8 ms·

Ask HN: Engineers, don't you feel like pawns?

• codegeek 8y ago
  "..while others benefit from it.." Depends on how you look at this. Others are benefitting but you are also benefitting by making money and having a job, no ? If you mean that engineers should work for themselves, they have to then decide to take more risk. All options are on the table but everything comes with a cost. So no, I don't feel like a Pawn even though I totally get where you are coming from. If you don't like something about your life, only YOU can change it.
• bsvalley 8y ago
  Unless you're doing this for free, it's a pretty lucrative way to make money. Isn't it? I think we do benefit from it too. I'd think about people who didn't go to college to study CS, who end up working in a factory or a grocery store. I wonder if they feel like pawns... Engineers are totally fine ;) Now, in 2018, do engineers get treated like resources? Of course but that's another problem. Expensive resources still.
  • mezod 8y ago
    that's my point, in theory we do some quite complex stuff so why are we ok with being resources? we do have the opportunity to realize this and make a change, factory workers might not.. (not trying to go anywhere with this, just loud thinking)
    • mars4rp 8y ago
      as long as we are replaceable we can't change anything. I think all engineers are replaceable so business owners have very little motivation to keep us happy and pay us more.
      • jakobegger 8y ago
        Business owners have a big incentive to keep you: They don't want you to leave. Hiring a replacement is time consuming and expensive. Employers don't like hiring and interviewing any more than employees do.
        • mmt 8y ago
          These assertions may be true if the business is sole-proprietor owner-operator, but, beyond that, the assymetry grows quite a bit, including what I posit is a huge step function when the executives are no longer majority owners (or even are just not involved in hiring/firing). In the typical case, the incentives and power to do anything about them are misaligned. For example, a peer's time will be consumed in interviewing a replacement, but that peer never had any power to raise the salary of the incumbent.
          • badpun 8y ago
            In practice, you can sometimes switch to contracting for the same company (vs being an employee). The limits for contracting rates are usually much higher than limits for salaries, so there's plenty of room for a raise. I don't know if it's legal in the US, but I've seen it happen in Europe (Poland, Sweden).
            • mmt 8y ago
              AFAIK, it's legal in the US, too, but I'm not sure what point you're making in the context of the sub-thread. Typically, the decision to convert to contracting is between the worker and management, excluding the worker's peers and the company's owners (unless manager-owned).
• kohanz 8y ago
  > while others benefit from it? I might have felt a tinge of that until I tried being an entrepreneur myself. Risk is a real thing.
  • mezod 8y ago
    I'm there, but it's tough :|
• nik736 8y ago
  Basically in every job you share your time and "head" in exchange for money.
• staunch 8y ago
  IMHO You're only a pawn if you're trading hours of your life for amounts of money that can't buy your freedom. So you're not a pawn if you run a company and you're not a pawn if you're an employee with enough equity to make FU money. http://www.ycombinator.com/apply/ http://www.ycombinator.com/apply/
  • ajeet_dhaliwal 8y ago
    Most people should feel like pawns based on this definition. I am inclined to agree though.
• rthomas6 8y ago
  I work in a place where my boss is an engineer, his boss is an engineer, and his boss is an engineer. I've found this feeling is helped a lot by your superiors actually understanding what you are doing and why. I'm still a pawn, but I feel appreciated.
  • GoToRO 8y ago
    One keyword I've found is developer-led.
    • tootie 8y ago
      In my experience that is a really, really wrong way to run a business and a bad way to engage developers. Every business should be customer-led and developers should understand exactly why they are doing what they're doing. Otherwise teams get to wrapped up in writing good code instead of delivering a good product.
      • Analemma_ 8y ago
        For a few glorious years, I had a manager who was a senior developer but also a PM who was a customer-focused "people person", and the two of them got along great. This is the best situation, if you can manage to find it, and we were a wonderfully functional and efficient team before inevitably it drifted apart as people reshuffled. The point is, you can have both.
    • ASpring 8y ago
      I disagree with this. Teams I have been on that are very engineer-driven had tendencies to create products that they thought were innovative or technically interesting rather than something customers actually wanted. I think broader realizations of this have led to the industry-wide investment in UX research in the past decade. Though I will acknowledge my own bias here in no longer being a software developer and now more of a UX researcher.
      • rthomas6 8y ago
• twoquestions 8y ago
  Yes. The deeper question I've been trying to work out is how do we better spread out risk, control of the business, and the value created by our work?
