6 ms·

It's not the number of days but the constant fire drills, everything is always top priority, notifications coming at all hours... and at least with software dev

It's not the number of days but the constant fire drills, everything is always top priority, notifications coming at all hours... and at least with software dev very rarely is it a priority to fix poor quality things thereby making even more fire drills.

_RPM 8y ago
If you’re at a startup this is my experience, but working for a stable company, I have not had a fire drill in my two years here. I write software only though, I’m not doing DevOps. DevOps probably handles the fires.
- waz0wski 8y ago
  That's ... not remotely devops What you're describing is a legacy, traditional, (and terrible!) 'ops will fix it' mentality that often permeates larger companies where dev teams 'throw stuff over the wall' to another team for production deployments, outage triage, etc A company with a devops culture deeply involves both developers and operations oriented folks from the start of a project to ensure best practices, reliability, and observability are being baked in from the start, that deployments are automated, and usually developers are more directly responsible for and involved in the operations of their software rather than having dedicated 'ops' teams doing 'firefighting' Read some of the content put out by Gene Kim or Martin Fowler for a much more in depth look at devops culture and the benefits it can bring a company.
  - Retric 8y ago
    Devops makes this worse. When the cycle between issue discovery and new code deployment shortens enough everything becomes an emergency. If it’s possible for a minor change to go into production within 24 hours, everything needs to be this fast. http://www.cc.com/video-clips/1myllo/the-miracle-of-flight http://www.cc.com/video-clips/1myllo/the-miracle-of-flight
    - beat 8y ago
      Prioritization problems exist independently from release cycle problems. "Everything becomes an emergency" is a symptom of broken priorities, not fast releases. If you're in the habit of doing 24 hour turnarounds, then a 24 hour turnaround is no longer an "emergency", it's just normal process. No reason to panic, or to act panicked. Emergencies are only emergencies if they interrupt work-in-progress.
      - Retric 8y ago
        The problem is not releasing 24 hours after you start working on something. That you can plan for. The problem is when you discover something to work on and want it released in 24 hours then you are throwing away any existing schedule as you can’t plan for what you don’t know about. Call it an emergency or just day to day operations, but the only way to work like that is to give up on the idea of a schedule of any kind.
twblalock 8y ago
If fire drills are the norm rather than the exception, you should find another job because you are working at a poorly run company. There is always a tension between delivering features and delivering quality, but that's no excuse for constant fire drills and notifications. It's possible to handle the tradeoff better than that.
- cpuguy83 8y ago
  Totally, but that's the point. Most people probably don't actually need an extra day off (I mean, I'd take one, but...) to stymie burnout but rather a calmer, more sane environment when they are working.
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  Agree with you, but it's physically impossible for all developers to merely find a better job. Some can, but not all can, because of the limited number of companies out there. As a result, we really should force employers to treat us better rather than viewing us as replaceable. They also need to learn that their way shouldn't be the only way.
  - fhbdukfrh 8y ago
    How do you force employers to treat you better, some sort of artificial regulation? We've never had greater labor mobility, remote options or demand for software developers; I question your premise of limited number of companies.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      Unions. Laws. Collective action. Artificial regulation.
      - anoncoward111 8y ago
        I would agree with you, but my gf is a unionized respiratory therapist. Not only are her colleagues and managers extremely mean and unprofessional to her, the hospital executives are actively training the non-union nurses to replace the union respiratory therapists, because "cost".

_RPM 8y ago

If you’re at a startup this is my experience, but working for a stable company, I have not had a fire drill in my two years here. I write software only though, I’m not doing DevOps. DevOps probably handles the fires.

waz0wski 8y ago
That's ... not remotely devops What you're describing is a legacy, traditional, (and terrible!) 'ops will fix it' mentality that often permeates larger companies where dev teams 'throw stuff over the wall' to another team for production deployments, outage triage, etc A company with a devops culture deeply involves both developers and operations oriented folks from the start of a project to ensure best practices, reliability, and observability are being baked in from the start, that deployments are automated, and usually developers are more directly responsible for and involved in the operations of their software rather than having dedicated 'ops' teams doing 'firefighting' Read some of the content put out by Gene Kim or Martin Fowler for a much more in depth look at devops culture and the benefits it can bring a company.
- Retric 8y ago
  Devops makes this worse. When the cycle between issue discovery and new code deployment shortens enough everything becomes an emergency. If it’s possible for a minor change to go into production within 24 hours, everything needs to be this fast. http://www.cc.com/video-clips/1myllo/the-miracle-of-flight http://www.cc.com/video-clips/1myllo/the-miracle-of-flight
  - beat 8y ago
    Prioritization problems exist independently from release cycle problems. "Everything becomes an emergency" is a symptom of broken priorities, not fast releases. If you're in the habit of doing 24 hour turnarounds, then a 24 hour turnaround is no longer an "emergency", it's just normal process. No reason to panic, or to act panicked. Emergencies are only emergencies if they interrupt work-in-progress.
    - Retric 8y ago
      The problem is not releasing 24 hours after you start working on something. That you can plan for. The problem is when you discover something to work on and want it released in 24 hours then you are throwing away any existing schedule as you can’t plan for what you don’t know about. Call it an emergency or just day to day operations, but the only way to work like that is to give up on the idea of a schedule of any kind.

twblalock 8y ago

If fire drills are the norm rather than the exception, you should find another job because you are working at a poorly run company. There is always a tension between delivering features and delivering quality, but that's no excuse for constant fire drills and notifications. It's possible to handle the tradeoff better than that.

cpuguy83 8y ago
Totally, but that's the point. Most people probably don't actually need an extra day off (I mean, I'd take one, but...) to stymie burnout but rather a calmer, more sane environment when they are working.
anoncoward111 8y ago
Agree with you, but it's physically impossible for all developers to merely find a better job. Some can, but not all can, because of the limited number of companies out there. As a result, we really should force employers to treat us better rather than viewing us as replaceable. They also need to learn that their way shouldn't be the only way.
- fhbdukfrh 8y ago
  How do you force employers to treat you better, some sort of artificial regulation? We've never had greater labor mobility, remote options or demand for software developers; I question your premise of limited number of companies.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Unions. Laws. Collective action. Artificial regulation.
    - anoncoward111 8y ago
      I would agree with you, but my gf is a unionized respiratory therapist. Not only are her colleagues and managers extremely mean and unprofessional to her, the hospital executives are actively training the non-union nurses to replace the union respiratory therapists, because "cost".