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I built a web app that scaled from 0 to several hundred thousand users in a few days. Somehow I managed. A key thing in becoming a good engineer is learning how

I built a web app that scaled from 0 to several hundred thousand users in a few days. Somehow I managed. A key thing in becoming a good engineer is learning how to delegate certain technical decisions to those who are better equipped to handle them. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2348702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2348702

daveFNbuck 10y ago
Again, it sounds like your skills lie mostly in product management rather than software engineering. While you have a valuable skillset, it's not what Google needs from a software engineer. You're good at a different job.
- theli0nheart 10y ago
  TIL I'm not a software engineer. Who knew! > While you have a valuable skillset, it's not what Google needs from a software engineer. You're good at a different job. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12653628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12653628. Far more "software engineers" at Google do the exact same thing that I do all day long than do the type of work you're referring to.
  - daveFNbuck 10y ago
    If you're not a software engineer, why bring up your accomplishments as evidence that Google should hire you as one? I'm pretty sure that the people who Google hires to do Javascript/HTML/CSS do not normally go through this type of interview.
    - theli0nheart 10y ago
      > If you're not a software engineer, why bring up your accomplishments as evidence that Google should hire you as one? I'm confused by this statement. What do you mean? > I'm pretty sure that the people who Google hires to do Javascript/HTML/CSS do not normally go through this type of interview. Completely false.
srean 10y ago
Provided they exist in your organization and have the spare bandwidth for your needs, and itwould be them who solved the problem that needed to be solved not you. This is more like Al Gore claiming he invented/solved/built the internet. If Google was only about CRUD and banal CSS, it probably wouldnt have become the Google that it is. They became so by handling challenging and ever changing problems. In such a scenario you need generalists with strong fundamentals who can pivot quickly from one problem to another, quickly, not a stackoverflow cut-paster. The latter skill has ts moments but you cannot survive on that alone, if you are in the critical path.
- theli0nheart 10y ago
  > Provided they exist in your organization and have the spare bandwidth for your needs. You can delegate to entities other than humans. > If Google was only about CRUD and banal CSS, it probably wouldnt have become the Google that it is. That's totally true, but how many times did PageRank need to be invented? After that the true problems at Google were scaling and monetization. Do you think the team responsible for making sure AdWords looked right on every device under the sun would agree with your statement? I'm sure a lot of the work that went into that "CRUD and banal CSS" is the same code that's made Google billions of dollars. > They became so by handling challenging and ever changing problems. In such a scenario you need generalists with strong fundamentals who can pivot quickly from one problem to another, quickly, not a stackoverflow cut-paster. The latter skill has ts moments but you cannot survive on that alone, if you are in the critical path. These skill-sets are not mutually exclusive.
  - srean 10y ago
    > but how many times did PageRank need to be invented? After that the true problems at Google were scaling and monetization. Quite a few times actually. It was not quite obvious at that time how to run Pagerank and other algorithms efficiently at that scale while keeping running costs down. If it was just a library call and delegation away, they wouldnt have had such a meteoric rise.
    - 10y ago
jimbokun 10y ago
"A key thing in becoming a good engineer is learning how to delegate certain technical decisions to those who are better equipped to handle them." Like someone with a good understanding of computer science?
partycoder 10y ago
Well, now think in Google scale. You said hundred thousand users? add at least 3 orders of magnitude

daveFNbuck 10y ago

Again, it sounds like your skills lie mostly in product management rather than software engineering. While you have a valuable skillset, it's not what Google needs from a software engineer. You're good at a different job.

theli0nheart 10y ago
TIL I'm not a software engineer. Who knew! > While you have a valuable skillset, it's not what Google needs from a software engineer. You're good at a different job. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12653628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12653628. Far more "software engineers" at Google do the exact same thing that I do all day long than do the type of work you're referring to.
- daveFNbuck 10y ago
  If you're not a software engineer, why bring up your accomplishments as evidence that Google should hire you as one? I'm pretty sure that the people who Google hires to do Javascript/HTML/CSS do not normally go through this type of interview.
  - theli0nheart 10y ago
    > If you're not a software engineer, why bring up your accomplishments as evidence that Google should hire you as one? I'm confused by this statement. What do you mean? > I'm pretty sure that the people who Google hires to do Javascript/HTML/CSS do not normally go through this type of interview. Completely false.

srean 10y ago

Provided they exist in your organization and have the spare bandwidth for your needs, and itwould be them who solved the problem that needed to be solved not you. This is more like Al Gore claiming he invented/solved/built the internet. If Google was only about CRUD and banal CSS, it probably wouldnt have become the Google that it is. They became so by handling challenging and ever changing problems. In such a scenario you need generalists with strong fundamentals who can pivot quickly from one problem to another, quickly, not a stackoverflow cut-paster. The latter skill has ts moments but you cannot survive on that alone, if you are in the critical path.

theli0nheart 10y ago
> Provided they exist in your organization and have the spare bandwidth for your needs. You can delegate to entities other than humans. > If Google was only about CRUD and banal CSS, it probably wouldnt have become the Google that it is. That's totally true, but how many times did PageRank need to be invented? After that the true problems at Google were scaling and monetization. Do you think the team responsible for making sure AdWords looked right on every device under the sun would agree with your statement? I'm sure a lot of the work that went into that "CRUD and banal CSS" is the same code that's made Google billions of dollars. > They became so by handling challenging and ever changing problems. In such a scenario you need generalists with strong fundamentals who can pivot quickly from one problem to another, quickly, not a stackoverflow cut-paster. The latter skill has ts moments but you cannot survive on that alone, if you are in the critical path. These skill-sets are not mutually exclusive.
- srean 10y ago
  > but how many times did PageRank need to be invented? After that the true problems at Google were scaling and monetization. Quite a few times actually. It was not quite obvious at that time how to run Pagerank and other algorithms efficiently at that scale while keeping running costs down. If it was just a library call and delegation away, they wouldnt have had such a meteoric rise.
  - 10y ago

jimbokun 10y ago

"A key thing in becoming a good engineer is learning how to delegate certain technical decisions to those who are better equipped to handle them." Like someone with a good understanding of computer science?

partycoder 10y ago

Well, now think in Google scale. You said hundred thousand users? add at least 3 orders of magnitude