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It's not about ethical imperative, but ... 1. It doesn't look good on your CV if you only worked on projects that don't have any business value. 2. If what yo

by ma2rten 11y ago

It's not about ethical imperative, but ... 1. It doesn't look good on your CV if you only worked on projects that don't have any business value. 2. If what you do does not have any value chances are someone will figure out at some point. 3. It's not fun to work on a project that has no value for anyone. This is the kind of thing that will create burnout. If what you are doing is very intellectually challenging for you, or it has value other than business value then it might be different.

Alex3917 11y ago
Sure. My point though is that if an engineer is building something without value, it's only really fair to call them 0x if A) it's their project, and B) it's something where they should have been able to figure out if it had value.
Grishnakh 11y ago
>1. It doesn't look good on your CV if you only worked on projects that don't have any business value. I completely disagree. If you work on a really cool project that's very technically interesting, that looks great on a resume. Do you really think your interviewer (at the company you're applying for a new job at) is going to call the old employer and ask them "Hey, did this project on this guy's resume delivery any real business value?" Of course not. They only go by what you write on your resume, so you can spin it however you like. If it was an interesting project but was shit-canned because of bad management or bad timing or whatever, you don't put that part. You talk it up in the interview when asked about it, talk about how technically interesting it was, what you learned there, etc., you don't volunteer that it ended up being a bust. Even if you have to spill that (because you're specifically asked), you concentrate on the good points, how it was a great learning experience, how what you developed should be useful on future projects, etc. Prospective employers are looking for skills and experience you have which will help them in the future. How financially successful some project you worked on was is really irrelevant, since there's far more to the success of a project than just the technical aspects. Lots of companies have built technically superb products only to have them fail in the marketplace because of bad marketing, other bad management decisions, too much competition, etc. OS/2 was completely superior to Windows 3.1 and 95 yet it failed in the marketplace; that doesn't mean that you wouldn't hire a guy who worked on it.

by ma2rten 11y ago

Alex3917 11y ago

Sure. My point though is that if an engineer is building something without value, it's only really fair to call them 0x if A) it's their project, and B) it's something where they should have been able to figure out if it had value.

Grishnakh 11y ago

>1. It doesn't look good on your CV if you only worked on projects that don't have any business value. I completely disagree. If you work on a really cool project that's very technically interesting, that looks great on a resume. Do you really think your interviewer (at the company you're applying for a new job at) is going to call the old employer and ask them "Hey, did this project on this guy's resume delivery any real business value?" Of course not. They only go by what you write on your resume, so you can spin it however you like. If it was an interesting project but was shit-canned because of bad management or bad timing or whatever, you don't put that part. You talk it up in the interview when asked about it, talk about how technically interesting it was, what you learned there, etc., you don't volunteer that it ended up being a bust. Even if you have to spill that (because you're specifically asked), you concentrate on the good points, how it was a great learning experience, how what you developed should be useful on future projects, etc. Prospective employers are looking for skills and experience you have which will help them in the future. How financially successful some project you worked on was is really irrelevant, since there's far more to the success of a project than just the technical aspects. Lots of companies have built technically superb products only to have them fail in the marketplace because of bad marketing, other bad management decisions, too much competition, etc. OS/2 was completely superior to Windows 3.1 and 95 yet it failed in the marketplace; that doesn't mean that you wouldn't hire a guy who worked on it.