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> You want to hire talent? Offer good pay, interesting work, and freedom to do it. How about just offer good pay and don’t pretend like email archival or confi

> You want to hire talent? Offer good pay, interesting work, and freedom to do it. How about just offer good pay and don’t pretend like email archival or configuring LDAP or trudging through poorly-designed databases is sexy, exciting work because it isn’t? Bad news: most work isn’t interesting, and I absolutely loathe when companies, even “exciting” startups that are “changing the world”, pretend that configuring their Jenkins server is somehow life-altering, fulfilling work. Most work isn’t interesting, and that’s fine. I don’t mind configuring Jenkins, or setting up LDAP, or fixing crappy databases, or writing Yet Another Feature. I’m good at those things, and a job well-done is certainly satisfying, but let’s not pretend that my 9 to 5 is anything more than a job. I get excited about my job like I get excited about going to the dentist: it’s something I have to do to maintain a good life, and while I am certainly more than willing to do it, I don’t try to pretend like it’s particularly fun or special.

meesterdude 9y ago
> How about just offer good pay and don’t pretend like email archival or configuring LDAP or trudging through poorly-designed databases is sexy, exciting work because it isn’t? This is 100% fair as well. Some companies really do have interesting work and problems to be solved, and the work is enjoyable and satisfying. But I get that all work won't be like that, and there may be plenty of boring work as well. in your case, i think what would be relevant is making it known that these technologies are used, and that they are configured in the best way possible to ensure they're maintainable. If it's going to be boring work, it should at least be orderly.
watwut 9y ago
I think that ability to do the job and being responsible should definitely rank higher then ability to look "passionable" - which often seems to be more important. Another issue however is that there truly are people who like fixing database, configuring LDAP and other similar practical work. I have met them. They don't find that life altering, but they dont want life altering. They want to come to work, fix stuff, do the job and go home. There is no universal interesting work. What is interesting to me is not interesting to you or other people. I enjoyed fixing bugs in someone elses code, I found it interesting challenge, but quite a lot of people hate it. I like large long lived projects, quite a lot of people hate them. Too many people think that what they find interesting is what everyone finds interesting. What happens in this industry is that the company has a job that requires a lot of routine, but goes out of its way to pretend the job is exciting for people who don't. Because generic idea of superstar. So they hire someone who does not fit position at all. And they would not hire that person who would gladly do the routine thing to them and would be good at it, because he does not fit the expected profile of excitement.
- potta_coffee 9y ago
  I feel that way about my work. It's not inherently exciting but there's a reward to being the one who can dive into any task and solve the problem. Being open minded to new things, I've ended up being a Swiss Army Knife kind of developer. Some days I'm configuring servers, some days I'm doing database stuff, one day I'm writing Python and the next it's Javascript. Many days I do all of those things. Most of my tasks aren't glamorous but being responsible for all that stuff and seeing the business come together because of my effort is really cool.

meesterdude 9y ago

> How about just offer good pay and don’t pretend like email archival or configuring LDAP or trudging through poorly-designed databases is sexy, exciting work because it isn’t? This is 100% fair as well. Some companies really do have interesting work and problems to be solved, and the work is enjoyable and satisfying. But I get that all work won't be like that, and there may be plenty of boring work as well. in your case, i think what would be relevant is making it known that these technologies are used, and that they are configured in the best way possible to ensure they're maintainable. If it's going to be boring work, it should at least be orderly.

watwut 9y ago

I think that ability to do the job and being responsible should definitely rank higher then ability to look "passionable" - which often seems to be more important. Another issue however is that there truly are people who like fixing database, configuring LDAP and other similar practical work. I have met them. They don't find that life altering, but they dont want life altering. They want to come to work, fix stuff, do the job and go home. There is no universal interesting work. What is interesting to me is not interesting to you or other people. I enjoyed fixing bugs in someone elses code, I found it interesting challenge, but quite a lot of people hate it. I like large long lived projects, quite a lot of people hate them. Too many people think that what they find interesting is what everyone finds interesting. What happens in this industry is that the company has a job that requires a lot of routine, but goes out of its way to pretend the job is exciting for people who don't. Because generic idea of superstar. So they hire someone who does not fit position at all. And they would not hire that person who would gladly do the routine thing to them and would be good at it, because he does not fit the expected profile of excitement.

potta_coffee 9y ago
I feel that way about my work. It's not inherently exciting but there's a reward to being the one who can dive into any task and solve the problem. Being open minded to new things, I've ended up being a Swiss Army Knife kind of developer. Some days I'm configuring servers, some days I'm doing database stuff, one day I'm writing Python and the next it's Javascript. Many days I do all of those things. Most of my tasks aren't glamorous but being responsible for all that stuff and seeing the business come together because of my effort is really cool.