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"The mission of the Amazon Developer Platform team is to accelerate Amazon.com shopping experience development via empowering and delighting developers." Ugh.

by prirun 5y ago

"The mission of the Amazon Developer Platform team is to accelerate Amazon.com shopping experience development via empowering and delighting developers." Ugh. I hate that everything has to be delightful now.

marktangotango 5y ago
Agreed it completely dreadful. (No sarcasm intended)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mason55 5y ago
As a... developer I want... the development experience to be delightful So I can... be delighted
- chihuahua 5y ago
  If they aim for "delightful", but achieve "pretty good", that's still a success and worth the effort.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  how do your jobs delight you? My experience - back from when jobs only wanted you to have fun but it seems to be the same thing - is they give you foosball and ping pong and maybe a gym membership - ok also some times free soft drinks and good cafeterias? So I guess I like some of that stuff now that I've listed it all but I was never really delighted, maybe just happy I could get a coke with my burger. I guess to delight me I need magic doorways and 1920s era Santa Claus (none of this post modern stuff where Santa is a trained killer who enslaves elves or stuff, I don't like it)
  - brimble 5y ago
    The parent post was a parody of a user story in a very common format, possibly intended to highlight how little concrete information "delightful" conveys.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      didn't notice, but you're right on re-reading. I dislike the user story format though.
  - nfw2 5y ago
    When something is terrible, then becomes not-so-terrible (like the JIRA issues page), it makes me happy. That's what they mean. Solving developer's problems so they can make them happier, or, for the jaded one, at least not as miserable
  - nijave 5y ago
    Honestly just being able to get work done without blocker after blocker appearing is "delightful" Too many places have horizontal silos, elaborate bureaucratic policies, throw it over the wall mentality It's surprising some places pay engineers so much to fill out e-paperwork all day
    - dvtrn 5y ago
      Too many places have horizontal silos, elaborate bureaucratic policies, throw it over the wall mentality While looking you dead in the face and saying "we've broken down all of our silos". Current job is this way. "We are all DevOps" Yet only one person is allowed to deploy, build pipelines, and provision resources. No one's broken down any silos, they just changed the name on the land deed and kept the silos where they are.
      - throwaway6532 5y ago
        If anyone hadn't noticed even entire countries do this. I'm looking at you Democratic People's Republic of Korea!
- throwaway6532 5y ago
  As a developer I want the damn thing to work So I don't have to tear my hear out
mgraczyk 5y ago
"Product Spec: Surprise and delight users by displaying their birthday on the settings page" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  Still waiting on those ISO timestamps from OmegaStar.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    And what will you truly feel when you finally deliver value? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYvhC_RdIwQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYvhC_RdIwQ
coffeefirst 5y ago
Yep. Everything is delightful but nothing works.
- speed_spread 5y ago
  I'm delighted to have an excuse not to work!
- nfw2 5y ago
  That doesn't sound very delightful to me
clem 5y ago
"How perfectly goddamned delightful it all is, to be sure." - Charles Crumb
hyperdunc 5y ago
This kind of hyberbolic language is everywhere now. 30 years ago this phrase might have captured attention in a non-cynical way. There's too much content now, and it's a race to the bottom as every piece tries to gain attention.
rootusrootus 5y ago
I would be delighted by an absurd amount of compensation.
- openknot 5y ago
  That has its limits. Corporate lawyers and investment banking analysts (from a Financial Times report [0]) receive absurd compensation, but still report high rates of burnout and mental health issues due to incredibly long hours (95 hour work weeks with five hours of sleep a night, according to first-year analysts at Goldman Sachs) and high demands. [0] (Paywalled, but to cite the source) https://www.ft.com/content/f4006248-eb05-49d2-a938-d70118c4ce1b https://www.ft.com/content/f4006248-eb05-49d2-a938-d70118c4c...
nijave 5y ago
Still better than the miserable places doing nothing to address their 20 year old software development practices
tasha0663 5y ago
Delighting? Is that some new framework or something? 2+ years experience delighting or similar?
- weq 5y ago
  ahaha yep!
nfw2 5y ago
People who are turned off by this language are not the people the team wants. They want engineers who feel deeply satisfied when things work and work well because those are the ones that will obsess over the consumer experience. If you aren't the sort of person to feel any sort of "delight" about good tools, then the job probably isn't a good fit for you because the responsibility of the job is to build tools.
- earleybird 5y ago
  Nah, they're looking for those who get that endorphin rush when something works which they then exploit. Seen this since the '80s. "Young, smart, willing to work til you drop - you're our kind of hire"
- openknot 5y ago
  This is an interesting perspective, but it may not be necessarily true that: 'If you aren't the sort of person to feel any sort of "delight" about good tools, then the job probably isn't a good fit for you because the responsibility of the job is to build tools.' A professional can be perfectionist (in a good, not procrastinating way) and hold high standards to their work about creating good tools. Perhaps this is captured by 'delight,' but the language seems phrased in a way that 'delight' means showing positivity, bright energy, and explicit enthusiasm for work. I think it's better for both the individual and the organization when there's a certain level of detachment with the work (so there's commitment to perfectionism but not super high enthusiasm that can be lead to burnout and health problems), but still high standards to ship a good product.
  - nfw2 5y ago
    In my own experience, I've struggled the most with burnout specifically while on a DX team. The team was managed and entirely comprised of engineers transferred from other departments, most of whom had little-to-no interest in HCI, human factors, or design. Every decision was made according to some arbitrary dogma about consistency or some other abstract CS principle. The manager was explicitly against sourcing any feedback from the teams we served when determining our priorities and roadmap. The result was tools that were essentially unusable, and endless refactoring from one tech stack configuration to another without actually solving any real-world problems. For me, burnout was the result of clocking in every day to do what felt like meaningless work. I agree with the general consensus that delight is an awkward word to use here, but it does at least signal that the team is run with a user-first mentality.

