4 ms·

It's a good article but something I've been surprised to find out is true since I've spent some time at a very large corporation for the first time is that a pl

by madair 16y ago

It's a good article but something I've been surprised to find out is true since I've spent some time at a very large corporation for the first time is that a place like this has a large contingent of developers that they seem to prefer to not be very good at what they do, there just isn't an interest in 'standards of excellence' or what have you. It's an economic decision, they just aren't interested in what very talented developers have to offer, except for a very small portion of their business needs. It's essentially factory work. A car manufacturer could pay more for artisans to work the auto assembly line, and it may have some sort of positive effect on the overall elegance of the workmanship, but there's a quality trade off to be made and the vast majority of cars sold aren't a Lotus Esprit nor will they ever be. I don't justify this way of thinking, to me its the scorched earth of capitalism with very limited consideration of the social, cultural, and environmental implications of placing profit motive on a pedestal of not just utility but also of righteousness, but that's me and that's not 99.999 percent of the employing population. This is not an IT turnover crisis, as much as we can come up with stats and anecdotes, this is a global turnover crisis, and it's because the value sought is not related to, as I said, social, cultural, and environmental balance and success, it's about money. Sorry to be the freak here, but this is the elephant in the room and why is it so hard to acknowledge?

peregrine 16y ago
I second this and especially the statement ..has a large contingent of developers that they seem to prefer to not be very good at what they do.. I've seen this as an intern and it drives me mad. Whole groups of people just wanting to do the bare minimum and end up being rewarded for it. I have a hard time being around people like this.
- umjames 16y ago
  It gets even more frustrating when they find out you are more skilled than they are. They won't improve their skills to try and match your ability, they'll just ask you to do it for them every time from now on until you leave. What's even sadder is that your boss will likely condone and encourage this behavior.
  - Tamerlin 16y ago
    I couldn't agree more. What's worse still is that a lot of these people have figured out how to game the system. At my previous job (big company -- 175,000 people), we had a lot of "senior" staff floating around, and the common thread among them was an inability to learn anything new. They were doing things the same way that they had for years -- and most of the software that they'd had a hand in was very brittle (loads of tightly coupled "components") and inefficient. Their approach was to do basically nothing until the project went to crunch mode, then bust their butts in Hero (tm) mode, and the management loved it -- especially as the company foolishly brought more and more managers over from amazon, where heroism + round-the-clock babysitting are standard operating procedure.
    - peregrine 16y ago
      What are the signs that A) A company has this problem B) A company is good. I know of a few good examples such as GOOG, MSFT(depending), Netflix, some startups etc but I know the Midwest(my location) is chock full of these IT houses that don't care.
      - Tamerlin 16y ago
        I really with I knew. Even here in Seattle, surrounded by the likes of Amazon (probably the most technologically backward sweatshop in Washington), Google (who knows, the guy that did my phone interview was a dolt), Microsoft (probably the most technologically advanced shop in Washington), and even Adobe (now run by clueless marketers) and Disney (which is turning into an amazon clone), it's tough to find worthwhile work. So far the only decent job I've had in a decade is with a small company developing software for libraries. I think that to have a good job you either need to be very lucky or create it yourself. This job is paying the bills while I do just that.
- madair 16y ago
  I agree with what you're saying, however I was unclear and my intention was the point out that it's the corporation that is satisfied and even prefers factory-style workers for large numbers of positions. I'm talking about corporations for whom the business is not software.
  - silverlake 16y ago
    I taught software development at 100s of companies like this. The problems are: (1) there are a finite number of excellent devs and none will work for these companies. (2) Their IT tasks are not attractive to top devs because it's mostly integration work. (3) Their top managers are not devs (lawyers, accountants, insurance, etc) so IT work is not understood and devalued. (4) Most of these companies have nightmarish bureaucracies that will deaden the soul of the even the most enthusiastic new hire. (5) Because of all this, they need to replace people often so they don't want to depend on superstars. I've thought about this and I don't know what they can improve (except 4). What can a large accounting company do to hire an ex-GOOG or MSFT? Nothing, really.
