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Honestly, I think this is somewhat of a crapshoot/hard to tell from the job description and the reason I say this is the job I'm currently in functions exactly
by throwaway12504 6y ago
Honestly, I think this is somewhat of a crapshoot/hard to tell from the job description and the reason I say this is the job I'm currently in functions exactly how you describe but the job description/everything else from the outside gave me no clue before I actually started the job.
"Ideally being done in 2 hours in the morning then chilling would be perfect" -- in fact, for me, often it's 2 hours on a Monday morning the first day of the sprint, then just being present on Slack for the rest of the two week sprint. I wait and submit PRs etc at the end of the sprint.
My previous jobs in tech absolutely did not function like this, so I was somewhat surprised when I fell into my current position/groove. My coworkers/managers seem to think the amount of work I get done every sprint is actually above average, even though it rarely takes me more time than six hours max every two weeks. I mostly work on backend stuff (85%/15%) and am in a senior position at a relatively large (non Silicon-Valley though still very tech savvy) company with tens of thousands of employees and billions in revenue, though based on the East Coast. My salary isn't bonkers but I'm comfortably in the 150-200k range before bonus.
There was no way for me to know, going into the job, based on the job description, interviews with team members, etc, that the expectations of my managers and co-workers would be so low. And honestly, I'm still confused. I'm not a genius software engineer, I'm maybe above average but still not anything special. My coworkers aren't lazy or bad either - they're all sharp, proactive people. All of this is to say, what you're looking for does exist, it's my job, but I haven't the slightest idea how I would've been able to tell this is that type of job before actually doing it, so alas I can't help you very much, though I am willing to answer questions if you may have any.
- Aeolun 6y ago> My salary isn't bonkers > For me, often it's 2 hours on a Monday morning the first day of the sprint, then just being present on Slack for the rest of the two week sprint You may not think so, but... Your salary is bonkers.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- DougN7 6y agoThis sounds like a job a friend has in city government (in the midwest US). They have to look busy but in the end it sounds like they really don’t do a whole lot (he’s the manager and knows they don’t have much to do but has to maintain head count).
- beastman82 6y agoThis was my experience with government work and is why I'm now an advocate for small government.
- hanniabu 6y ago"Small government" and a small government are not the same thing
- sudosysgen 6y agoThe hilarity is when you realize that with all this inefficiency government still often does a better job that smaller government or private enterprise.
- Frazmatazz 5y agoThe same thing happens at private enterprise because free market incentives don't apply internally; i.e. if I double my productivity it won't actually affect my income at all.
- j10c 6y agoYes I have seen same productivity patterns. In one company I applied, the most senior developer's average skills were less than my junior skills. I can say I have junior skills but better productivity. Most of the times I had under-performed to save my ass from undeserving workload.
- simmerup 6y ago>Most of the times I had under-performed to save my ass from undeserving workload. Sounds like you're on their trajectory already
- j10c 6y agoNope my behaviour was specifically related to office politics, I left the job. I never liked to fake it. currently I am openly searching for some good remote part-time job so I can work with full productivity without office politics.
- codegeek 6y ago"based on the East Coast. My salary isn't bonkers but I'm comfortably in the 150-200k range before bonus." Hope you are not trolling. 150-200K is not only comfortable but one of the top salaries even in East Coast area.
- zild3d 6y agoFor NYC at least, that's fairly normal for software engineers at tech companies. https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/New-York-City/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/New-York-C...
- thehappypm 6y agoNYC is a step-function of higher COL than just about anywhere else on the East Coast. Even compared Boston or DC. Taxes alone are high, around 6% total for New York State. Want to live in New York City? Great, that's an additional 3%. OK, so you don't want to live in New York City to avoid that 3%? Now you're looking at $600/month for your commute costs to spend 3 hours a day commuting.
- mywittyname 6y agoNo crap, that's significantly more than I'm making and I work 50 hours most week plus have a requirement to maintain certifications and write cookbooks and/or blog posts after hours. It's a bonkers salary if one actually works. I wonder if the OP's company needs any data engineers.
- vsareto 6y agoWhat do your work tasks consist of? It might seem simple to you, but maybe you have unrealized talent.
- jgwil2 5y ago2 weeks' work in 2 hours seems borderline unbelievable. Do you just radically overestimate the amount of effort every ticket will take? How do your coworkers/manager not push back? I can see accomplishing that much work in 1/2 the time, or maybe even less, but you're talking about spending 1/40 the amount of time as estimated. Many people here debate the existence of the 10x developer, and you're claiming to be a 40x developer.
- throwaway12504 5y agoTo be clear: I'm definitely not claiming to be a 10x, 40x or 100x developer. I'm not claiming I could do the same amount of work as you or anyone else any faster than you or anyone else could. It's more like my managers and product management radically overestimate the amount of time things take. Those are the people choosing how much work they think I should be able to accomplish each sprint and I don't do anything to dissuade them from the idea that that seems about right to me as well. I'm frequently praised by my manager and kidded by my colleagues about how "fast" I've managed to knock out my stories even when only working a few hours the first day of the sprint and submitting my PRs the day before or of the sprint ending. Those same managers/product managers work with many other engineers at my company so I don't know if everyone at my company is underachieving stealthily or what. As I said in my original post, I'm honestly as really, really confused as anyone else about what's going on, but since I'm praised in performance reviews, given a decent bonus, been 2x chosen for quarterly awards and promoted internally, etc, I mean, what should I do ? Demand more work ? Yeah, no thanks.
- jgwil2 5y agoFair enough. I guess in your place I would just be very interested in knowing how I performed compared to other people working in the field, but I can't blame you for not wanting to mess with a good thing either.
- abledon 5y agocurious, do you find leetcode easy/mediums atleast somewhat challenging? or is the stuff you are doing like... connecting plumbing / CRUD stuff together in CLOUD