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A friend of mine was trying to upskill himself and learn AI/ML. He had 10+years in IT and well paid . But on approaching his manager, the upskilling request was

A friend of mine was trying to upskill himself and learn AI/ML. He had 10+years in IT and well paid . But on approaching his manager, the upskilling request was denied. The manager said that he could "gather a bunch graduates" to build an AI/ML platform. There was no need to experiment and bet on someone with that much salary and experience. So, I somehow feel ageism in tech is the result of everyone thinking tech is easy to build. A 15+years JAVA guy has similar output to say 5-6 years or for some extreme managers even 2-3 years.

Double_a_92 8y ago
> A 15+years JAVA guy has similar output to say 5-6 years or for some extreme managers even 2-3 years. I'd expect the output to be logarithmic.
- erikb 8y ago
  I totally understand where that's coming from. A guy doing the same tasks/processes for 15+ years will get less and less from additional experience. However, he will not do exactly the same thing. For instance a 10+ years guy might realize that instead of investigating a topic for 3 workdays, he can ask the colleague from another team he worked with 2 years ago, and get the answer in 20 mins. His processes will change a lot, so his output can increase exponentially even. Of course it's limited by his intelligence, i.e. his ability to learn from his experience. And it's likely to happen in steps. So a quite smooth line for a few months, then an aha-moment where he bumps his output drastically, then another smooth line.
- chaosite 8y ago
  Define output. Once you get to a certain level of competence, you can easily produce lines of codes, so if that's your metric then the output plateaus after some years. A developer can only type so much each day, after all.
  - Double_a_92 8y ago
    I took the word from the parent comment. But I assumed it to mean whatever the employer gets (or wants to get) from the worker.
- snarfy 8y ago
  Somewhere along the line you learn it's better to write a couple lines of shell script than 20,000 lines of Java.
  - jdipierro 8y ago
    Something tells me you just read the latest XKCD.
    - majewsky 8y ago
      It's not like overengineering is a new trend that emerged a few years ago.
erikb 8y ago
The difference is between companies who want to use technology to really gain influence in the world (Amazon, Alibaba etc) and companies that just try to get by creating some fluff so the next paid version of their product keeps customers paying. The first kind of company will not underestimate certain workloads and pays experts very high salaries. The second company really doesn't need to succeed technology wise, so they use the cheapest way possible to create their fluff. And one tip that always applies: Never tell your manager about your ambitions. Never! A middle manager is certainly someone who is more about the fluff+constant pay type of person, a rent seeker. He doesn't like people showing true effort and actually gaining leverage for raises and maybe even take over his position. Especially the last point is very important to him. For him his position is the most valuable thing in the world so it is natural from his point of view that everybody below him wants to steal it from him. And it's also not totally wrong since he probably got his position just in this way. So even if you work for Amazon who really want to compete for AI leadership don't tell your manager. Maybe talk with HR or do it in private, and then apply for another team when you got the skills.
- Lendal 8y ago
  If you showed the ability to steal his position, that means he made a good hire which means he's going to move up himself. So why would he care if you had ambitions on his position or not? All the better if you did. Your working harder makes him look good.
  - erikb 8y ago
    Really good question! I also find this part quite illogical myself. My current believe (but no evidence whatsoever) is that: a) He doesn't want to move up. The higher you get the more visible lack of skill and ambition becomes as well. b) “It is not enough [for him] merely to win; others must lose.” ― Gore Vidal Sorry, that's all I got about this question.
- Gustomaximus 8y ago
  I believe your 'one tip that always applies' is horrible advice. And if this is the mentality someone approaches management it doesn't surprise me they have bad relationships. For me I'm open and direct with managers. I've had some good ones and bad ones. Id say 70/30 ratio in favour of good. And when a manger is bad the adage plays true, 'People do not leave bad companies, they leave bad bosses'.
probablybroken 8y ago
Wouldn't he also have to learn a lot of advanced mathematics? I'd imagine the bunch of graduates in this case would be math majors. Obviously I don't know the specific requirements of your organisation, but this re-skilling might take up to five years ( if the requirements were R&D focused... Maybe the situation is different if it's more about applying pre-existing sofware. )
- mattmanser 8y ago
  Does ML really need advanced maths? I think you're under-estimating how the fundamentals are pretty simple really. What we were previously lacking was raw processing power to get good results.
  - itg 8y ago
    Yes, it does, especially if your going to put a model in production for anything critical ex: self driving cars, healthcare. Understanding the math is what allows you to properly understand what is going on, how to improve, debug, etc. A person who only knows how to use a library/framework will be limited.
    - mattmanser 8y ago
      Who said anything about him using it for health care or self driving cars? The vast majority of applications for AI/ML can be done with libraries, just like the vast majority of programmers doesn't need to understand how to make a compiler or even how memory works. It just helps.
      - mywittyname 8y ago
        The vast majority of programmers do need to understand boolean algebra though. Likewise, you do need to understand matrix algebra and statistics to do any AI/ML beyond a color-by-numbers problem. At some point you need to explain why something works.
mikkom 8y ago
> he could "gather a bunch graduates" to build an AI/ML platform I would claim that the more general and reusable the tool ("AI platform") is, the more experience is needed to build it.
afpx 8y ago
I’m slightly over 40. Recently, I’ve been interviewing, and almost all of the focus has been on how I solve their ‘coding challenge’. Few questions about software engineering practices, algorithms or data structures, about how to approach challenging problems, make trade offs, or ship software. It all comes down to if I can solve a problem like “Given an NxM matrix of integer strings, print true if any row, column, or diagnonal contains only palindromic numbers that can be written as the sum of consecutive squares.“ Oh, and on some random guy’s laptop, with a panel of 4 people watching me type as they sit in silence, and with 20 minutes remaining. When I look back at all of my career successes (leading engineering teams through 10 successful commercial products, 4 startups, 3 acquisitions, millions of users, etc.), coding was hardly important. I guess it’s time to retire.
- Lendal 8y ago
  Fist, I don't want to work with a group of people who have only been selected by their ability to solve stupid, meaningless puzzles. That's something you do in college, which I hated. Second, once you get past a minimum level of intelligence a lot of success in software development is based on motivation. It's hard to be motivated by a made-up problem where all your hard work is going to be thrown away and not used by anyone for anything, and my first step in solving it is to involuntarily roll my eyes and groan. That starts the project off on a bad foot to begin with.
  - monsieurbanana 8y ago
    I take offense on the "stupid, meaningless puzzles". I don't agree with their use in interviews, but that's needless bashing. You not liking them doesn't make them stupid.
    - perl4ever 8y ago
      Different people like different kinds of puzzles. I like Fermi-type problems, which at least at one time, it seemed like everyone on the internet liked to bash. It may be they are no longer bashed because interviewers abandoned them. I once posted a puzzle on a different website that boiled down to "why did I choose this particular non-round number" with some context, and eventually someone got it, but some people got very angry at me. The trouble is that a lot of puzzles reduce to "can you follow a particular convoluted path to a solution" and if you don't, you are being judged unworthy for being dissimilar in your thinking and not necessarily for your sheer brainpower. That's why I prefer puzzles that nobody has solved, but those have two obvious problems - either (a) they are too hard to solve, or (b) once solved, they appear to be too easy. Either way, you can't use them as tests. It's natural to like tests that you are good at and other people are not, and to hate tests that other people are good at and you are not. So, people are always going to take offense at tests.
raducu 8y ago
I'm pretty sure I can have the same output as a chess grand master, even though I haven't played it in decades.
kodablah 8y ago
> But on approaching his manager, the upskilling request was denied. Bad way to go about it anyways. The best way is to change companies if possible (granted, one will have to put in their own time to learn or do it quietly at their current job). If the company is good about intra-company movement, it might be possible to do this within the company, but often the companies that can do this come off as too large to have the flexibility one needs to really dive in as opposed to getting lost in the fray (you'll feel like you're a junior all over again). Unfortunately, mobility is the antithesis of stability.