• dpeck 8y ago
  https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/work https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/work
• penguinlinux 8y ago
  in most all jobs you are a pawn. Sales people, doctors, lawyers.
• stevenwoo 8y ago
  Maybe this is kind of tautological if not philosophical - could you try to find work in a company that has an objectives that are aligned with what you think you should be doing with your life?
• hnruss 8y ago
  No, I don't feel that way. I solve complicated problems because I need to earn a living, not because it gives purpose to my life. If I was feeling that way and was having trouble dealing with it, I'd probably try figure out some other way to earn a living.
• tasty_freeze 8y ago
  I get paid well to solve hard problems. If my employer paid me a wage similar to what I'd earn working at Costco, I'd probably go work at Costco because the hours are better and it wouldn't be mentally taxing, and I'd program in my free time to keep intellectually stimulated. But I do get paid well so I have nothing to complain about.
• wilsonnb3 8y ago
  > while others benefit from it I get satisfaction from other people benefiting from my work. Why would I want to perform work that benefits no one or only myself? Seems selfish. I assume you meant to imply that I'm being taken advantage of in some way by my employer but that is not the case. I enjoy managing computers and programming. I don't enjoy running a business, selling things to people, dealing with insurance companies directly, or many of the other things that I don't have to do because my employer does them. Often times there are other people that enjoy those activities doing them. It's a symbiotic relationship, or at least it should be in an ideal world. It's possible for everyone to benefit even if some people benefit more financially than others.
• natalyarostova 8y ago
  I require money in exchange for my time, and money can be exchanged for goods and services.
• imbokodo 8y ago
  What you're talking about used to be discussed a lot. You can go to Wikipedia, or elsewhere, and read about relations of production, alienation, the expropriation of surplus labor time and what have you. In the past, those who work organized around these issues, discussed them and had a common philosophy and so forth. Those benefiting from your labor broke up or supplanted these organizations and now have control of the discourse. Many workers feel as you do, but the ones who benefit from exploiting you have been fairly successful from isolating you from the many who feel as you do. I would suggest reading about the subject, then seeking out and dipping your toe in local organizations which deal with such things.
  • AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    There have been times when I received more than a fair share of the value that I created, because I was well paid, but the company wasn't profitable. Oddly, I felt more alienated then, because I felt like what I did didn't matter (at least not enough to make us profitable).
• codingdave 8y ago
  No, I feel like an important member of a team who is building out a good product. Sure, there are discrepancies between my ideal world, and the ideal world our leadership is taking us to, but that doesn't make me a pawn. I am paid fairly for my work, and in my mind I balance that compensation with the differences between how I would do things vs. how things actually are. Most of the time, the balance is there and I continue with the team, doing my part and fulfilling my role so that everyone else can fulfill theirs. That being said, if the balance isn't there, and you don't feel you are compensated fairly for your work and the non-ideal parts of the job, then it is time to talk to your boss and work it out. Either change the situation to match your ideals, change the compensation to make it worth it, or leave. But that decision -- to stay, fight for change, or go -- is completely up to you.
• RightMillennial 8y ago
  No, I'd rather say "gear" than "pawn". If I can be well compensated to do what I enjoy doing, why not? But then again I'm satisfied with my employment.
• draw_down 8y ago
  For several months I've been in an extended period where I'm not even really solving problems, certainly not complicated ones. It's worse.
• Jtsummers 8y ago
  Find a way to be better compensated. Find a way to solve more interesting (to you, not just the company) problems. Find a way to solve meaningful-to-society problems. A former colleague of mine hated that half our job was defense work. He managed to stay off those projects, but was never happy because he was always one day away from being assigned to them. He didn't hate the military, but had no desire to be involved in it. He got a job making systems that saved lives instead (infants, at that). Maybe someone else was still getting outsized profit off his labor, but the work he was (is?) doing had more value to him than his prior work.
• AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  I'm making a large amount of money creating software that helps real people. Others are also making money from what I do, but then they provide the tools that I use, and a huge amount of infrastructure that makes the whole system work. And they take the risk. I feel like I get a fair share of the value that I create.
