and go to do something engaging. Never when I have meetings. Never when I have deadlines. Never when someone is waiting on something from me. But I, and I suspect most engineers, have the capacity to get my work done for a week in less than 40 hours. I used to spend time dicking off on my computer to fill t…

Is your manager just next level laid back? I feel like most places are going to notice and be bothered seeing the yellow circle on your Teams or Slack status consistently for long periods of time.

I use it as a recruiting tool. I can’t compete with FAANG salaries so one thing I do is make it clear performance objectives are accomplishment based not time based.

Most of the time my team has a good work life balance. They will all buckle up if shit hits the fan then we go back into normal mode.

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the faster you work the more work you get. It took me about 2 months to learn this after getting my first job. Nowadays I intentionally add minor bugs that turn up during demos so I have stuff to "go back and fix" later.

That sounds... unnecessary. There is always stuff to refactor, and tests to add, folks showing up at the last minute with new requirements. Or you can just wait a day to push commits, etc. More honest, I think.

Refactoring and adding tests can be (and very often are) pushed into the backlog, and then never done. "We'll circle back to that after this sprint (narrator: they would not circle back to it) but for now focus on these new features"

Bugs are more urgent.

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be time to start looking for a team with a better work culture. There are many of them.

I am definitely willing to concede I may be in a bad situation but are there really teams in Agile frameworks with fibonacci pointing where you can pick up a 3-5 point ticket, finish it before the end of a sprint and not work on anything else?

I've seen plenty where a point-a-day pace or somewhat under (maybe 0.8pt/day) would be a totally normal pace, and is absolutely achievable with under half a day of actual work per day, including meetings, if you know what you're doing.

But then again, points are incommensurable between teams.

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be time to start looking for a team with a better work culture. There are many of them.

I am definitely willing to concede I may be in a bad situation but are there really teams in Agile frameworks with fibonacci pointing where you can pick up a 3-5 point ticket, finish it before the end of a sprint and not work on anything else?

I don't think you're supposed to do nothing at that point. Leisurely improve your tools, read to improve knowledge/performance, etc. This compounds your efficiency over time, without the stress of more deadlines.

Re: How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer's guide

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your manager just next level laid back? I feel like most places are going to notice and be bothered seeing the yellow circle on your Teams or Slack status consistently for long periods of time.

Ha. I refuse to play the game. I set my slack to away the day I start and never turn it back to green. I've done this at every job during the pandemic. The stupid green bubble vs gray or yellow or whatever is a form of always being at your desk micro management and it isnt productive. I'll happily explain that to anyone who asks but I've only had a few people ask. Again, if you get your work done most people dont giv…

Similar hiding-the-signal tricks:

- Set a reminder to go fuck around with your LinkedIn profile for a few minutes every couple months, so at no point are you suddenly active on it (and so, probably thinking about looking for a new job).

- If you have a job in an office with a relaxed dress code (like most devs, probably) make a point of dressing interview-nice at least a couple times a month, from the start. That way it's not notable when you happen to dress nice one day and also happen to take a slightly long lunch....

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