My first job was as a bench tech, for a microwave communication device manufacturer.
That really helped me to become a good troubleshooter.
Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
81–90 of 141 posts
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#82> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…
> But reliable car mechanics don't get paid a lot. If you're a wizbang mechanic working for an import car repair, you can get paid a lot more in hourly labor fees than some of us make.
They were talking about reliable, 10x is worth a lot in most complex jobs.
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you may be leaning too far in the other direction. I'm a troubleshooter. I fix problems. I keep my head straight in a crisis. Every job I've had across 3 decades, regardless of my actual title or formal responsibilities, I'm the firefighter. People call me when they can't figure something out. People call me when something big breaks and needs to be fixed urgently. Even if I'm not an expert in the broken thin…
> I'm a troubleshooter. I fix problems. I keep my head straight in a crisis. ... People call me when they can't figure something out. ... Even if I'm not an expert in the broken thing, they call me in. They call me because the experts are often floundering ... This describes a sizable portion of my career. It's lucrative, it's gratifying, and it's fun. It's as close as I'm going to get to being a "kick-ass mercenary"…
Absolutely.
I was a manager for over 25 years, and this was exactly the type of thing that I looked for.
LeetCode tests actually tend to bias against that kind of skill.
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#84Technical troubleshooting is one thing. Organizational troubleshooting is another, and IME it is neither valued nor rewarded. YMMV.
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#85Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42682602
Just finished the book recently. It's very insightful. As someone who considers himself good at debugging* and is still trying to improve debugging skills and efficiency, I view this book (and similar resources like this article) as a guide that also helps me reflect on what could have been done in a better way next time.
* Multiple times, I helped others find the root cause of a bug after they spend hours at it and have no clue what is happening
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#86Brendan Gregg's USE method is for performance troubleshooting but could work in any situation (broken is just the worst performance, right?)
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#87> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…
Complacency is not just feeling good, but doing so while ignoring a risk.
You can feel good about addressing risks, the opposite of complacency.
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
"troubleshooting really can't be taught" Exactly: it is a gift. You have "the Knack". (Dilbert - The Knack "The Curse of the Engineer")
I don’t believe that’s true. It’s an attitude, not some kind of innate skill like reflexes. You can learn to believe in yourself, plus it’s teachable in my experience.
That would be more of a psychological hack. I've never seen this happen. My experience is people behave a certain way (care about what they do up to a roughly defined level) and 10 years later they behave the same. Self esteem tends to change or fluctuate and can be thought, but personally i believe that is not enough for a non-troubleshooting mindset to turn around. Unless you could convince me otherwise?
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#89Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42682602 Just finished the book recently. It's very insightful. As someone who considers himself good at debugging* and is still trying to improve debugging skills and efficiency, I view this book (and similar resources like this article) as a guide that also helps me reflect on what could have been done in a better way next time. * Multiple times, I helped others find th…
Seconded. I don't think I learned much from the book, but it helped make my thought process more structured and methodical. I had a friend recently start as a developer, and I strongly recommended this to them.
I believe Hillel Wayne gives a copy to every junior dev he meets.
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#90I feel like the article is just a very long-winded way to say what I try to help junior devs understand and that's: take a step back and start from the very top, change only one thing at a time, don't become fixated.
So many issues turn out to be the smallest configuration mishaps, this is why I also promote using a debugger as much as I can as well - there's nothing quite like being able to see _exactly_ what's going on.