Double_a_92 8y ago

> A 15+years JAVA guy has similar output to say 5-6 years or for some extreme managers even 2-3 years. I'd expect the output to be logarithmic.

erikb 8y ago
I totally understand where that's coming from. A guy doing the same tasks/processes for 15+ years will get less and less from additional experience. However, he will not do exactly the same thing. For instance a 10+ years guy might realize that instead of investigating a topic for 3 workdays, he can ask the colleague from another team he worked with 2 years ago, and get the answer in 20 mins. His processes will change a lot, so his output can increase exponentially even. Of course it's limited by his intelligence, i.e. his ability to learn from his experience. And it's likely to happen in steps. So a quite smooth line for a few months, then an aha-moment where he bumps his output drastically, then another smooth line.
chaosite 8y ago
Define output. Once you get to a certain level of competence, you can easily produce lines of codes, so if that's your metric then the output plateaus after some years. A developer can only type so much each day, after all.
- Double_a_92 8y ago
  I took the word from the parent comment. But I assumed it to mean whatever the employer gets (or wants to get) from the worker.
snarfy 8y ago
Somewhere along the line you learn it's better to write a couple lines of shell script than 20,000 lines of Java.
- jdipierro 8y ago
  Something tells me you just read the latest XKCD.
  - majewsky 8y ago
    It's not like overengineering is a new trend that emerged a few years ago.

erikb 8y ago

The difference is between companies who want to use technology to really gain influence in the world (Amazon, Alibaba etc) and companies that just try to get by creating some fluff so the next paid version of their product keeps customers paying. The first kind of company will not underestimate certain workloads and pays experts very high salaries. The second company really doesn't need to succeed technology wise, so they use the cheapest way possible to create their fluff. And one tip that always applies: Never tell your manager about your ambitions. Never! A middle manager is certainly someone who is more about the fluff+constant pay type of person, a rent seeker. He doesn't like people showing true effort and actually gaining leverage for raises and maybe even take over his position. Especially the last point is very important to him. For him his position is the most valuable thing in the world so it is natural from his point of view that everybody below him wants to steal it from him. And it's also not totally wrong since he probably got his position just in this way. So even if you work for Amazon who really want to compete for AI leadership don't tell your manager. Maybe talk with HR or do it in private, and then apply for another team when you got the skills.

