Amazon: “we can build S3 -
a service that millions use with no down time. But we can’t build a simple website to serve our internal employees come review time in April”
Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets
91–100 of 265 posts
Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets
#92> Building internal tools can fall into this category. That unloved admin dashboard that runs the company but never quite gets priority.
Amazon: “we can build S3 - a service that millions use with no down time. But we can’t keep a simple website up to serve our internal employees come review time in April”
Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets
#93Tangent: Swizec authored a book I found very useful a few years ago ("Serverless Handbook"), and writes a thoughtful and insightful email newsletter I've enjoyed for many years. He's firmly in the "learn by doing / learn in public" camp, and does an excellent job sharing what he learns along the way. Highly recommended follow / subscribe.
Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there is nuance here, even within a product company, not all software is equal. There's software to support core business (think ads in Google) and there's probably software to support internal dashboards (also in Google), I'm sure engineers working in ads in Google have much more leverage than those working in making dashboards for ops or some internal ticketing system. Conversely, I'm sure the companies we…
thank you, maybe it is easier to understand when you ask whether business will halt and die if the system you are responsible for is down or suddenly absent or it is going to be a mild inconvenience. I think, defined like this makes it less ambiguous edit: fix msg
> when you ask whether business will halt and die if the system you are responsible for is down or suddenly absent
This is a great way to put it.
I also ask myself the question: "who are the rockstars" at a company. The folks that are celebrated.
If it isn't a developer/engineer, you aren't at a category 2 company.
Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both maintenance and testing are not valued by business. Because you cannot sell maintenance to the customer, you only can sell features. From the developer's point of view maintenance also a thing to avoid. You cannot put a maintenance as a shiny point to your CV. Everyone wants to see your achievements, projects you shipped, and with modern technology, of course.
>> Both maintenance and testing are not valued by business. It depends on the incentives I suppose - if commission and bonuses for sales people comes only from new sales, then sure, maintenance is irrelevant and will be ignored. >> Because you cannot sell maintenance to the customer, you only can sell features. No, that's not true at all. If sales people are properly incentivised to sell support contracts (their base…
Support contract does not linked directly to the maintenance of the software you are selling.
More support contract does not mean company will assign more resources into maintenance of software itself.
Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets
#96Maybe someone who knows more about this stuff can enlighten me. From what I've heard there are actually only 2, opex and capex. If I recall correctly capex is better for the business because of how it gets treated in the accounting stuff. This naturally gives rise to the feature factory style work of a lot of dev jobs. Some reason like they can record capex spend as an asset with depreciation. Is this true?
This is close, there is more nuance to it, and a lot of it is going to be specific to your org. If you work in office, and there are accountants there go make friends. They are just another flavor of nerd, so you're gonna get along with them, and they have insights into the company that you will never get outside of the C level. IF you dont KNOW the answers to accounting questions, take some classes. Candidly this is…
> The projects that cost money upfront (OPEX) and can provably reduce recurring costs (CAPEX)
So you mean OPEX are upfront costs, and CAPEX are recurring costs?
Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets
#97Sales/marketing don't even exist when a product is first being built, but you're getting paid... but your salary isn't R&D. The pace isn't calm. The stakes are high. The target can pivot violently.
Your salary is coming from the Business Plan's Capital Expenditure, as part of an initial round of investment needed to achieve the Business Goals. This is a marked difference from Operational Expenditure, which "Maintenance" is most often lumped under.
Whether your salary is CapEx or OpEx has a much larger impact on your ability to work freely and productively than what of these 3 (really 4) categories are.
Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both maintenance and testing are not valued by business. Because you cannot sell maintenance to the customer, you only can sell features. From the developer's point of view maintenance also a thing to avoid. You cannot put a maintenance as a shiny point to your CV. Everyone wants to see your achievements, projects you shipped, and with modern technology, of course.
> Because you cannot sell maintenance to the customer, you only can sell features. That does not seem to be true in many B2B areas. Software suppliers are selling maintenance and support contracts to their customers. Think ERP.
Even when a company sells maintenance/support/compliance, the incentive is still to put as few actual development hours into these columns as possible, and to pay as little as possible for those hours.
What is actually being sold is a promise, and that really comes from the sales department, not the engineering department. Once the customer signs the contract, the incentive is to do the minimum possible to keep the promise--or better said, break it infrequently and non-egregiously enough that the customer doesn't churn (or sue). So you'll unfortunately still be viewed as a cost-center at many companies if you're working on this stuff.
Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets
#99I remember early advice in my career to always work for a revenue center not a cost center.
This was really helpful as having something that makes a firm money seems more easy to measure impact than a cost center.
The natural incentives seem to jive better. Revenue centers are supposed to increase and are a function of margin. So more salaries and expenses should lead to more revenue. Cost centers are supposed to decrease or stay the same. So always a pressure to cut expenses.
Re: Software engineering salaries come from one of three budgets
#100Sales/marketing don't even exist when a product is first being built, but you're getting paid... but your salary isn't R&D. The pace isn't calm. The stakes are high. The target can pivot violently. Your salary is coming from the Business Plan's Capital Expenditure, as part of an initial round of investment needed to achieve the Business Goals. This is a marked difference from Operational Expenditure, which "Maintenan…
I think a better way to think is as product development. Sales and marketing exist from the beginning even though nothing is being sold yet.