by prirun 5y ago

marktangotango 5y ago

Agreed it completely dreadful. (No sarcasm intended)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mason55 5y ago

As a... developer I want... the development experience to be delightful So I can... be delighted

chihuahua 5y ago
If they aim for "delightful", but achieve "pretty good", that's still a success and worth the effort.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
how do your jobs delight you? My experience - back from when jobs only wanted you to have fun but it seems to be the same thing - is they give you foosball and ping pong and maybe a gym membership - ok also some times free soft drinks and good cafeterias? So I guess I like some of that stuff now that I've listed it all but I was never really delighted, maybe just happy I could get a coke with my burger. I guess to delight me I need magic doorways and 1920s era Santa Claus (none of this post modern stuff where Santa is a trained killer who enslaves elves or stuff, I don't like it)
- brimble 5y ago
  The parent post was a parody of a user story in a very common format, possibly intended to highlight how little concrete information "delightful" conveys.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    didn't notice, but you're right on re-reading. I dislike the user story format though.
- nfw2 5y ago
  When something is terrible, then becomes not-so-terrible (like the JIRA issues page), it makes me happy. That's what they mean. Solving developer's problems so they can make them happier, or, for the jaded one, at least not as miserable
- nijave 5y ago
  Honestly just being able to get work done without blocker after blocker appearing is "delightful" Too many places have horizontal silos, elaborate bureaucratic policies, throw it over the wall mentality It's surprising some places pay engineers so much to fill out e-paperwork all day
  - dvtrn 5y ago
    Too many places have horizontal silos, elaborate bureaucratic policies, throw it over the wall mentality While looking you dead in the face and saying "we've broken down all of our silos". Current job is this way. "We are all DevOps" Yet only one person is allowed to deploy, build pipelines, and provision resources. No one's broken down any silos, they just changed the name on the land deed and kept the silos where they are.
    - throwaway6532 5y ago
      If anyone hadn't noticed even entire countries do this. I'm looking at you Democratic People's Republic of Korea!
throwaway6532 5y ago
As a developer I want the damn thing to work So I don't have to tear my hear out

mgraczyk 5y ago

"Product Spec: Surprise and delight users by displaying their birthday on the settings page" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ

Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
Still waiting on those ISO timestamps from OmegaStar.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  And what will you truly feel when you finally deliver value? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYvhC_RdIwQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYvhC_RdIwQ

coffeefirst 5y ago

Yep. Everything is delightful but nothing works.

speed_spread 5y ago
I'm delighted to have an excuse not to work!
nfw2 5y ago
That doesn't sound very delightful to me

clem 5y ago

"How perfectly goddamned delightful it all is, to be sure." - Charles Crumb

hyperdunc 5y ago

This kind of hyberbolic language is everywhere now. 30 years ago this phrase might have captured attention in a non-cynical way. There's too much content now, and it's a race to the bottom as every piece tries to gain attention.

rootusrootus 5y ago

I would be delighted by an absurd amount of compensation.

openknot 5y ago
That has its limits. Corporate lawyers and investment banking analysts (from a Financial Times report [0]) receive absurd compensation, but still report high rates of burnout and mental health issues due to incredibly long hours (95 hour work weeks with five hours of sleep a night, according to first-year analysts at Goldman Sachs) and high demands. [0] (Paywalled, but to cite the source) https://www.ft.com/content/f4006248-eb05-49d2-a938-d70118c4ce1b https://www.ft.com/content/f4006248-eb05-49d2-a938-d70118c4c...

nijave 5y ago

Still better than the miserable places doing nothing to address their 20 year old software development practices

tasha0663 5y ago

Delighting? Is that some new framework or something? 2+ years experience delighting or similar?

weq 5y ago
ahaha yep!

nfw2 5y ago

People who are turned off by this language are not the people the team wants. They want engineers who feel deeply satisfied when things work and work well because those are the ones that will obsess over the consumer experience. If you aren't the sort of person to feel any sort of "delight" about good tools, then the job probably isn't a good fit for you because the responsibility of the job is to build tools.

earleybird 5y ago
Nah, they're looking for those who get that endorphin rush when something works which they then exploit. Seen this since the '80s. "Young, smart, willing to work til you drop - you're our kind of hire"
openknot 5y ago
This is an interesting perspective, but it may not be necessarily true that: 'If you aren't the sort of person to feel any sort of "delight" about good tools, then the job probably isn't a good fit for you because the responsibility of the job is to build tools.' A professional can be perfectionist (in a good, not procrastinating way) and hold high standards to their work about creating good tools. Perhaps this is captured by 'delight,' but the language seems phrased in a way that 'delight' means showing positivity, bright energy, and explicit enthusiasm for work. I think it's better for both the individual and the organization when there's a certain level of detachment with the work (so there's commitment to perfectionism but not super high enthusiasm that can be lead to burnout and health problems), but still high standards to ship a good product.
- nfw2 5y ago
  In my own experience, I've struggled the most with burnout specifically while on a DX team. The team was managed and entirely comprised of engineers transferred from other departments, most of whom had little-to-no interest in HCI, human factors, or design. Every decision was made according to some arbitrary dogma about consistency or some other abstract CS principle. The manager was explicitly against sourcing any feedback from the teams we served when determining our priorities and roadmap. The result was tools that were essentially unusable, and endless refactoring from one tech stack configuration to another without actually solving any real-world problems. For me, burnout was the result of clocking in every day to do what felt like meaningless work. I agree with the general consensus that delight is an awkward word to use here, but it does at least signal that the team is run with a user-first mentality.