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I didn't read his comment as condescending. He said the world needs both engineers and plumbers. The world needs more plumbers than engineers, that doesn't mean

I didn't read his comment as condescending. He said the world needs both engineers and plumbers. The world needs more plumbers than engineers, that doesn't mean that plumbers are useless. Your example is not a good one because 1 month of practice would not be sufficient for most people to get into FAANG. See: the guy who grinded Leetcode for a year and failed to get into Google (though he did get into Amazon). If you only need to grind Leetcode for 1 month to get into FAANG, then that means you're already pretty good algorithms wise.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago
He classified his work as engineering and everything else as plumbing. That is condescending. > If you only need to grind Leetcode for 1 month to get into FAANG, then that means you're already pretty good algorithms wise That's the point. That person should be pretty damn familiar with LeetCode questions, yet they still had to grind for a month and they're scared of it.
- josephg 5y ago
  > He classified his work as engineering and everything else as plumbing. That is condescending. Most real world programming work kind of is plumbing though? We take data from over here and put it over there. We build pipes. And for good, sensible reasons, most of the pipes we make use standard fittings (REST, JSON, etc). This is the whole point of this thread - you don't need to be good at leetcode questions to do this sort of work. I agree with that and I think we're all on the same page here. Leetcode tests something else. That other thing is also a real skillset. I hear you that calling it engineering is condescending. But I still wish we had a good name for it..?
  - cloverich 5y ago
    no... i’ve worked with a fair number of leet code all stars at startups and they are rarely capable programmers in a product development sense (taken in isolation). I would say the reason the plumber vs engineer analogy is condescending is the implication that non algo work operates with well defined problems and criteria and rarely requires any engineering. my experience has been the opposite. To solve problems effectively and pragmatically it requires understanding the system constraints in addition to the people constraints. Generally speaking even identifying the key problem and constraints is a relatively rare skill, much less selecting a solution that fits the people, budget, and timelines. I’ve since realized it’s that most software developers — algo skills or not — are simply not great engineers. Having accomplished anything rigorous like leet code helps (demonstrates diligence and effort), although it is still no substitute for a history of shipping working software and personally even if i’m tasked with interviewing a candidate using an algo whiteboard, i don’t do it.
    - username90 5y ago
      Engineers are rarely good plumbers.
- mslm 5y ago
  To be honest, he's not wrong. He did definitely come off as arrogant, but so would an electrical engineer saying all of this in an analogous way about your home electrician. He could have just said it better, and should probably take any conceit out of his head because even between engineers there are hugely varying levels and he might not be as big as he thinks.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago

He classified his work as engineering and everything else as plumbing. That is condescending. > If you only need to grind Leetcode for 1 month to get into FAANG, then that means you're already pretty good algorithms wise That's the point. That person should be pretty damn familiar with LeetCode questions, yet they still had to grind for a month and they're scared of it.

josephg 5y ago
> He classified his work as engineering and everything else as plumbing. That is condescending. Most real world programming work kind of is plumbing though? We take data from over here and put it over there. We build pipes. And for good, sensible reasons, most of the pipes we make use standard fittings (REST, JSON, etc). This is the whole point of this thread - you don't need to be good at leetcode questions to do this sort of work. I agree with that and I think we're all on the same page here. Leetcode tests something else. That other thing is also a real skillset. I hear you that calling it engineering is condescending. But I still wish we had a good name for it..?
- cloverich 5y ago
  no... i’ve worked with a fair number of leet code all stars at startups and they are rarely capable programmers in a product development sense (taken in isolation). I would say the reason the plumber vs engineer analogy is condescending is the implication that non algo work operates with well defined problems and criteria and rarely requires any engineering. my experience has been the opposite. To solve problems effectively and pragmatically it requires understanding the system constraints in addition to the people constraints. Generally speaking even identifying the key problem and constraints is a relatively rare skill, much less selecting a solution that fits the people, budget, and timelines. I’ve since realized it’s that most software developers — algo skills or not — are simply not great engineers. Having accomplished anything rigorous like leet code helps (demonstrates diligence and effort), although it is still no substitute for a history of shipping working software and personally even if i’m tasked with interviewing a candidate using an algo whiteboard, i don’t do it.
  - username90 5y ago
    Engineers are rarely good plumbers.
mslm 5y ago
To be honest, he's not wrong. He did definitely come off as arrogant, but so would an electrical engineer saying all of this in an analogous way about your home electrician. He could have just said it better, and should probably take any conceit out of his head because even between engineers there are hugely varying levels and he might not be as big as he thinks.