5 ms·

What's the concern for? A lot of great jobs still have penny-pinching managers. I've worked somewhere notoriously Frugal that was good and paid well but had no

• xpe 6y ago
  I'll respond with a connected set of questions... Is it worth the time to deny a (well intentioned) $150 request made by a software developer who costs a company (for example) $150K total (salary, benefits, and fixed costs)? $150 is 0.1% of $150K. What are the benefits and costs? Some questions to ask include: - How much time did the company spend in the process of denying this request? By the time you include emails, research, context switching, etc, I think it is fair to say this might consume 15 minutes of the engineer's time and 15 minutes of the denier's time. That would be 0.5 hours; assuming $80/hr, that is $40. - What is the likely effect? Will it discourage an employee from trying a new tool? Might it encourage a culture of "build it here" rather than pay to use something that already exists? Might it encourage an employee to abuse the license? Might this increase the legal risk of the company? In the case of, say, online learning, it might encourage employees to browse dozens of crappy web resources rather than simply paying for a high quality learning resource. My point: being stingy has real effects on human behavior. - Does the company pay the same level of detail to other areas that could easily save more money? Three examples: (1) Does a company need to spend $200/year/person on junk food or bottled water? (2) Does a company look carefully at ways to improve energy efficiency? (3) Does a company have a smart, regularly practiced, data-recovery plan in place? I could go on; I think you see my point: it is wiser to allocate effort and oversight in proportion to impact. - To what degree does the company have issues with trust and accountability? What is the effect on morale are discouraged from trying and paying for useful software and tooling? I think my overarching point is, again, illustrated by questions: What does a company truly value? Are they mindful and realistic about their costs and benefits? P.S. This may be obvious to some (but not all): paying for software is not necessarily a bad thing. Open source has many advantages, but without ongoing contributions and/or a funding strategy, open source software is not necessarily a "safer" bet than closed-source software. A better litmus test is "can I export my data in a useful way if I decide to leave or switch?"
  • ALittleLight 6y ago
    This seems like an argument for buying SDEs needed software. It doesn't seem like an argument against the idea that you can work somewhere where they refuse to buy things like this, and still have it be a good job. If your job pays well, work is interesting, good commute, good benefits, good manager, good coworkers, important mission, or a net positive combination of these things, that seems way more important than whether or not they'll buy you arbitrary software.
    • xpe 6y ago
      > This seems like an argument for buying SDEs needed software. It depends on what the company values. This is what I meant when I wrote: "What does a company truly value? Are they mindful and realistic about their costs and benefits?" > ALittleLight: It doesn't seem like an argument against the idea that you can work somewhere where they refuse to buy things like this, and still have it be a good job. Correct, I made no such argument. You are free to make that value judgment. It depends where you sit. Maybe you want to dig into ways an organization can improve? If so, that gets into questions about organizational values as well as costs and benefits of various options. > ALittleLight: If your job pays well, work is interesting, good commute, good benefits, good manager, good coworkers, important mission, or a net positive combination of these things, that seems way more important than whether or not they'll buy you arbitrary software. Again, feel free to make such a value judgement. However, I would not use the word 'arbitrary' here, since in employment situations, there will be some understanding around expenses, often set out in policies and conversations. Even in organizations that are more flexible with expenses, employees are expected to use good judgment for business expenses.
    • xpe 6y ago
      I'm curious: were you expecting that my comment offer "an argument against the idea that you can work somewhere where they refuse to buy things like this, and still have it be a good job."? If so, why?
      • Chris2048 6y ago
        Because it seems like you are talking to a dev, not a manager. Assume the dev is already onboard with the idea of being compensated; the original comment was "I'd be more concerned if you had a hard time getting reimbursed" i.e from the POV of the employee.
• progre 6y ago
  It's sometimes not just about money. Any organisation that alows individuals and teams to freely pick and choose tools will end up with a huge pile of semi-forgotten systems and organisational knowledge spread over multiple wikis, sharepoint sites, trello boards, monday projects and word docs on shared drives and dropboxes. Seen it happen multiple times. Corparate use of "personal/hobbyist" free tiers of popular tools is not just a legal liability, it's also a security nightmare apart from the already mentioned infromation spread problems.
  • codezero 6y ago
    That's a super helpful counter-point, thanks!