4 ms·

The visibility point is worth noting. I've noticed that in SE jobs, luck of the draw plays a lot into it. If you make modest progress on a project people are ex

The visibility point is worth noting. I've noticed that in SE jobs, luck of the draw plays a lot into it. If you make modest progress on a project people are excited about, management will shout your name from the rooftops. On the other hand, toil nights and weekends on a loss leader and people will ask "do we really need Bob?" If you get put on a project like that, it's probably best career wise to find a new role.

Jenk 6y ago
God yes, and if you work on the literally visible (UI) your work is so much more valued than if you are working somewhere amongst that cloudy bit of the platform diagram with all the lines and boxes that just does stuff.
- thinkmassive 6y ago
  I was on a project to automate provisioning of trial environments (VPC, EKS, our software deployed on top) for prospective customers. Other members of this group were primarily marketing and management, I was the only engineer. My portion of the work was described as “pressing a button” so I removed myself from the project at the earliest opportunity.
- moshmosh 6y ago
  About the only times I've seen backend work get any kind of positive reaction in a meeting or presentation, like UI does constantly, is when a bad DB query has been fixed so it drops from 20s to 20ms, or something like that.
  - ryall 6y ago
    Premature Optimisation is terrible for your career path. In this case premature means “before management notices” ;)
jerf 6y ago
A bit of career advice that has served me amazingly well over the years: Stick your head up every so often, maybe every six months, and assess where your position is in the company relative to the company's goals. If you're on a sideline project, or if your company is moving away from where you are, or you're in a project that just isn't doing well, take action to start angling away from that. Try to get moved to a good project. Or, if you've got the institutional reputation, see if you can't be the lead or part of a team for a new project in line with the company goals and headed towards obvious revenue bottom lines. Or, worst case, find a new job, but this is not always necessary. It may be a months-long transition, even, but often if you are persistent there's nothing impossible about this, and it doesn't have to be something that you're constantly stressing about. It's just a light touch applied every so often. Once you're in such a position it'll usually be some years before you need to worry about this again. But even so, keep sticking your head up every so often and see what's going on, just to be sure. But do it on purpose. Don't just sit back and take whatever gets assigned to you. This doesn't even have to be stressful necessarily, because while you may encounter local resistance, at the corporate level nobody is ever going to complain that you're trying to align yourself harder with where the company is going. It's not like you're asking to pursue a pet project on the company dime with no prospect of payout... it's the opposite of that in almost every way.
conjectures 6y ago
Seems like a variant of the Fundamental Attribution Error. Explain in terms personality something caused by situation.
muttled 6y ago
This unfortunate reality is probably why Google services keep ending up deprecated and abandoned as everyone flocks to the new-new.

Jenk 6y ago

God yes, and if you work on the literally visible (UI) your work is so much more valued than if you are working somewhere amongst that cloudy bit of the platform diagram with all the lines and boxes that just does stuff.

thinkmassive 6y ago
I was on a project to automate provisioning of trial environments (VPC, EKS, our software deployed on top) for prospective customers. Other members of this group were primarily marketing and management, I was the only engineer. My portion of the work was described as “pressing a button” so I removed myself from the project at the earliest opportunity.
moshmosh 6y ago
About the only times I've seen backend work get any kind of positive reaction in a meeting or presentation, like UI does constantly, is when a bad DB query has been fixed so it drops from 20s to 20ms, or something like that.
- ryall 6y ago
  Premature Optimisation is terrible for your career path. In this case premature means “before management notices” ;)

jerf 6y ago

A bit of career advice that has served me amazingly well over the years: Stick your head up every so often, maybe every six months, and assess where your position is in the company relative to the company's goals. If you're on a sideline project, or if your company is moving away from where you are, or you're in a project that just isn't doing well, take action to start angling away from that. Try to get moved to a good project. Or, if you've got the institutional reputation, see if you can't be the lead or part of a team for a new project in line with the company goals and headed towards obvious revenue bottom lines. Or, worst case, find a new job, but this is not always necessary. It may be a months-long transition, even, but often if you are persistent there's nothing impossible about this, and it doesn't have to be something that you're constantly stressing about. It's just a light touch applied every so often. Once you're in such a position it'll usually be some years before you need to worry about this again. But even so, keep sticking your head up every so often and see what's going on, just to be sure. But do it on purpose. Don't just sit back and take whatever gets assigned to you. This doesn't even have to be stressful necessarily, because while you may encounter local resistance, at the corporate level nobody is ever going to complain that you're trying to align yourself harder with where the company is going. It's not like you're asking to pursue a pet project on the company dime with no prospect of payout... it's the opposite of that in almost every way.

conjectures 6y ago

Seems like a variant of the Fundamental Attribution Error. Explain in terms personality something caused by situation.

muttled 6y ago

This unfortunate reality is probably why Google services keep ending up deprecated and abandoned as everyone flocks to the new-new.