• pascalxus 8y ago
  Yes and that's how it should be: it's part of the definition of "work". When you work, you should be providing value for others that's why they're paying you money. This necessitates being a pawn. You may even have a high degree of latitude and freedom to choose objectives, for instance if you're a founder. But, even then, you're just a pawn of capitalism, attempting to provide value to a marketplace that dictates what can and can't exist. The way to "deal" with it is to understand what employment is. Employment is the exchange of your time for money. Think of your body as an asset: like a house you rent out, or like renting out your car on Turo. Only, you're renting out your body and mind for 8 hours a day. Inexchange, you get a paycheck. What you choose to do with the rest of your life is up to you. Out of those 168 weekly hours, you still have 128 hours left to do whatever you like with. Historically speaking, that's not a bad deal.
• sbfeibish 8y ago
  What bothers me is the CEO goes out and recruits (convinces) the best people he/she can find. Gets them to work for the company. And the founders/CEO/principals collect almost all of the money. Based on the hard work of others. All the money goes to number 1. If you want to be well compensated you have to start your own company. Or come across a Steve Case, or Khosla/McNealy. And even then you may have to demand (Joy/Andy Bechtolsheim) better compensation.
  • aiyodev 8y ago
    Return is a function of risk. There’s very little risk in accepting a job offer. There’s a lot of risk in starting a company.
• seem_2211 8y ago
  It's impossible to earn a high income without others taking a majority of what you "bring in." Engineers get hammered on equity by Founders, who get hammered by Venture Capitalists, who hand over most of their profits to Institutional funds. It's a food chain thing, but I don't think it's worth getting that upset about. But then again, Institutional Funds put billions at risk to into Venture Capital funds who put millions at risk to founders who take on more risk, and a boat loat more stress and hassle (usually) than their employees. Software salespeople need to bring in 4-5x of what they cost. Lawyers and consultants are often tasked with bringing in 3-4x their cost. Why should engineers be any different? My granddad told me a story a few years ago about a guy who was a fantastically successful oil trader. A buy the whole tanker oil trader kinda guy. One of the reasons he'd been so successful was that he always tried to leave a bit of margin there for other people. I work as a recruiter. I know exactly how much money I've made my company and how much I've personally been paid. I could make more by starting out on my own. But I'd also take on a lot of hassle that I don't really want to bother with at this point in my life. As long as it remains a fairly reasonable trade, I'll be fine with it.
  • crimsonalucard 8y ago
    There should be an economic system set up where all workers get all the fruit of their labor rather than a fraction of it. Communism failed, but there has got to be another way.
    • ecolonsmak 8y ago
      employee ownership is a great way to organize. https://rady.ucsd.edu/centers/beyster/employee-ownership/ https://rady.ucsd.edu/centers/beyster/employee-ownership/
    • mmt 8y ago
      > workers get all the fruit of their labor rather than a fraction of it Be careful what you wish for. Risk is important, and if the "fruit" is zero, that's undesirable, too. We're seeing this in a microcosm of the "gig economy" with Uber pushing risk (and other externalities) onto drivers. I believe that was part of the parent's point about running a business and "hassle". I think it's debatable whether that necessarily costs the vast majority of labor's output, as the parent contends, but I doubt it can cost zero, as you contend. I'm ignoring capital (tools or even borrowing money) on purpose, in order to avoid the communism tangent.
• johngalt 8y ago
  Most of human history is defined by doing manual labor until crippled or dead. Only a subset of people in history have ever had any sort of engineering role. Only in the last few decades have jobs like mine been invented. No I don't feel like a pawn. I feel like I have been given a tremendous inheritance and now it's my turn to contribute. If anything I look at what those before me created and am disappointed that I'm not their equal.
• aeternus 8y ago
  I enjoy solving complex problems, and it is great working with a strong business team that is able to sell those solutions for the benefit of others. This often leads to even more interesting & complex problems, and the market provides a decent feedback loop about what is and isn't valued. If you don't like complicated problems as an engineer, you may be in the wrong role. If you'd rather deal with people, you could look into becoming a sales engineer. If you want more say in the product and direction of the business, you could consider joining a smaller company where your voice will likely have more weight.
• illwrks 8y ago
  Something to keep in mind, and applies to every job. When you book it down to the core there are two jobs, making something or selling something. So regardless if you are an engineer, a designer, an architect, sandwich making etc your work is involved in making something. If you work in advertising, telemarketing, client management, sales etc, you work on selling something. The retirees, million and billionaires etc are the ones who don't have to do either, but some do to keep busy. Nothing worse than an idle mind. So as a maker you can do hard physical work, or do hard mental work.