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I agree with a lot of this article and it reflects the culture at the kind of places I like to work. But - I'm curious what costs folks have seen in making thi
by libraryofbabel 6y ago
I agree with a lot of this article and it reflects the culture at the kind of places I like to work.
But - I'm curious what costs folks have seen in making this switch to giving engineers more autonomy and expecting them to be problem solvers for the wider business rather than code-factory workers. My hunch is that it's usually worth it - but what are the risks?
It's easy to mention a couple of anecdotes about some engineer who made an improvement or feature that represented millions of dollars for the company bottom line. But what about people going down strange rabbit holes, engaging in resume-driven development or following the allure of cool tech that isn't really needed for the use case (e.g. "let's use Cassandra for this!"), Not Invented Here syndrome, premature optimization, spinning up unnecessary microservices because that's the way to get promoted, building a fancy internal system that internal stakeholders don't actually need or want, etc. It's really really hard to simultaneously see the business big picture and also be down in the technical details, and very easy for engineers to fall victim to the Dunning-Kruger effect and go off in the wrong direction. Perhaps the few people who are able to do this well are able to compensate for all the waste, but I don't think we can assume that it leads to good results for the business in every case.
- coderintherye 6y agoWhat you noted of engineers going down rabbit holes of cool tech for cool tech sake is certainly an issue, which is why management must help keep in mind that the autonomy is given with a goal of "solve business problems." It requires a bit of careful management but it usually becomes clear over time who enjoys playing with new tech for the sake of new tech and who does it to try to find a solution to a problem. The former group can be put into a research team if the company is large enough otherwise they are likely not a good fit. As for risks, the biggest problem I've seen from this cultural change in a company is the disharmony it creates between the people who enjoy task-driven work and just working their 9-5 vs. the people who enjoy creative problem solving. It usually works better to have that culture from the start and also why it is so hard to change a company's culture to this way of working because it disrupts a way being that almost everyone in the company is used to.