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To be a good software engineer, become a French skeptic
- jdmoreira 7y agoI say no a lot at my job. I once claimed to my boss the company should be paying me not for what I do but for what I don't do. I think they agreed.
- phaemon 7y agoThere's not much to add to this. It's true.
- jpitz 7y agoIt rings very true to me, but I think there is much, much more. How do you consistently say no without appearing oppositional?
- rakoo 7y agoAs a French, "no" comes easily. I'll try to explain what I believe when I say no. I think the important thing is that it must be clear why you say no, which means explaining your reasons so that others either agree with you, or chose to camp on their decision while knowing fully that it's just an opinion and not a fact. "No" is a recap of your thinking, so you need to lay out all the work that led you to this conclusion. When people understand it's not about them, they might not take it as personally and take a step back. It's even better to be constructive (because "no" shouldn't mean "I don't like you" but "this is not the best way"). A method I've learned about is the "Yes! No. Yes?" (https://www.fastcompany.com/3026980/yes-no-yes-how-to-turn-someone-down-without-ruining-your-relationship https://www.fastcompany.com/3026980/yes-no-yes-how-to-turn-s...). The idea is basically what I said above: make the other person understand that the exact thing you're talking about is not possible, but that doesn't mean you reject them as a person and you're not open to change. You're closing a door but you're not barricading the house.
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoSun Microsystems had a saying: "All the wood behind one arrow". You can say no just because you oppose everything. That's oppositional. Or you can say no to almost everything, because you think that all the focus should be on one thing, and you're trying to keep people from chasing after a bunch of distractions. That's not being oppositional, that's keeping focus.
- rramadass 7y agoWell said! But the difficulty lies in convincing people that you are in the latter and not in the former group :-)
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoSure. But having a focus, and pointing out the focus as the reason to say no to things that are outside the focus, might help convince people. (Or they may decide that the focus is a smokescreen, and you're just a negative person...)
- GrumpyYoungMan 7y ago> "How do you consistently say no without appearing oppositional?" A flat "no" comes across as oppositional. On the other hand, "Well, that depends..." followed by an analysis of options and possible roadblocks (this is where the "no" is subtly injected), that's construed as thoughtful and methodical. I would even venture to say that "It depends" is the only correct answer for an engineer to give to any question.
- intrepidhero 7y agoRight! Knowing what "it depends" on is the essence of engineering.
- raitom 7y agoI'm french and say 'no' all the time. I suppose I am a good software engineer then.
- gerdesj 7y agoI'm British and say "bollocks" a lot. That makes me a Managing Director (as well as a sysadmin and network technician.) Engineers around here have a capital E and are time served. I am but I wont use the term wrt IT because that was Civil Engineering!
- kaelig 7y agoI am French. This "start with no" attitude has been an issue when I started working with other cultures. First, when I worked in London, and even more so when I started working in California. At the first California-based company I worked at, there was an implicit bias towards what I'd describe as an "everything is awesome"-attitude (which was a huge departure from the French way to start conversations). I would start conversations the "French way" to debate certain aspects of how/why things are done, but it backfired because I did it in a clumsy way, without considering the cultural gap and how people were expected to communicate at this company. Today, I easily switch between American and French styles, but it took me a while to understand what my California-based coworkers meant when they said "it's more important to be kind than to be right"! Curious to hear if this happens to other expats too.
- TurkishPoptart 7y agoI'm from California, but I think I might be French. Would explain why I always felt so alienated all the time...
- lapnitnelav 7y agoBeen there too, French in the Anglo world, same cultural clash. I always believed having one "French" mindset person in the team is an asset as a counter balance to the "Yes everything is awesome". Much like the UK is (was I guess) to the EU, simply because it opens up new perspectives / discussions. Now if you have more than one (or a tiny percentage on really large teams) that's probably where the troubles start.
- zozbot234 7y ago> This "start with no" attitude has been an issue when I started working with other cultures. The Indian attitude must be the polar opposite then. "Yes I understand. We'll do the needful."
- zwieback 7y agoOne of our Indian coworkers gave us a crash course how to work with his team - the answer is always yes so tracking commitments is where all the work ends up.
- bitwize 7y agoThis may fly in France but in the USA it's a great way to be the dick on the software team or, if you are an independent consultant, someone clients won't want to do business with. Your job is to PLEASE YOUR CUSTOMER. See that person who is paying you/us money? While you're on the clock, bringing a smile to their face is your reason for being. You either commit to that, by whatever means you have at your disposal... or someone else gets the job. Period.
- ajna91 7y agoAren't the values praised in America: self-respect, lack of deference to authority, and "telling it like it is". How did that become replaced by obsequiousness?
- depr 7y agoPraised but not believed.
- FroshKiller 7y agoCapitalism.
- acrispino 7y agoPeople value those things. They also have to eat. "money talks"
- Ididntdothis 7y ago" lack of deference to authority," From my observation this maybe applies to politics or government but there is a lot of deference to authority within corporations. People often seem to feel they have no rights there.
- geebee 7y ago...or someone else gets the job. Period. You're absolutely right. but if the only way to get the job is to promise and deliver more than is reasonable given cost and time constraints, you are vastly better off not getting the job.
- 7y ago
- 0x70dd 7y agoMy best code is the one that I didn’t write.
- gerbilly 7y agoAnd your best comments are the ones you write twice...
- 0x70dd 7y agoMy best code is the one that I didn’t write
- ggggtez 7y agoRight... which is why all the major tech companies are based in France... Come on, this is pretty vapid even for a blogpost on HN.