Lendal 8y ago
If you showed the ability to steal his position, that means he made a good hire which means he's going to move up himself. So why would he care if you had ambitions on his position or not? All the better if you did. Your working harder makes him look good.
- erikb 8y ago
  Really good question! I also find this part quite illogical myself. My current believe (but no evidence whatsoever) is that: a) He doesn't want to move up. The higher you get the more visible lack of skill and ambition becomes as well. b) “It is not enough [for him] merely to win; others must lose.” ― Gore Vidal Sorry, that's all I got about this question.
Gustomaximus 8y ago
I believe your 'one tip that always applies' is horrible advice. And if this is the mentality someone approaches management it doesn't surprise me they have bad relationships. For me I'm open and direct with managers. I've had some good ones and bad ones. Id say 70/30 ratio in favour of good. And when a manger is bad the adage plays true, 'People do not leave bad companies, they leave bad bosses'.

probablybroken 8y ago

Wouldn't he also have to learn a lot of advanced mathematics? I'd imagine the bunch of graduates in this case would be math majors. Obviously I don't know the specific requirements of your organisation, but this re-skilling might take up to five years ( if the requirements were R&D focused... Maybe the situation is different if it's more about applying pre-existing sofware. )

mattmanser 8y ago
Does ML really need advanced maths? I think you're under-estimating how the fundamentals are pretty simple really. What we were previously lacking was raw processing power to get good results.
- itg 8y ago
  Yes, it does, especially if your going to put a model in production for anything critical ex: self driving cars, healthcare. Understanding the math is what allows you to properly understand what is going on, how to improve, debug, etc. A person who only knows how to use a library/framework will be limited.
  - mattmanser 8y ago
    Who said anything about him using it for health care or self driving cars? The vast majority of applications for AI/ML can be done with libraries, just like the vast majority of programmers doesn't need to understand how to make a compiler or even how memory works. It just helps.
    - mywittyname 8y ago
      The vast majority of programmers do need to understand boolean algebra though. Likewise, you do need to understand matrix algebra and statistics to do any AI/ML beyond a color-by-numbers problem. At some point you need to explain why something works.

mikkom 8y ago

> he could "gather a bunch graduates" to build an AI/ML platform I would claim that the more general and reusable the tool ("AI platform") is, the more experience is needed to build it.

afpx 8y ago

I’m slightly over 40. Recently, I’ve been interviewing, and almost all of the focus has been on how I solve their ‘coding challenge’. Few questions about software engineering practices, algorithms or data structures, about how to approach challenging problems, make trade offs, or ship software. It all comes down to if I can solve a problem like “Given an NxM matrix of integer strings, print true if any row, column, or diagnonal contains only palindromic numbers that can be written as the sum of consecutive squares.“ Oh, and on some random guy’s laptop, with a panel of 4 people watching me type as they sit in silence, and with 20 minutes remaining. When I look back at all of my career successes (leading engineering teams through 10 successful commercial products, 4 startups, 3 acquisitions, millions of users, etc.), coding was hardly important. I guess it’s time to retire.

Lendal 8y ago
Fist, I don't want to work with a group of people who have only been selected by their ability to solve stupid, meaningless puzzles. That's something you do in college, which I hated. Second, once you get past a minimum level of intelligence a lot of success in software development is based on motivation. It's hard to be motivated by a made-up problem where all your hard work is going to be thrown away and not used by anyone for anything, and my first step in solving it is to involuntarily roll my eyes and groan. That starts the project off on a bad foot to begin with.
- monsieurbanana 8y ago
  I take offense on the "stupid, meaningless puzzles". I don't agree with their use in interviews, but that's needless bashing. You not liking them doesn't make them stupid.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    Different people like different kinds of puzzles. I like Fermi-type problems, which at least at one time, it seemed like everyone on the internet liked to bash. It may be they are no longer bashed because interviewers abandoned them. I once posted a puzzle on a different website that boiled down to "why did I choose this particular non-round number" with some context, and eventually someone got it, but some people got very angry at me. The trouble is that a lot of puzzles reduce to "can you follow a particular convoluted path to a solution" and if you don't, you are being judged unworthy for being dissimilar in your thinking and not necessarily for your sheer brainpower. That's why I prefer puzzles that nobody has solved, but those have two obvious problems - either (a) they are too hard to solve, or (b) once solved, they appear to be too easy. Either way, you can't use them as tests. It's natural to like tests that you are good at and other people are not, and to hate tests that other people are good at and you are not. So, people are always going to take offense at tests.

raducu 8y ago

I'm pretty sure I can have the same output as a chess grand master, even though I haven't played it in decades.

kodablah 8y ago

> But on approaching his manager, the upskilling request was denied. Bad way to go about it anyways. The best way is to change companies if possible (granted, one will have to put in their own time to learn or do it quietly at their current job). If the company is good about intra-company movement, it might be possible to do this within the company, but often the companies that can do this come off as too large to have the flexibility one needs to really dive in as opposed to getting lost in the fray (you'll feel like you're a junior all over again). Unfortunately, mobility is the antithesis of stability.