6 ms·

To use the plumbing analogy, even if most or all of the job will be maintenance, you still want engineers who knows the internals enough to build their own “plu

by laogai 8y ago

To use the plumbing analogy, even if most or all of the job will be maintenance, you still want engineers who knows the internals enough to build their own “plumbing” if/when needed. Maybe an apt comparison is how astronauts are trained heavily for the 1% of off script situations that might occur even if it doesn’t happen in the span of their careers. Companies should feel able to innovate when appropriate by having hired engineers capable of doing so.

adamsea 8y ago
Not to knock this comment, which makes a valid point, but I couldn’t help but smile at the implicit comparison of software engineers to astronauts when the article is preaching the value of developers thinking of themselves as the “humble plumber”.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  You can never have people who actually build stuff think too highly of themselves, lest they start thinking about whether what they're building is actually useful or helpful at all...
  - falcolas 8y ago
    Or that what they're building has value - otherwise they'd want a piece of that value in addition to having high self esteem.
- dgreensp 8y ago
  The complexity, reliability, and user-friendliness (or technician-friendliness) of the kinds of software components you need to plug together to make a software solution are more like that of a space shuttle or fighter jet than, say, a car, let alone a plumbing fixture. The glamour (and risk to life and limb) of doing so is that of plumbing.
wmccullough 8y ago
I’m not fully willing to accept the plumbing analogy myself. While I do agree that most of our work is CRUD over REST, I think there’s another element of skill that isn’t uncovered in the article. If we are humble plumbers, why does it take me six months to find engineers that understand basic concepts like cohesion and loose coupling beyond a text book level (and I live in a metropolitan area with several software schools!)? Perhaps a more apt analogy is that we are more like home renovation specialists. If things go well, we can update your plumbing to get away from lead pipes, but if we have to route the new plumbing through a joist, we are going to have to educate you on why we should do something a certain way. If we find a water leak and rot that will put your home (business) as risk, count on us to tell you about the risk and let you decide if you want to address it. I’d argue that we are simply doing plumbing when things are going really well, perhaps even when the house is small and was well built to start with. If plumbing was all we did, I’d argue that our field would be way more saturated than it is.
- FLUX-YOU 8y ago
  >why does it take me six months to find engineers that understand basic concepts like cohesion and loose coupling beyond a text book level If it's so basic, just hire them and take a day to teach them those things. WTF is with this trend of waiting 6 months for a hire vs. spending a day to fix the holes in someone's knowledge.
  - BoiledCabbage 8y ago
    Because someone introduced the term "rockstar" to our profession and we've been addicted to the concept ever since. An expert is someone experienced and well trained, a rockstar is some inherent quality that's selected. Our industry needs more of the former.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    Because of Brooks's law. When you're already working overtime, you don't have a day to fix those holes.
    - 8y ago
daveFNbuck 8y ago
If your company has 100 employees, how many of them do you think need to be able to handle the 1% situations? The current standard hiring practice is to aim for all 100.
- richjdsmith 8y ago
  Sure, but having only 1 gets you into the Bus factor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor
  - cimmanom 8y ago
    But surely there's a balance. 5 or 10 gives you a buffer and saves you money and time hiring the other 90-95.
    - rbalicki 8y ago
      Obviously this is a bit silly to argue about in the abstract, but if there are a number of different domains where 1% problems threaten the business (AWS, security, random other service is down...) and a senior engineer isn't expected to know about all of them, then you'll need some multiple of 1% of the engineers to feel resilient. Rough amount: number_of_domains * max(ceil(1% * workforce), bus_factor_min)) At small companies, that may be most engineers. At larger companies, it may (or may not?) level out to a more reasonable ratio.
    - p2t2p 8y ago
      Until you hit some weird production bug/issue and 2 out of those busy with other issues, one is working on project with tough deadlines, 1 went to a conference and one is on vacation. I don’t count sick days and other stuff. Recently I had an issue at work which took a day for my colleague to research and I solved it in several minutes because of some low level TCP knowledge. So the broader/higher skills in your tream, the lower the risks. May be those people (who’s looking for a person for 6 months) are trying to lower the risks. all edits are spelling, I’m terrible at it.
Someone 8y ago
Are you suggesting all plumbers should know how to make siphons, valves, or even water pipes from scratch, just in case they ever get into a situation where shops that sell them for peanuts aren’t available? Yes, you’ll need some people who know how to make siphons and valves, but that some is only a few, and most of them won’t even be plumbers, but work on building machinery that builds siphons and valves. I think that in most jobs in the modern world, there’s plenty of low-level details that one doesn’t need to know about to do the job.

