3 ms·

> hiring enough people will replace 10x engineers The math is not that simple. The output of a Junior engineer is much different from that of a Senior engineer

by tcgv 5y ago

> hiring enough people will replace 10x engineers The math is not that simple. The output of a Junior engineer is much different from that of a Senior engineer. You can hire any number of Junior engineers you want, and they won't have the vision and seasoned experience of a Senior engineer for producing higher quality code with less technical debt. Even among Senior engineers there are different grades of experience/competence/capability.

adolph 5y ago
Cue the link to Mythical Man Month: central theme is that "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month
cloverich 5y ago
I think its important to understand there are also relatively high floors to getting certain things done well. If the engineer is too junior or simply not good enough, its not that you will get there slower, its that you may not get there at all. Or you get there slowly and with a very buggy or unmaintainable mess. Some engineers can even go backwards in that sense, attempting to optimize the wrong solution and spending months on something that in honesty can't actually be completed.
tinco 5y ago
I've had junior engineers outperforming senior engineers, even counting the hours I had to spend correcting and guiding. Some engineers are just slow. I don't think it's much correlated with experience. If your goal was never to be a super productive programmer, I don't think you'll ever become one. This might also be why there is this spectre of agism in the industry. Everyone knows there's greybeards out there that would eat your lunch and get paid the big bucks, but at the same time older programmers have hard times interviewing. At that age most of the really great programmers have probably already been fished out of the pond.
- tracker1 5y ago
  I think it depends... where I am now (third from last day), I'm one of the younger devs at 46yo. which is wild to me... about 2/4 of those here older than me have little interest in taking on new approaches or techniques. The other 1/4 absolutely work to stay current. Some are coasting to retirement, others of us don't ever plan to stop. I will say, my recent stint of interviews over the past 6 weeks or so has been pretty painful. Everyone seems to be going through 6+ interview stages. The reality, even then, I'm not sure they're getting a great signal:noise outcome. Some of the tests are for things that will never be used for those jobs on any given day. I do miss my 20's when an interview was maybe an hour and a half on an afternoon, and an offer shortly after.
  - tinco 5y ago
    It's crazy, I wonder if it actually works and they actually get a higher percentage of good coders. I just do a face to face, then a take home assignment, then another face to face where we discuss the take home, and then I immediately make the decision. I skip the take home if they've got impressive GitHub accounts or other clear public displays of skill.

by tcgv 5y ago

adolph 5y ago

Cue the link to Mythical Man Month: central theme is that "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

cloverich 5y ago

I think its important to understand there are also relatively high floors to getting certain things done well. If the engineer is too junior or simply not good enough, its not that you will get there slower, its that you may not get there at all. Or you get there slowly and with a very buggy or unmaintainable mess. Some engineers can even go backwards in that sense, attempting to optimize the wrong solution and spending months on something that in honesty can't actually be completed.

tinco 5y ago

I've had junior engineers outperforming senior engineers, even counting the hours I had to spend correcting and guiding. Some engineers are just slow. I don't think it's much correlated with experience. If your goal was never to be a super productive programmer, I don't think you'll ever become one. This might also be why there is this spectre of agism in the industry. Everyone knows there's greybeards out there that would eat your lunch and get paid the big bucks, but at the same time older programmers have hard times interviewing. At that age most of the really great programmers have probably already been fished out of the pond.

tracker1 5y ago
I think it depends... where I am now (third from last day), I'm one of the younger devs at 46yo. which is wild to me... about 2/4 of those here older than me have little interest in taking on new approaches or techniques. The other 1/4 absolutely work to stay current. Some are coasting to retirement, others of us don't ever plan to stop. I will say, my recent stint of interviews over the past 6 weeks or so has been pretty painful. Everyone seems to be going through 6+ interview stages. The reality, even then, I'm not sure they're getting a great signal:noise outcome. Some of the tests are for things that will never be used for those jobs on any given day. I do miss my 20's when an interview was maybe an hour and a half on an afternoon, and an offer shortly after.
- tinco 5y ago
  It's crazy, I wonder if it actually works and they actually get a higher percentage of good coders. I just do a face to face, then a take home assignment, then another face to face where we discuss the take home, and then I immediately make the decision. I skip the take home if they've got impressive GitHub accounts or other clear public displays of skill.