4 ms·

The personal brand thing is interesting. I feel like I've had plenty of job security, and I've been through company downsizing, but the layoffs never got big en

The personal brand thing is interesting. I feel like I've had plenty of job security, and I've been through company downsizing, but the layoffs never got big enough to be any threat to me. But I was an Army officer before I got into engineering, and it's obviously a different culture for a very good reason, but due to the fact that the mission is bigger than any person and the organization needs to operate and succeed in environments where all individuals can be killed at any moment, it was always drilled into us to be constantly training your replacement. Make sure you are never the only person who knows what you know or can do what you can do. I've taken that mindset with me and continue to meticulously document everything I do and constantly train others, so that I certainly hope no organization ever fears losing me will drive them out of business, though I don't think they want to lose me, either I had a very notable team member at my last employer who was an exact picture of everything opposite to that. He was a complete rock star, always the person called in to put out any fire, always being moved around and temporarily assigned to augment whatever team was having the most trouble. He'd been there longer than anyone else and personally built out a whole lot of bespoke automation tooling with no peer review, no documentation, and no one else really understood it. That specific program really might go under and the company would lose an enormous contract if he ever left. But is that really a good thing? The only reason they're in that situation is because of the way he works in the first place, combined with outdated processes where the management and senior technical leadership is so narrowly blindered by their focus on user-facing features that they have no awareness of what is happening in the realm of platform and developer automation tooling and how reliant on it they are. This is a conflict between individual and organizational rationality. And I don't expect individuals to solve it or blame them for being individually rational at the expense of organizations. By all means, keep up the hustle and do what is best for you and your family. But man, there has to be a better way to accomplish collective action.

me_me_me 5y ago
> This is a conflict between individual and organizational rationality I don't see any conflict here. I am not and 'the organisation'. I am hired by one to do a job. I lookout for myself first of all. I am not paid to protect 'the org', and lets not kid ourselves 'the org' will NOT protect me. So why would you put org before you? The way I see it is that you got some goodwill from peers and mgmt but you consciously made yourself replaceable. If mgmt knew you documented all you workload and an intern could just waltz in, read through all docs and do what you do for 1/2 the salary - you will be out on the first bus. The 'super star dev' - if he goes the business will hurt. Mgmt cant afford let him go. If I were to pick a role I would definitely go with the 'star dev' over you. Mainly because they can negotiate his pay as he has leverage. Also they don't have to play too much of office politics as they are in position of power already.
- neilv 5y ago
  > I am not paid to protect 'the org', Just last week, I reiterated to execs that part of the job of an engineer is to "document themself out of a job" (regarding documenting designs, code, processes, etc. so well that other engineers could take it up). An earlier time, when I mentioned that more verbosely, I asserted that the kinds of hires who will do that (automatically, or by embracing the culture we nurture) tend to be the best engineers, and the most valuable to the org. This goes against old advice about job security for some people, like "be the only one who knows how to do that thing the org thinks is important". And against more recent job security advice, where job security is about hopping between orgs rather than investing with one. Popular contemporary gems of advice seem to include "let your project be guided by your resume keyword goals, then hop to another company for a salary bump in 1-3 years, before the chickens of your misaligned work come home to roost at the org." :) I can't say that everyone will recognize when an individual invests in working for their colleague/team/org rather than solely for themselves. But, besides on-principle reasons for doing that, some people will recognize it, especially people who do it themselves, and those are some of the people you probably most want to work with.
  - Pokepokalypse 5y ago
    correct. >'the org' will NOT protect me. So why would you put org before you? This kind of thinking. . . would you set off on a horseback ride and NOT feed your horse?
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      That depends on whether the horse likes me or not. I would rather ride a donkey though, temperament means the org is opinionated and has some values and goals. I would defend my current company because I have relations to the people working there that make up the company as a whole. If you expect blind obedience, I probably would leave for another company.
    - me_me_me 5y ago
      This is not a zero sum game. You can be a team player in order to make your life easier and others that work with you. But laying down all of your cards on the table leaves you vulnerable to exploitation by less scrupulous people. What I was critisising was a view that you as a worker should think of the wellbing of organisation first and foremost. Its a slippery slope that can lead to harmful outcomes for the individuals.
MattGaiser 5y ago
> But is that really a good thing? There are winners and losers. I think he definitely won.
Pokepokalypse 5y ago
I 100% agree with every part of this. If you ever find yourself in an organization that is full of "rockstar" or cowboy coders, it's often easier to get out and find something better, than it is to fix that broken culture. >But man, there has to be a better way to accomplish collective action. I've always said that the main purpose for programming languages is for engineers to communicate intent to other engineers. (including the original author; who may have lost that mental context 6-12 months down the road). If programming languages were only about telling computers what to do, we'd all be coding in assembly.
- canadian_tired 5y ago
  >If programming languages were only about telling computers what to do, we'd all be coding in assembly. Damn. That is pure gold. Thank-you. Get this on a t-shirt or something, would you?

