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I work for a Fortune 500 company. Through a strange set of circumstances I ended up as a developer embedded in a business unit for 18 years. It was very much li

I work for a Fortune 500 company. Through a strange set of circumstances I ended up as a developer embedded in a business unit for 18 years. It was very much like the “then” described in the article. No ceremonial meetings, no sprints, given offices with doors, etc. Then the company decided to consolidate all tech people. For the past 2 years I’ve had an IT manager. I am absolutely astounded how much time is wasted in the modern IT world. Ceremonial meetings, recurring meetings, sprints, etc. I’d say I’m 10% as effective as before. I seriously have weeks were I spend a single hour writing code. And the IT managers are perfectly okay with this! It blows my mind how utterly inefficient they have managed to make coding and the results are definitely not any better. Oh, and the QA thing. Anyone that thinks test driven development can replace a dedicated QA person, clearly has no business working in the world of software development. But, I’ve found that I can’t actually say any of this out loud at work. The IT managers are so brainwashed that they can’t see the reality of what is going on. I’m convinced all of this is for the purpose of giving IT managers something to do to justify their existence.

sam_lowry_ 5y ago
I am seeing this shift between then and now as natural growth of bullshit jobs.
vidanay 5y ago
20 years at a division of a F500 company here. Luckily, we have not been sidelined into the ceremony and incantations of "modern" software development. Our most formalized process is a very strong PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) workflow.
France_is_bacon 5y ago
As I wrote elsewhere, it all depends on the size of the department, and the manager. If you work where there's 3-15 in the tech department, either a small unit of a large company, or just a small or medium-sized company, you have more autonomy and authority. But if you are one of 200 programmers, then no. That was true back then as I'm sure it is now. In the same respects, if you have a sh-t manager back then, big company or small, it is the same thing. Micromanaging, time-wasting, with a sh-tty boss. Or you could have a great manager back then or now, who keeps general tabs on things, and only starts getting to become a micromanager if the person under them starts f-cking up, which as it should be. But let's say you work at a large plumbing company with 200 plumbers, and you have a tech department of 7 people and an admin staff of 25. The CEO is a plumber and what does he know about tech, the COO is working on coordinating trucks and insurance and personnel and all kinds of other things, and the CFO has his hands busy just keeping up with accounting. Nobody is going to mess with you, as long as YOU don't mess up. They don't even know how to help you, and they are too busy with their own sh-t. Except in the biggest picture view, of course. Then, all you have to hope for is that the manager is good. Usually they are, because they are busy. But I've worked at Fortune 500 companies in local offices or regions where I was the only person doing what I was doing, and absolutely no one bothered me, because I was there by myself. Sure, I talked to a lot of people in the company to see what they needed to have done, but after that, my time was my own. I can't imagine it would be any different now, in the same circumstances.
tablespoon 5y ago
> Ceremonial meetings, recurring meetings, sprints, etc. Which is ironic, because the "modern" incarnation of those things evolved directly out of an explicit reaction against them.
thex10 5y ago
> I seriously have weeks were I spend a single hour writing code. So what do you accomplish in the rest of that weeks? What does your org expect you to do? (Genuine question, I'm just curious).
- ipaddr 5y ago
  You usually end up making and changing product plans. Meeting with others about changing the product plan. Code reviews.. standups.. I guess you have never ended up in meetings about meetings. I've been there. People schedule meetings for a living. It took 9 months to add a field once.
- irrational 5y ago
  Meetings. I am absolutely astonished at the number of meetings IT managers come up with. I'm 100% convinced that the purpose of meetings is for managers to be able to claim that they did something this week to their higher ups (who, of course, are doing the same thing).
  - nine_zeros 5y ago
    I concur. Managers really don't have anything tangible to show for themselves. Enter bureaucracy, tickets, meetings, docs and more docs. More meetings. Their status report is more meetings.
  - tharkun__ 5y ago
    I get it, that manager of yours has lots of meetings to go to or hold himself. Being in the same spot (tho "IT Manager" is not my title and I hope it never will be lol) I do understand how it gets to be this way. I have weeks where I only get to code 0 hours. Others I code for maybe a day total across the whole week or maybe 2. It comes and goes. When we on boarded 3 new guys on the team in the same weeks for example I got to not code at all for a few weeks as I'd rather unblock each of them, answer their questions etc. That's OK by me. I was able to do that because I do code myself still, I know our systems etc. and the regular 1:1s we gotta do (which are important as well) are mixed in with this as well and become actual "meetings" in WFH situations instead of "accidentally bumping into them at the coffee machine". Now as for IC developers only coding a single hour in a week, there's something very wrong indeed if you ask me. I'm thinking "The Office" here. If you don't mind my asking what kinds of meetings did they invent for ICs to attend for 39 hours a week?
brundolf 5y ago
> I work for a Fortune 500 company I think this is your problem, not modernity. In my 7 years working I've always stayed at smaller companies and I've never really had the problems you describe.

