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I feel completely the opposite. Not that email or any of the million other apps don't produce constant interruptions - but in terms of what I want my role to b

I feel completely the opposite. Not that email or any of the million other apps don't produce constant interruptions - but in terms of what I want my role to be and what I find pleasure in. A world of high stimulation and constant social interaction? A million things shouting at me and I have to sort through them and grab the most important one and hop from thing to thing fast? That's what I like. Focusing on one topic for hours, days, even weeks to really understanding every facet of it? I think it'd kill me. I know people theoretically need these big blocks of uninterrupted time to get work done, but I'd much rather have a bunch of meetings where we can figure out the path forward. I have mad respect for him... but I never could have been an academic. I like to take in all those digested kernels of knowledge, I like to digest as many of them as I can; I know I lose the details, but integrating them all into something bigger has always been my dream; it's just how I live my life.

nambit 8y ago
It's only after you've developed a deep understanding that any efforts at integration would be successful. If you just like orchestrating, that's fine but I've met too many managers/product managers who think up lofty ideas on how to integrate various pieces without a deeper understanding of the underlying technology.
- disishhsha 8y ago
  I think trusting and open relationships between the big picture people and the small detail people can go a long way, if you don’t have a unicorn who can do both.
- sharadov 8y ago
  Yup, been around a lot of them, they are the ones who love to sling words around and are a prime definition of tech bros always looking to debate not on the basis of firm knowledge but as a cover-up for their inadequacies.
  - JimboOmega 8y ago
    One of the signs that you're actually good at operating at this level is you spend more time listening than talking. You need people who actually know more than you - if you are always arguing and trying to prove you actually do know best, you're definitely not looking for that.
  - godzillabrennus 8y ago
    I have seen the other side of this where the developers trying to implement business requirements in code are making bad assumptions and end up in confrontations with middle management because their technically "pure" vision for how something should work doesn't solve the business goal.
    - nambit 8y ago
      Yeah. Seen this happen too. That usually points to a lack of (good) senior leadership in the dev team (senior developers not product/managers).
sbov 8y ago
I like both. The problem I find with surface level knowledge is you make a lot of mistakes. When I have a surface level knowledge of a piece of tech and make a decision based upon that, then talk to someone with deep knowledge it's pretty common for them to say "why didn't you just do XYZ, it's easier/more robust". Ultimately you can produce OK or even sometimes good solutions to problems but not great ones, unless you have direct access to people that know more than you. This becomes even more pronounced when different pieces of tech can be combined with eachother.
- zhoujianfu 8y ago
  Me too.. in fact I just started imposing on myself last week a MWF: on top of things, TTh(plus weekend if available): on bottom of things. Hence here I am on HN on Monday!
- JimboOmega 8y ago
  I simply do make a lot of mistakes in most domains of my life. I'm ADHD (diagnosed, etc), and medication did help, but didn't solve it. For much of my life, I fought against this natural tendency. But for most part I essentially kept telling myself "pay more attention"! It didn't work. Compensation is important. Detecting the mistakes I make, and avoiding situations where the cost of them is very high. One part of that is accepting things I can never do, like be an academic :). In the engineering world there's lots of means of compensating. One you mentioned; knowing people who know more than you. Another one would be automated testing; at almost every workplace I've had, I have put a lot of effort into expanding and increasing it, and generally detecting errors wherever they might occur. I'm always asking "what if there's a typo somewhere, will we know, will that go to production?" Might I create a PR I think I've tested but I haven't? The odds I've done this are higher than my peers, so I need to protect myself from that. If I'm at a workplace that values accuracy above else - that views being able to focus on the code and get the best (not "good enough") solution to every problem as the main trait that I'm evaluated on, I will not succeed. I'm never going to be the guru of anything. This kind of sucks, because a lot of places view being really good at those things as necessary before you can move to another area (IE, management) where you don't use those skills. I'm a "good not great" or "move fast and break things" kind of person. My usual working style is to produce prototypes very fast; then whoever I'm making it for can see that I didn't quite read the design thoroughly and miss something before it's a huge disaster. I need the feedback of fast release cycles. I can detect errors fast, take action fast, fix them fast. But "take your time and make sure it's perfect before you throw the switch"? That's just not my personality. I'm high volume (when not artificially constrained) but error prone. I'm smart enough to know it, smart enough to insist that my code gets reviewed, smart enough to say we really have to test for these cases, things like that. But it's absolutely something I have to compensate a lot for.
tlrobinson 8y ago
Out of curiosity, what is your profession?
- JimboOmega 8y ago
  Software Engineer who dreams of being in some kind of management some day.
Aeolun 8y ago
My thing is. Those meetings are great, but they are pointless until we know what we’re talking about...

