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If you “improve admin interface load times by 20%” do the calculation on what that is in saved time and possible money over 5 years. Then you have both. You sh

If you “improve admin interface load times by 20%” do the calculation on what that is in saved time and possible money over 5 years. Then you have both. You should of course have someone in management agree to your numbers and approve that you can use it on your CV.

Swizec 6y ago
That’s why I said profits not revenue. Specifically to capture that 1 & 2 might be the same work :) Just talking in terms of business impact puts you miles ahead of other candidates in many eng jobs. Especially for levels above junior. Very important to have engineers who (want to) understand why they do what they do.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  Meanwhile the most wildly successful companies in history did the opposite of that and hired techies to make amazing stuff that printed money.
  - Swizec 6y ago
    > hired techies to make amazing stuff that printed money. you are agreeing with me
stanmancan 6y ago
Unfortunately saving time/money is not as sexy as increasing revenue. I learned this once by creating a tool at a telecommunications company I was working at. It made it significantly faster for Technical Support to initiate a Remote Desktop session with a customer. We ran reports on how many RDP sessions we started per month; and recorded how much time the tool saved. At the time it was estimated to save about $2.1M in time savings every year, at a time when the Tech Support queues had long waits. Couldn’t get any traction with management. Had some grassroots growth internally until we were asked to shut it down since it was an unofficial tool. Meanwhile they would chase sales campaigns or marketing stunts that might result in $50-100k in new sign ups. Nobody cares how much you saved in time because it doesn’t get reported anywhere. It shows up on no important metrics. Sales going up by $100K is sexy. Admins handling an extra ticket per day because the interface is quicker isn’t.
- kostarelo 6y ago
  > Nobody cares how much you saved in time because it doesn’t get reported anywhere. It shows up on no important metrics. Sales going up by $100K is sexy. Admins handling an extra ticket per day because the interface is quicker isn’t. I don’t get that. Solving an extra ticket per day should somehow correlate with either revenue increase(indirect) or cost saving(direct), right?
  - stanmancan 6y ago
    Revenue increase; unlikely. Cost savings? Yes. But does it? Managers want big teams. It makes them look good. Having 15 direct reports looks better than having 10. That means the manager needs his people to be efficient enough to look good on paper, but inefficient enough that he gets to hire more people. Having a bigger budget and higher headcount makes him look good.
    - Tarsul 6y ago
      yeah, I've read a lot about automation here where this was a common argument, also I noticed this in the company I work for as well. If you are in IT or the user yourself and automate something it doesn't really get recognized by management. I think the only time automation is recognized by management is when it's on the agenda of management itself, e.g. if it's said that 20% of the people have to go and for that to happen there has to happen automation (and outsourcing). However, in this case the idea comes from management so there would not be much recognition for the ones doing the automation (also with the reduction in workforce it wouldn't be appropriate for mere workers to ask for a bonus/raise! Of course that doesn't apply to management..). Automation really is a good example of how dysfunctional (or averse to change) big companies are.
- mockingbirdy 6y ago
  This is the kind of inefficiency that startups can use to get ahead of established competitors. So don't be sad, this is just a reminder to be an entrepreneur.

Swizec 6y ago

That’s why I said profits not revenue. Specifically to capture that 1 & 2 might be the same work :) Just talking in terms of business impact puts you miles ahead of other candidates in many eng jobs. Especially for levels above junior. Very important to have engineers who (want to) understand why they do what they do.

alisonkisk 6y ago
Meanwhile the most wildly successful companies in history did the opposite of that and hired techies to make amazing stuff that printed money.
- Swizec 6y ago
  > hired techies to make amazing stuff that printed money. you are agreeing with me

stanmancan 6y ago

Unfortunately saving time/money is not as sexy as increasing revenue. I learned this once by creating a tool at a telecommunications company I was working at. It made it significantly faster for Technical Support to initiate a Remote Desktop session with a customer. We ran reports on how many RDP sessions we started per month; and recorded how much time the tool saved. At the time it was estimated to save about $2.1M in time savings every year, at a time when the Tech Support queues had long waits. Couldn’t get any traction with management. Had some grassroots growth internally until we were asked to shut it down since it was an unofficial tool. Meanwhile they would chase sales campaigns or marketing stunts that might result in $50-100k in new sign ups. Nobody cares how much you saved in time because it doesn’t get reported anywhere. It shows up on no important metrics. Sales going up by $100K is sexy. Admins handling an extra ticket per day because the interface is quicker isn’t.

kostarelo 6y ago
> Nobody cares how much you saved in time because it doesn’t get reported anywhere. It shows up on no important metrics. Sales going up by $100K is sexy. Admins handling an extra ticket per day because the interface is quicker isn’t. I don’t get that. Solving an extra ticket per day should somehow correlate with either revenue increase(indirect) or cost saving(direct), right?
- stanmancan 6y ago
  Revenue increase; unlikely. Cost savings? Yes. But does it? Managers want big teams. It makes them look good. Having 15 direct reports looks better than having 10. That means the manager needs his people to be efficient enough to look good on paper, but inefficient enough that he gets to hire more people. Having a bigger budget and higher headcount makes him look good.
  - Tarsul 6y ago
    yeah, I've read a lot about automation here where this was a common argument, also I noticed this in the company I work for as well. If you are in IT or the user yourself and automate something it doesn't really get recognized by management. I think the only time automation is recognized by management is when it's on the agenda of management itself, e.g. if it's said that 20% of the people have to go and for that to happen there has to happen automation (and outsourcing). However, in this case the idea comes from management so there would not be much recognition for the ones doing the automation (also with the reduction in workforce it wouldn't be appropriate for mere workers to ask for a bonus/raise! Of course that doesn't apply to management..). Automation really is a good example of how dysfunctional (or averse to change) big companies are.
mockingbirdy 6y ago
This is the kind of inefficiency that startups can use to get ahead of established competitors. So don't be sad, this is just a reminder to be an entrepreneur.