- maest 7y agoThere may be other factors which have influenced the growth of SV, beyond the cultural attitude towards defaulting to 'yes' or 'no' when asked to do something.
- james_s_tayler 7y agoI agree. Even for a comment on HN it was pretty vapid.
- pnako 7y agoIn any team it's useful to have one skeptical Frenchman. The problem in France is that your team is mostly made of skeptical Frenchmen (with maybe one "everything is awesome" American, but that's not enough to counter balance).
- paxys 7y agoWhile I generally agree with this advice, it only works when the person saying "no" is acting as a balance to others who are too enthusiastic/pushy. If everyone starts off by saying no then there will again be no room for discussion, and no progress. A good team environment consists of people of many different personality types, and this is one of them. Implying that those who always say "yes", try out new ideas, take risks etc. are bad engineers is wrong.
- jameshart 7y agoI have only one possible response to this: No. Why? I've long ago learned that 'why?' is the most aggressive question. 'Why?' makes people defensive. 'Why?' is the start of an argument, where the other side is just 'why not?'. It's not going to help move anything forwards. Try 'Yes, and..'. Try 'How about?'. Try 'I don't know'. Try 'Why don't we try?'. And try 'Can you show me?'
- sawmurai 7y agoInstead of “why”, try “what for”
- keithnz 7y agoTo be a good software engineer, you must not follow simple rule based advice, or rule based counter advice....(irony intended ) A lot of comments are very definitive on how things should be or how you should act. Contextually, they may well be correct. But a good software engineer should always look for the deeper underlying issues. Working and communicating well with others and coming to collective decisions has a lot of contextual nuance. But it's always good to distill advice from others and look at what principle they are trying to advocate.
- Iv 7y agoYeah, no (sorry). As a French, I often feel this part is misunderstood pretty badly. The second part is right: it is "why?" first. The "say no first" I think is not a French thing, that's the result of the clash between the French work culture (don't laugh) and others. We are a bit anti-authority, I think it is hard to deny this trait. We don't like being bossed around but that's not systematic or unavoidable: we just want to follow orders we respect. So in France, you almost never give orders to someone without explaining the why (and complain about the clueless boss/client that made this order a necessity). Give us a good reason, the first answer will be yes. In many cultures (and especially here in Japan) the why is often omitted. Without a why, we are very tempted to just say no. State a good reason or stop wasting people time. I do believe it is a defense mechanism we built against terrible managers.
- AceJohnny2 7y ago> I do believe it is a defense mechanism we built against terrible managers. Positively reinforced by a taught history of overcoming oppression.
- Iv 7y agoFrance learns anti-authoritarianism like a GAN: we become good at it by training better and smarter tyrants and fighting them.
- AceJohnny2 7y agoOr so we tell ourselves... ;p
- scandinavegan 7y ago> We are a bit anti-authority, I think it is hard to deny this trait. We don't like being bossed around but that's not systematic or unavoidable: we just want to follow orders we respect. So in France, you almost never give orders to someone without explaining the why (and complain about the clueless boss/client that made this order a necessity). Give us a good reason, the first answer will be yes. This is interesting. I'm Swedish, and in a previous job I had a series of meetings with a French hardware design team. We were taught internally before the meeting, and it seemed to be confirmed during the meeting, that the French would be much more hierarchical than what we were used to, and that the French designers wouldn't contradict their manager in the meeting. If the manager said something, the designers would defend it, even if incorrect. Contrast that with the typically flat organizations of a Swedish company, and where a designer would be expected to correct a manager in a meeting if they said something incorrect, otherwise you're letting the manager down. If you know that something can't be done, for example, and have more information than the manager, you're expected to say something. All of my managers would have been upset if I let them look like a fool in a meeting by making decisions with incomplete information, if I knew something that could help them. Both of us would lose status by me not saying anything, rather than both losing status by me piping up during the meeting. That's not to say that the Swedish culture is perfect! A lot of people I've worked with from abroad are annoyed by the consensus culture that everyone here has to agree on everything. That can mean long times where no one seems to make a decision, and a decision can be revisited and flipped because someone later disagrees. I can see how it can be frustrating to never know for sure if something is decided or not, and that it can feel like managers don't take their responsibility if they want the whole group to make most decisions together. Or, the decision can be unclear to someone from a different culture, because the Swedish manager thought that the group reached consensus without the actual decision having to be spelled out.
- kambing86 7y agosay no to this "say no attitude" It's good to be skeptical and not jumping into conclusion right away, but there is another option other than yes and no, which is "not sure", or I need more time to discuss/research/learn French is just lack of this humble attitude so I can said that this is just another arrogant French reason to justify the rude behaviour
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- lol666 7y agolovin' it...
- lol666 7y agoworked just with 2 in current company, 1 questioned everything, even things there was no point in questoning, the other one told us its standard in france, but is it? if so its scary, the guy was young and read clean code (never said nothing about any other books...), was programming in just 1 language, didnt knew nothing about basic design patterns and still tried to be the smartest. after he left and we stayed with just 1 who didnt have this attitude the atmosphere in office and productivity increased so much, less bs, more quality work done. some times u need to trade off perfection for time or needs. arguing about stuff that doesnt really even impact functionality and code is usually lost time. ____terrible, terrible experience. please dont.___ btw. if ur programming for 5 years and you have 3 guys that do the same for 15-20 it might be actually good idea to listen to them without this 'question everything' attitude and maybe learn somwthing new? in some places there's no time to be lost on questioning everything... tre bien some times its not about authority and culture but simply about experience