    - madair 16y ago
      Well, my point was also not clear in that people may presume that I'm criticizing the developers themselves. I work with a lot of developers, some of them very good at software, but most not, but they are very good coworkers, hard working, and they get a lot done which fulfills the needs of the business, and they actually do themselves want to improve and are intrigued by techniques they didn't know about or that they reserved in their minds for "geniuses" which they assume that they are not. I think that the implication that people may presume in my critique above is that I think the problem is the developers not being better, but that's perception is a big part of the profit motive that I'm critiquing. If success is a zero sum game then sure, you want only the best, but what I'm critiquing is that it is that very same zero sum game which makes it harder for these corporate developers to get ahead. I'm not charging some evil master plan, just that it's not realistic to presume that all developers must be top of their game at any one point in their career, or even that it must be their primary motivation in life. I don't think the problems these developers face are only related to contemporary society seeing the corporate profit motive prerogative as paramount. It's also the attitudes of other developers who look down on them and put them down and actively detract from the reputation of those "corporate drones" who aren't as good as them. How about maybe didn't have the same opportunities? How about didn't get the same influences in school? How about just not having any mentors to show them the ropes? I find myself mentoring a lot and yet I also find it important to not be patronizing, but that's not very hard when I appreciate and am thankful to be working with these developers because they have so many good qualities, even if they haven't yet learned some abstract coding concepts and maybe aren't even interested in learning them. But bleeding heart for the poor drones is not even the point, that's patronizing in itself. I think the self-described non-drone developers that look at things this way who are as negatively affected by the perception problems. On a delusionary scale of one to ten who's the more delusional one? The true believer in the way things work right now and is hoping for their big Startup break so that they too will be winners and free? Or the corporate drone developer who's a survivor, who's often an immigrant or foreign worker, who's sending remittances home every year, or who's already lost all hope and for whom thinking about career is about the time they reach for the depression meds. It's also worth considering that the negative weight that is assigned to these developers is just plain factually wrong. First of all the corporations that hire them are making buttloads of money upon the work of these "unskilled" developers. And anyway, what exactly should we do with this supposedly dead weight? Throw them out of the village? Banishment? Their lives aren't worth as much? There isn't a place for them at the success in life table like there is for the better developers? Is it that they don't work as hard? Really? Hmmm...and what is this work of which you speak, bank software? Health insurance statement producing doofangles that too 65 hours a week for the past two months because the integration with the COBOL backend was acting up again and the nightly batch jobs from partner corps sent to the FTP dropbox were frequently corrupted? Hmmm. And then some smartass comes along and tells them they're stupid for using FTP or some other random criticism, some developer always has a better way to do it of course, but fails to realize that the developer they are talking about simply has no say, no time to research, and nobody pointing to sources of information that will make it easier. Not everyone reads HN. I think the problem may not be those less skilled developers, the problem is social conditioning and the narrative of what success is being all wrong. We might talk a good game about looking for happiness in all the right places but that seems to break down pretty damn quick the moment we start critiquing those drones for not being good enough workers for the greater good. So what is is? Socialist or Capitalist? Or is the Left and Right narrative that guides our intellectual, political, and populist debate simply completely broken to begin with. But I think that broken narrative are what guides the conversation and attitudes as they relate to the concept of better or worse developers and how they contribute to us, presumably the great ones that is. So my actual criticism is really about the attitudes, both those "greater good" attitudes, and those profit motive constraints which remove so much of the joy in a job well done. "More bricks, less hay" seems to be all we hear in corporate-land. Or at least, that's all I hear, maybe your bigcorp is a healthier society.