me_me_me 5y ago

> This is a conflict between individual and organizational rationality I don't see any conflict here. I am not and 'the organisation'. I am hired by one to do a job. I lookout for myself first of all. I am not paid to protect 'the org', and lets not kid ourselves 'the org' will NOT protect me. So why would you put org before you? The way I see it is that you got some goodwill from peers and mgmt but you consciously made yourself replaceable. If mgmt knew you documented all you workload and an intern could just waltz in, read through all docs and do what you do for 1/2 the salary - you will be out on the first bus. The 'super star dev' - if he goes the business will hurt. Mgmt cant afford let him go. If I were to pick a role I would definitely go with the 'star dev' over you. Mainly because they can negotiate his pay as he has leverage. Also they don't have to play too much of office politics as they are in position of power already.

neilv 5y ago
> I am not paid to protect 'the org', Just last week, I reiterated to execs that part of the job of an engineer is to "document themself out of a job" (regarding documenting designs, code, processes, etc. so well that other engineers could take it up). An earlier time, when I mentioned that more verbosely, I asserted that the kinds of hires who will do that (automatically, or by embracing the culture we nurture) tend to be the best engineers, and the most valuable to the org. This goes against old advice about job security for some people, like "be the only one who knows how to do that thing the org thinks is important". And against more recent job security advice, where job security is about hopping between orgs rather than investing with one. Popular contemporary gems of advice seem to include "let your project be guided by your resume keyword goals, then hop to another company for a salary bump in 1-3 years, before the chickens of your misaligned work come home to roost at the org." :) I can't say that everyone will recognize when an individual invests in working for their colleague/team/org rather than solely for themselves. But, besides on-principle reasons for doing that, some people will recognize it, especially people who do it themselves, and those are some of the people you probably most want to work with.
- Pokepokalypse 5y ago
  correct. >'the org' will NOT protect me. So why would you put org before you? This kind of thinking. . . would you set off on a horseback ride and NOT feed your horse?
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    That depends on whether the horse likes me or not. I would rather ride a donkey though, temperament means the org is opinionated and has some values and goals. I would defend my current company because I have relations to the people working there that make up the company as a whole. If you expect blind obedience, I probably would leave for another company.
  - me_me_me 5y ago
    This is not a zero sum game. You can be a team player in order to make your life easier and others that work with you. But laying down all of your cards on the table leaves you vulnerable to exploitation by less scrupulous people. What I was critisising was a view that you as a worker should think of the wellbing of organisation first and foremost. Its a slippery slope that can lead to harmful outcomes for the individuals.

MattGaiser 5y ago

> But is that really a good thing? There are winners and losers. I think he definitely won.

Pokepokalypse 5y ago

I 100% agree with every part of this. If you ever find yourself in an organization that is full of "rockstar" or cowboy coders, it's often easier to get out and find something better, than it is to fix that broken culture. >But man, there has to be a better way to accomplish collective action. I've always said that the main purpose for programming languages is for engineers to communicate intent to other engineers. (including the original author; who may have lost that mental context 6-12 months down the road). If programming languages were only about telling computers what to do, we'd all be coding in assembly.

canadian_tired 5y ago
>If programming languages were only about telling computers what to do, we'd all be coding in assembly. Damn. That is pure gold. Thank-you. Get this on a t-shirt or something, would you?