4 ms·

What was an Application Engineer who has "not written any code for 3 months" doing for that amount of time then? Surfing Usenet? It seems like putting out fires

What was an Application Engineer who has "not written any code for 3 months" doing for that amount of time then? Surfing Usenet? It seems like putting out fires would've involved at least some code.

systems_glitch 5y ago
Probably getting stuck managing other engineers or teams of them.
icedchai 5y ago
Meetings? Documentation? Support calls? These all can take tons of time.
cratermoon 5y ago
You might be surprised how fast time can pass when you're in a holding pattern while management dithers over the quarterly priorities.
mandelbrotwurst 5y ago
In addition to all of the things other commenters have mentioned, it may also have just been an exaggeration, and they're not counting things like fixing logical and configuration errors as writing code.
- ahelwer 5y ago
  Yeah. Hacking together a deployment or CI script is basically an exercise in figuring out which API calls take what parameters, and I would not count it as programming for the purpose of retrospectively feeling like I wrote code.
burntoutfire 5y ago
The more senior you are, the less code you write. Also, the bigger the organization, the less code you write.
- nly 5y ago
  ... and the longer you stay in such a situation, the less sharp your programming skills become, and the less in touch you are with the way the industry is moving. It's not uncommon at all to interview people who have 10+ years experience at <Big Co> who can't even answer basic questions about industry-wide technology you're using, because they didn't bother to stay in touch...they didn't need if for their last role and thought that that would last forever. On the flip side, I see people get excited about <internal NIH syndrome technology> and learn all the ins and outs, and don't bother to research and find out that other companies or FOSS has been doing the same thing but better for a decade. And then, when they leave the company, that internal tech becomes inaccessible and the knowledge somewhat useless.
ismayilzadan 5y ago
Never-ending infrastructure migrations can be a contributer too. "Lets migrate to these new unix hosts, our spaghetti code will run 5 times faster after that"
woutr_be 5y ago
Doesn’t seem all that unlikely, I’ve personally gone weeks without writing code, usually leading up to a release where a lot of documentation and preparation has to be done.
toomanybeersies 5y ago
What were they doing? Management. Maybe not officially, quote possibly as an ad hoc manager due to deficiencies in the offical management. I've been in that position before. If you have a good relationship with your coworkers, it's more efficient to diagnose problems yourself and then ask your coworkers to fix them (i.e. play the PM role). I don't enjoy being a manager, I'd rather write code. However, I'd rather put fires out quickly by working as a team instead of playing the martyr and trying to do it all myself, or singing the "it's not my job, I'm not a PM" song while the ship is sinking.

What was an Application Engineer who has "not written any code for 3 months" doing for that amount of time then? Surfing Usenet? It seems like putting out fires would've involved at least some code.

systems_glitch 5y ago

Probably getting stuck managing other engineers or teams of them.

icedchai 5y ago

Meetings? Documentation? Support calls? These all can take tons of time.

cratermoon 5y ago

You might be surprised how fast time can pass when you're in a holding pattern while management dithers over the quarterly priorities.

mandelbrotwurst 5y ago

In addition to all of the things other commenters have mentioned, it may also have just been an exaggeration, and they're not counting things like fixing logical and configuration errors as writing code.

ahelwer 5y ago
Yeah. Hacking together a deployment or CI script is basically an exercise in figuring out which API calls take what parameters, and I would not count it as programming for the purpose of retrospectively feeling like I wrote code.

burntoutfire 5y ago

The more senior you are, the less code you write. Also, the bigger the organization, the less code you write.

nly 5y ago
... and the longer you stay in such a situation, the less sharp your programming skills become, and the less in touch you are with the way the industry is moving. It's not uncommon at all to interview people who have 10+ years experience at <Big Co> who can't even answer basic questions about industry-wide technology you're using, because they didn't bother to stay in touch...they didn't need if for their last role and thought that that would last forever. On the flip side, I see people get excited about <internal NIH syndrome technology> and learn all the ins and outs, and don't bother to research and find out that other companies or FOSS has been doing the same thing but better for a decade. And then, when they leave the company, that internal tech becomes inaccessible and the knowledge somewhat useless.

ismayilzadan 5y ago

Never-ending infrastructure migrations can be a contributer too. "Lets migrate to these new unix hosts, our spaghetti code will run 5 times faster after that"

woutr_be 5y ago

Doesn’t seem all that unlikely, I’ve personally gone weeks without writing code, usually leading up to a release where a lot of documentation and preparation has to be done.

toomanybeersies 5y ago

What were they doing? Management. Maybe not officially, quote possibly as an ad hoc manager due to deficiencies in the offical management. I've been in that position before. If you have a good relationship with your coworkers, it's more efficient to diagnose problems yourself and then ask your coworkers to fix them (i.e. play the PM role). I don't enjoy being a manager, I'd rather write code. However, I'd rather put fires out quickly by working as a team instead of playing the martyr and trying to do it all myself, or singing the "it's not my job, I'm not a PM" song while the ship is sinking.