nambit 8y ago

It's only after you've developed a deep understanding that any efforts at integration would be successful. If you just like orchestrating, that's fine but I've met too many managers/product managers who think up lofty ideas on how to integrate various pieces without a deeper understanding of the underlying technology.

disishhsha 8y ago
I think trusting and open relationships between the big picture people and the small detail people can go a long way, if you don’t have a unicorn who can do both.
sharadov 8y ago
Yup, been around a lot of them, they are the ones who love to sling words around and are a prime definition of tech bros always looking to debate not on the basis of firm knowledge but as a cover-up for their inadequacies.
- JimboOmega 8y ago
  One of the signs that you're actually good at operating at this level is you spend more time listening than talking. You need people who actually know more than you - if you are always arguing and trying to prove you actually do know best, you're definitely not looking for that.
- godzillabrennus 8y ago
  I have seen the other side of this where the developers trying to implement business requirements in code are making bad assumptions and end up in confrontations with middle management because their technically "pure" vision for how something should work doesn't solve the business goal.
  - nambit 8y ago
    Yeah. Seen this happen too. That usually points to a lack of (good) senior leadership in the dev team (senior developers not product/managers).

sbov 8y ago

I like both. The problem I find with surface level knowledge is you make a lot of mistakes. When I have a surface level knowledge of a piece of tech and make a decision based upon that, then talk to someone with deep knowledge it's pretty common for them to say "why didn't you just do XYZ, it's easier/more robust". Ultimately you can produce OK or even sometimes good solutions to problems but not great ones, unless you have direct access to people that know more than you. This becomes even more pronounced when different pieces of tech can be combined with eachother.

zhoujianfu 8y ago
Me too.. in fact I just started imposing on myself last week a MWF: on top of things, TTh(plus weekend if available): on bottom of things. Hence here I am on HN on Monday!
JimboOmega 8y ago
I simply do make a lot of mistakes in most domains of my life. I'm ADHD (diagnosed, etc), and medication did help, but didn't solve it. For much of my life, I fought against this natural tendency. But for most part I essentially kept telling myself "pay more attention"! It didn't work. Compensation is important. Detecting the mistakes I make, and avoiding situations where the cost of them is very high. One part of that is accepting things I can never do, like be an academic :). In the engineering world there's lots of means of compensating. One you mentioned; knowing people who know more than you. Another one would be automated testing; at almost every workplace I've had, I have put a lot of effort into expanding and increasing it, and generally detecting errors wherever they might occur. I'm always asking "what if there's a typo somewhere, will we know, will that go to production?" Might I create a PR I think I've tested but I haven't? The odds I've done this are higher than my peers, so I need to protect myself from that. If I'm at a workplace that values accuracy above else - that views being able to focus on the code and get the best (not "good enough") solution to every problem as the main trait that I'm evaluated on, I will not succeed. I'm never going to be the guru of anything. This kind of sucks, because a lot of places view being really good at those things as necessary before you can move to another area (IE, management) where you don't use those skills. I'm a "good not great" or "move fast and break things" kind of person. My usual working style is to produce prototypes very fast; then whoever I'm making it for can see that I didn't quite read the design thoroughly and miss something before it's a huge disaster. I need the feedback of fast release cycles. I can detect errors fast, take action fast, fix them fast. But "take your time and make sure it's perfect before you throw the switch"? That's just not my personality. I'm high volume (when not artificially constrained) but error prone. I'm smart enough to know it, smart enough to insist that my code gets reviewed, smart enough to say we really have to test for these cases, things like that. But it's absolutely something I have to compensate a lot for.

tlrobinson 8y ago

Out of curiosity, what is your profession?

JimboOmega 8y ago
Software Engineer who dreams of being in some kind of management some day.

Aeolun 8y ago

My thing is. Those meetings are great, but they are pointless until we know what we’re talking about...