sam_lowry_ 5y ago

I am seeing this shift between then and now as natural growth of bullshit jobs.

vidanay 5y ago

20 years at a division of a F500 company here. Luckily, we have not been sidelined into the ceremony and incantations of "modern" software development. Our most formalized process is a very strong PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) workflow.

France_is_bacon 5y ago

As I wrote elsewhere, it all depends on the size of the department, and the manager. If you work where there's 3-15 in the tech department, either a small unit of a large company, or just a small or medium-sized company, you have more autonomy and authority. But if you are one of 200 programmers, then no. That was true back then as I'm sure it is now. In the same respects, if you have a sh-t manager back then, big company or small, it is the same thing. Micromanaging, time-wasting, with a sh-tty boss. Or you could have a great manager back then or now, who keeps general tabs on things, and only starts getting to become a micromanager if the person under them starts f-cking up, which as it should be. But let's say you work at a large plumbing company with 200 plumbers, and you have a tech department of 7 people and an admin staff of 25. The CEO is a plumber and what does he know about tech, the COO is working on coordinating trucks and insurance and personnel and all kinds of other things, and the CFO has his hands busy just keeping up with accounting. Nobody is going to mess with you, as long as YOU don't mess up. They don't even know how to help you, and they are too busy with their own sh-t. Except in the biggest picture view, of course. Then, all you have to hope for is that the manager is good. Usually they are, because they are busy. But I've worked at Fortune 500 companies in local offices or regions where I was the only person doing what I was doing, and absolutely no one bothered me, because I was there by myself. Sure, I talked to a lot of people in the company to see what they needed to have done, but after that, my time was my own. I can't imagine it would be any different now, in the same circumstances.

tablespoon 5y ago

> Ceremonial meetings, recurring meetings, sprints, etc. Which is ironic, because the "modern" incarnation of those things evolved directly out of an explicit reaction against them.

thex10 5y ago

> I seriously have weeks were I spend a single hour writing code. So what do you accomplish in the rest of that weeks? What does your org expect you to do? (Genuine question, I'm just curious).

ipaddr 5y ago
You usually end up making and changing product plans. Meeting with others about changing the product plan. Code reviews.. standups.. I guess you have never ended up in meetings about meetings. I've been there. People schedule meetings for a living. It took 9 months to add a field once.
irrational 5y ago
Meetings. I am absolutely astonished at the number of meetings IT managers come up with. I'm 100% convinced that the purpose of meetings is for managers to be able to claim that they did something this week to their higher ups (who, of course, are doing the same thing).
- nine_zeros 5y ago
  I concur. Managers really don't have anything tangible to show for themselves. Enter bureaucracy, tickets, meetings, docs and more docs. More meetings. Their status report is more meetings.
- tharkun__ 5y ago
  I get it, that manager of yours has lots of meetings to go to or hold himself. Being in the same spot (tho "IT Manager" is not my title and I hope it never will be lol) I do understand how it gets to be this way. I have weeks where I only get to code 0 hours. Others I code for maybe a day total across the whole week or maybe 2. It comes and goes. When we on boarded 3 new guys on the team in the same weeks for example I got to not code at all for a few weeks as I'd rather unblock each of them, answer their questions etc. That's OK by me. I was able to do that because I do code myself still, I know our systems etc. and the regular 1:1s we gotta do (which are important as well) are mixed in with this as well and become actual "meetings" in WFH situations instead of "accidentally bumping into them at the coffee machine". Now as for IC developers only coding a single hour in a week, there's something very wrong indeed if you ask me. I'm thinking "The Office" here. If you don't mind my asking what kinds of meetings did they invent for ICs to attend for 39 hours a week?

brundolf 5y ago

> I work for a Fortune 500 company I think this is your problem, not modernity. In my 7 years working I've always stayed at smaller companies and I've never really had the problems you describe.