What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers
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What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers
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Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers
#2Full title: What Silicon Valley "Gets" about Software Engineers that Traditional Companies Do Not
Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers
#3Of the three places I’ve been a full time employed dev I only enjoyed working at the first.
This was a UK retailer, the other two were “tech” companies.
The retailer operated in the way the article describes, direct contact with the business, ability to unearth a problem and run with it, understanding that dev work isn’t just fingers on keyboard and sharing of full business context.
The other two had strict comms lines, not allowed to stray from the Jira board, rarely any contact with the business or users and no sharing of business context because “we don’t want to distract you” - completely missing the point that without the contact you rarely understand what the point of the work is.
Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers
#4It’s kind of a miracle engineers are treated as well as we are compared to most traditional office jobs. IMO there’s probably a good reason for it, namely some institutional memory of when engineers would just defect en-masse and literally destroy your company if you pissed then off enough. But it also makes me a little sad that other white collar jobs don’t have the same benefits.
There are probably a ton of jobs where people work just as hard as engineers but are treated as little interchangeable boxes by the money people.
Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers
#5It’s kind of a miracle engineers are treated as well as we are compared to most traditional office jobs. IMO there’s probably a good reason for it, namely some institutional memory of when engineers would just defect en-masse and literally destroy your company if you pissed then off enough. But it also makes me a little sad that other white collar jobs don’t have the same benefits. There are probably a ton of jobs wh…
One of the realities of capitalism is that people are not paid proportionally to how hard they work.
Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers
#6It’s kind of a miracle engineers are treated as well as we are compared to most traditional office jobs. IMO there’s probably a good reason for it, namely some institutional memory of when engineers would just defect en-masse and literally destroy your company if you pissed then off enough. But it also makes me a little sad that other white collar jobs don’t have the same benefits. There are probably a ton of jobs wh…
One of the realities of capitalism is that people are not paid proportionally to how hard they work.
That's good, in fact. People should be compensated for the value they generate. Why should a fast food worker be compensated equivalently to a doctor or engineer? I do not want to live in a world where that could exist.
Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers
#7[deleted]
Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers
#8Of the three places I’ve been a full time employed dev I only enjoyed working at the first. This was a UK retailer, the other two were “tech” companies. The retailer operated in the way the article describes, direct contact with the business, ability to unearth a problem and run with it, understanding that dev work isn’t just fingers on keyboard and sharing of full business context. The other two had strict comms lin…
I think, though I'm not sure, that some people prefer the latter environment.
Having worked with teams which have preferred to work in as pure a technology environment as could be constructed while still providing value, I think this might be the "product focussed" (or not) distinction that people make about themselves on their CVs.
Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the realities of capitalism is that people are not paid proportionally to how hard they work.
That's good, in fact. People should be compensated for the value they generate. Why should a fast food worker be compensated equivalently to a doctor or engineer? I do not want to live in a world where that could exist.
They're not paid for the value they generate either. They're paid proportional to the leverage they have to extract money from the business.
Re: What Silicon Valley “gets” about software engineers
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the realities of capitalism is that people are not paid proportionally to how hard they work.
That's good, in fact. People should be compensated for the value they generate. Why should a fast food worker be compensated equivalently to a doctor or engineer? I do not want to live in a world where that could exist.
You are in a world where that can exist if you make international comparisons. There are some fast food workers earning more than some developers.