by madair 16y ago

peregrine 16y ago

I second this and especially the statement ..has a large contingent of developers that they seem to prefer to not be very good at what they do.. I've seen this as an intern and it drives me mad. Whole groups of people just wanting to do the bare minimum and end up being rewarded for it. I have a hard time being around people like this.

umjames 16y ago
It gets even more frustrating when they find out you are more skilled than they are. They won't improve their skills to try and match your ability, they'll just ask you to do it for them every time from now on until you leave. What's even sadder is that your boss will likely condone and encourage this behavior.
- Tamerlin 16y ago
  I couldn't agree more. What's worse still is that a lot of these people have figured out how to game the system. At my previous job (big company -- 175,000 people), we had a lot of "senior" staff floating around, and the common thread among them was an inability to learn anything new. They were doing things the same way that they had for years -- and most of the software that they'd had a hand in was very brittle (loads of tightly coupled "components") and inefficient. Their approach was to do basically nothing until the project went to crunch mode, then bust their butts in Hero (tm) mode, and the management loved it -- especially as the company foolishly brought more and more managers over from amazon, where heroism + round-the-clock babysitting are standard operating procedure.
  - peregrine 16y ago
    What are the signs that A) A company has this problem B) A company is good. I know of a few good examples such as GOOG, MSFT(depending), Netflix, some startups etc but I know the Midwest(my location) is chock full of these IT houses that don't care.
    - Tamerlin 16y ago
      I really with I knew. Even here in Seattle, surrounded by the likes of Amazon (probably the most technologically backward sweatshop in Washington), Google (who knows, the guy that did my phone interview was a dolt), Microsoft (probably the most technologically advanced shop in Washington), and even Adobe (now run by clueless marketers) and Disney (which is turning into an amazon clone), it's tough to find worthwhile work. So far the only decent job I've had in a decade is with a small company developing software for libraries. I think that to have a good job you either need to be very lucky or create it yourself. This job is paying the bills while I do just that.
madair 16y ago
I agree with what you're saying, however I was unclear and my intention was the point out that it's the corporation that is satisfied and even prefers factory-style workers for large numbers of positions. I'm talking about corporations for whom the business is not software.
- silverlake 16y ago
  I taught software development at 100s of companies like this. The problems are: (1) there are a finite number of excellent devs and none will work for these companies. (2) Their IT tasks are not attractive to top devs because it's mostly integration work. (3) Their top managers are not devs (lawyers, accountants, insurance, etc) so IT work is not understood and devalued. (4) Most of these companies have nightmarish bureaucracies that will deaden the soul of the even the most enthusiastic new hire. (5) Because of all this, they need to replace people often so they don't want to depend on superstars. I've thought about this and I don't know what they can improve (except 4). What can a large accounting company do to hire an ex-GOOG or MSFT? Nothing, really.
  - madair 16y ago
    Well, my point was also not clear in that people may presume that I'm criticizing the developers themselves. I work with a lot of developers, some of them very good at software, but most not, but they are very good coworkers, hard working, and they get a lot done which fulfills the needs of the business, and they actually do themselves want to improve and are intrigued by techniques they didn't know about or that they reserved in their minds for "geniuses" which they assume that they are not. I think that the implication that people may presume in my critique above is that I think the problem is the developers not being better, but that's perception is a big part of the profit motive that I'm critiquing. If success is a zero sum game then sure, you want only the best, but what I'm critiquing is that it is that very same zero sum game which makes it harder for these corporate developers to get ahead. I'm not charging some evil master plan, just that it's not realistic to presume that all developers must be top of their game at any one point in their career, or even that it must be their primary motivation in life. I don't think the problems these developers face are only related to contemporary society seeing the corporate profit motive prerogative as paramount. It's also the attitudes of other developers who look down on them and put them down and actively detract from the reputation of those "corporate drones" who aren't as good as them. How about maybe didn't have the same opportunities? How about didn't get the same influences in school? How about just not having any mentors to show them the ropes? I find myself mentoring a lot and yet I also find it important to not be patronizing, but that's not very hard when I appreciate and am thankful to be working with these developers because they have so many good qualities, even if they haven't yet learned some abstract coding concepts and maybe aren't even interested in learning them. But bleeding heart for the poor drones is not even the point, that's patronizing in itself. I think the self-described non-drone developers that look at things this way who are as negatively affected by the perception problems. On a delusionary scale of one to ten who's the more delusional one? The true believer in the way things work right now and is hoping for their big Startup break so that they too will be winners and free? Or the corporate drone developer who's a survivor, who's often an immigrant or foreign worker, who's sending remittances home every year, or who's already lost all hope and for whom thinking about career is about the time they reach for the depression meds. It's also worth considering that the negative weight that is assigned to these developers is just plain factually wrong. First of all the corporations that hire them are making buttloads of money upon the work of these "unskilled" developers. And anyway, what exactly should we do with this supposedly dead weight? Throw them out of the village? Banishment? Their lives aren't worth as much? There isn't a place for them at the success in life table like there is for the better developers? Is it that they don't work as hard? Really? Hmmm...and what is this work of which you speak, bank software? Health insurance statement producing doofangles that too 65 hours a week for the past two months because the integration with the COBOL backend was acting up again and the nightly batch jobs from partner corps sent to the FTP dropbox were frequently corrupted? Hmmm. And then some smartass comes along and tells them they're stupid for using FTP or some other random criticism, some developer always has a better way to do it of course, but fails to realize that the developer they are talking about simply has no say, no time to research, and nobody pointing to sources of information that will make it easier. Not everyone reads HN. I think the problem may not be those less skilled developers, the problem is social conditioning and the narrative of what success is being all wrong. We might talk a good game about looking for happiness in all the right places but that seems to break down pretty damn quick the moment we start critiquing those drones for not being good enough workers for the greater good. So what is is? Socialist or Capitalist? Or is the Left and Right narrative that guides our intellectual, political, and populist debate simply completely broken to begin with. But I think that broken narrative are what guides the conversation and attitudes as they relate to the concept of better or worse developers and how they contribute to us, presumably the great ones that is. So my actual criticism is really about the attitudes, both those "greater good" attitudes, and those profit motive constraints which remove so much of the joy in a job well done. "More bricks, less hay" seems to be all we hear in corporate-land. Or at least, that's all I hear, maybe your bigcorp is a healthier society.