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I've long thought this could be a competitive advantage for people to do "rotations" on different roles. Building tools for moderators? Do a week moderating. Bu

I've long thought this could be a competitive advantage for people to do "rotations" on different roles. Building tools for moderators? Do a week moderating. Building tools for salespeople? Do a week as a salesperson. You're a salesperson who needs tools built for you? Do a week on the dev team.

x87678r 6y ago
Just wait until SoX compliance people find out about that.
- bostonvaulter2 6y ago
  Not all roles/companies are covered by SoX so a blanket dismissal of the idea is not helpful to the discussion.
- wsinks 6y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by this. You can't do the work for a week because they aren't the right skill to do the work? I don't have a ton of experience with SoX compliance specifically.
  - throwaway201103 6y ago
    It's probably more that people who don't have the right training/have not passed various exams and certifications are not allowed to do certain things in finance. You can't sell securites if you haven't passed the Series 7 exams, for example.
  - x87678r 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_duties#Application_in_information_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_duties#Applicati...
meekrohprocess 6y ago
I once worked at a company that did something like that. It was optional, but once a year you could spend 3 days working in first-line customer service. A CS rep oversaw your responses, but you got an ordinary account in the customer service system and dealt with real customers. The first two days you spent replying to customers, and the third day you spent prototyping or writing up some way that you thought common complaints could be addressed by making changes to the product. It was a nearly unmitigated boon to the company. Sure, the company saw it as paying for a few extra vacation days. But the program stuck around because it generated a lot of good ideas, and the direct communication between CS and product development teams was valuable.
- aaronblohowiak 6y ago
  I worked at a company where this was mandatory for everyone — everyone — in the company. People who didn’t do it earnestly were let go. If I ever found a company you can bet I’m going to copy the practice.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Why would the company have to pay a few extra vacation days? It sounds like a temporary shift of personnel where somebody was out of their normal department but they were still working for the company. That's just a Tuesday not a vacay.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Vacation in the sense that SWEs and senior SWEs can earn many times the total compensation of a CS rep, I assume.
  - meekrohprocess 6y ago
    It was sort of a "working vacation" for everyone involved. The people working on the product were taken off their normal duties, and the CS mentors didn't exactly get a full day's work done. But it was worth it.
jedberg 6y ago
Or at least shadowing if training for that role would be too much. When I was at Netflix, I did a couple of hours of shadowing at our support center, and just that alone gave me a whole new sense of how I could improve our tools and processes to not only make their job easier, but also get the information we needed as reliability engineers.
neves 6y ago
I'm always impressed how developers never try to use their own software.Some obvious problems would be quickly solved.
howlgarnish 6y ago
This is what "real" Agile teams are supposed to look like: you embed that content moderator/salesperson/end user into your team, so they get to test out the product every week, suggest changes that would make it better, vote on what's built next, etc.
- visarga 6y ago
  > you embed that content moderator/salesperson/end user into your team I did just that on my last project and it was great. Another team was developing a similar product, but they didn't have an 'in house real user' so theirs was much harder to use.
canada_dry 6y ago
Yup, I don't understand why this isn't standard best-practice in most places. When I ran a development shop, every year the senior staff spent a week physically working in their client's department eating their own dog-food (i.e. using the apps they built/supported). Once this was implemented it cut down on the post-implementation change requests by over half.
- rectang 6y ago
  I'm a fan of such exchange initiatives, but I think they are not common practice for two reasons. 1. Limited provable return on investment. The effects are real but it's not like they're a panacea. 2. Human nature. There are a lot of people who are not enthusiastic about participating — because they are not cut out for the positions they're exchanging into for a spell, because they don't see the point, because they occupy a privilege place in the office hierarchy, etc.
  - zentiggr 6y ago
    2a) doesn't matter if they can cut it in the switch position, it's the exposure that matters 2b) if they don't see the point, there needs to be a serious conversation and maybe consider a new hire who does understand the benefits 2c) yeah, if you're too important to want to improve the business, let's have you talk to the two Bobs. What is it you actually do here?
    - rectang 6y ago
      I don't disagree. However, all of the points I made apply double for management — particularly the point about status in the office hierarchy. Management is often the most reluctant to participate in exchange; furthermore, the conversations you describe don't happen because management doesn't push them. In my experience advocating for such initiatives — and I have done so across multiple organizations throughout my decades in the workforce, and not just at tech companies — it is not so much resistance from below as from above that stymies them.
greggman3 6y ago
At Sony Japan AFAIK new employees straight out of college are required to work at a retail location for 2 weeks. It certainly used to be that way. Not sure about now.
specialist 6y ago
The teams I've managed, every person has to rotate thru every role, eventually. Not just some tasks. The actual role. Be the SQA person in charge of acceptance testing. Write some code. Go out on sales calls. Proofread some copy. Quickly pops people out of their focus on local optima, to better see the whole.
arcticbull 6y ago
One my the formative places I worked had all software folks do a rotation shadowing customer support reps. What a wonderful experiences for building rapport, and developing an understanding of customer's actual pain points.