by laogai 8y ago

adamsea 8y ago

Not to knock this comment, which makes a valid point, but I couldn’t help but smile at the implicit comparison of software engineers to astronauts when the article is preaching the value of developers thinking of themselves as the “humble plumber”.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
You can never have people who actually build stuff think too highly of themselves, lest they start thinking about whether what they're building is actually useful or helpful at all...
- falcolas 8y ago
  Or that what they're building has value - otherwise they'd want a piece of that value in addition to having high self esteem.
dgreensp 8y ago
The complexity, reliability, and user-friendliness (or technician-friendliness) of the kinds of software components you need to plug together to make a software solution are more like that of a space shuttle or fighter jet than, say, a car, let alone a plumbing fixture. The glamour (and risk to life and limb) of doing so is that of plumbing.

wmccullough 8y ago

I’m not fully willing to accept the plumbing analogy myself. While I do agree that most of our work is CRUD over REST, I think there’s another element of skill that isn’t uncovered in the article. If we are humble plumbers, why does it take me six months to find engineers that understand basic concepts like cohesion and loose coupling beyond a text book level (and I live in a metropolitan area with several software schools!)? Perhaps a more apt analogy is that we are more like home renovation specialists. If things go well, we can update your plumbing to get away from lead pipes, but if we have to route the new plumbing through a joist, we are going to have to educate you on why we should do something a certain way. If we find a water leak and rot that will put your home (business) as risk, count on us to tell you about the risk and let you decide if you want to address it. I’d argue that we are simply doing plumbing when things are going really well, perhaps even when the house is small and was well built to start with. If plumbing was all we did, I’d argue that our field would be way more saturated than it is.

FLUX-YOU 8y ago
>why does it take me six months to find engineers that understand basic concepts like cohesion and loose coupling beyond a text book level If it's so basic, just hire them and take a day to teach them those things. WTF is with this trend of waiting 6 months for a hire vs. spending a day to fix the holes in someone's knowledge.
- BoiledCabbage 8y ago
  Because someone introduced the term "rockstar" to our profession and we've been addicted to the concept ever since. An expert is someone experienced and well trained, a rockstar is some inherent quality that's selected. Our industry needs more of the former.
- icebraining 8y ago
  Because of Brooks's law. When you're already working overtime, you don't have a day to fix those holes.
  - 8y ago

daveFNbuck 8y ago

If your company has 100 employees, how many of them do you think need to be able to handle the 1% situations? The current standard hiring practice is to aim for all 100.

richjdsmith 8y ago
Sure, but having only 1 gets you into the Bus factor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor
- cimmanom 8y ago
  But surely there's a balance. 5 or 10 gives you a buffer and saves you money and time hiring the other 90-95.
  - rbalicki 8y ago
    Obviously this is a bit silly to argue about in the abstract, but if there are a number of different domains where 1% problems threaten the business (AWS, security, random other service is down...) and a senior engineer isn't expected to know about all of them, then you'll need some multiple of 1% of the engineers to feel resilient. Rough amount: number_of_domains * max(ceil(1% * workforce), bus_factor_min)) At small companies, that may be most engineers. At larger companies, it may (or may not?) level out to a more reasonable ratio.
  - p2t2p 8y ago
    Until you hit some weird production bug/issue and 2 out of those busy with other issues, one is working on project with tough deadlines, 1 went to a conference and one is on vacation. I don’t count sick days and other stuff. Recently I had an issue at work which took a day for my colleague to research and I solved it in several minutes because of some low level TCP knowledge. So the broader/higher skills in your tream, the lower the risks. May be those people (who’s looking for a person for 6 months) are trying to lower the risks. all edits are spelling, I’m terrible at it.

Someone 8y ago

Are you suggesting all plumbers should know how to make siphons, valves, or even water pipes from scratch, just in case they ever get into a situation where shops that sell them for peanuts aren’t available? Yes, you’ll need some people who know how to make siphons and valves, but that some is only a few, and most of them won’t even be plumbers, but work on building machinery that builds siphons and valves. I think that in most jobs in the modern world, there’s plenty of low-level details that one doesn’t need to know about to do the job.