x87678r 6y ago

Just wait until SoX compliance people find out about that.

bostonvaulter2 6y ago
Not all roles/companies are covered by SoX so a blanket dismissal of the idea is not helpful to the discussion.
wsinks 6y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by this. You can't do the work for a week because they aren't the right skill to do the work? I don't have a ton of experience with SoX compliance specifically.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  It's probably more that people who don't have the right training/have not passed various exams and certifications are not allowed to do certain things in finance. You can't sell securites if you haven't passed the Series 7 exams, for example.
- x87678r 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_duties#Application_in_information_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_duties#Applicati...

meekrohprocess 6y ago

I once worked at a company that did something like that. It was optional, but once a year you could spend 3 days working in first-line customer service. A CS rep oversaw your responses, but you got an ordinary account in the customer service system and dealt with real customers. The first two days you spent replying to customers, and the third day you spent prototyping or writing up some way that you thought common complaints could be addressed by making changes to the product. It was a nearly unmitigated boon to the company. Sure, the company saw it as paying for a few extra vacation days. But the program stuck around because it generated a lot of good ideas, and the direct communication between CS and product development teams was valuable.

aaronblohowiak 6y ago
I worked at a company where this was mandatory for everyone — everyone — in the company. People who didn’t do it earnestly were let go. If I ever found a company you can bet I’m going to copy the practice.
dylan604 6y ago
Why would the company have to pay a few extra vacation days? It sounds like a temporary shift of personnel where somebody was out of their normal department but they were still working for the company. That's just a Tuesday not a vacay.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Vacation in the sense that SWEs and senior SWEs can earn many times the total compensation of a CS rep, I assume.
- meekrohprocess 6y ago
  It was sort of a "working vacation" for everyone involved. The people working on the product were taken off their normal duties, and the CS mentors didn't exactly get a full day's work done. But it was worth it.

jedberg 6y ago

Or at least shadowing if training for that role would be too much. When I was at Netflix, I did a couple of hours of shadowing at our support center, and just that alone gave me a whole new sense of how I could improve our tools and processes to not only make their job easier, but also get the information we needed as reliability engineers.

neves 6y ago

I'm always impressed how developers never try to use their own software.Some obvious problems would be quickly solved.

howlgarnish 6y ago

This is what "real" Agile teams are supposed to look like: you embed that content moderator/salesperson/end user into your team, so they get to test out the product every week, suggest changes that would make it better, vote on what's built next, etc.

visarga 6y ago
> you embed that content moderator/salesperson/end user into your team I did just that on my last project and it was great. Another team was developing a similar product, but they didn't have an 'in house real user' so theirs was much harder to use.

canada_dry 6y ago

Yup, I don't understand why this isn't standard best-practice in most places. When I ran a development shop, every year the senior staff spent a week physically working in their client's department eating their own dog-food (i.e. using the apps they built/supported). Once this was implemented it cut down on the post-implementation change requests by over half.

rectang 6y ago
I'm a fan of such exchange initiatives, but I think they are not common practice for two reasons. 1. Limited provable return on investment. The effects are real but it's not like they're a panacea. 2. Human nature. There are a lot of people who are not enthusiastic about participating — because they are not cut out for the positions they're exchanging into for a spell, because they don't see the point, because they occupy a privilege place in the office hierarchy, etc.
- zentiggr 6y ago
  2a) doesn't matter if they can cut it in the switch position, it's the exposure that matters 2b) if they don't see the point, there needs to be a serious conversation and maybe consider a new hire who does understand the benefits 2c) yeah, if you're too important to want to improve the business, let's have you talk to the two Bobs. What is it you actually do here?
  - rectang 6y ago
    I don't disagree. However, all of the points I made apply double for management — particularly the point about status in the office hierarchy. Management is often the most reluctant to participate in exchange; furthermore, the conversations you describe don't happen because management doesn't push them. In my experience advocating for such initiatives — and I have done so across multiple organizations throughout my decades in the workforce, and not just at tech companies — it is not so much resistance from below as from above that stymies them.

greggman3 6y ago

At Sony Japan AFAIK new employees straight out of college are required to work at a retail location for 2 weeks. It certainly used to be that way. Not sure about now.

specialist 6y ago

The teams I've managed, every person has to rotate thru every role, eventually. Not just some tasks. The actual role. Be the SQA person in charge of acceptance testing. Write some code. Go out on sales calls. Proofread some copy. Quickly pops people out of their focus on local optima, to better see the whole.

arcticbull 6y ago

One my the formative places I worked had all software folks do a rotation shadowing customer support reps. What a wonderful experiences for building rapport, and developing an understanding of customer's actual pain points.