4 ms·

A lot of companies have found success in treating engineers fungibly. If you think of the engineers as part of the computer system, this actually adds resilienc

by kache_ 5y ago

A lot of companies have found success in treating engineers fungibly. If you think of the engineers as part of the computer system, this actually adds resilience in that front, traded off by resiliency of the software itself. If you lose 10 software engineers due to the bus factor, the fact that you already are treating engineers fungibly gives you resilience on that front.

tomc1985 5y ago
Making people fungible dehumanizes them. Personally I hate having to job hop just to get what I wanted from this industry. The business community wants everybody and everything as replaceable and fungible as possible, to its long-term detriment. That so many see short-term "success" and call it that should be far more appalling than it seems to be. Take Circuit City, for example, which, when it was already struggling, let go all of its senior sales people on the floor and replaced them with minimum wage. The knowledgeable salespeople was pretty much the only thing going for Circuit City at the time. Customers noticed, responded, and the business fell off a cliff
- hnxs 5y ago
  > Making people fungible dehumanizes them. that’s just capitalism
  - tomc1985 5y ago
    No, it's not. Far more capitalism in many other countries operates with workforces that have been there for generations. We used to offer pensions here in the US, that is still going elsewhere and in government Human capital has value and appreciates over the long-term
- jcadam 5y ago
  > Personally I hate having to job hop just to get what I wanted from this industry. A couple of times I've landed at a good company, where I figured I could stay for a long time and build something resembling a traditional career. But something invariably changes - the company gets acquired by some MegaCorp, a leadership changeover, your awesome team gets disbanded and scattered, etc... c'est la vie.
  - bluefirebrand 5y ago
    I'm going through this right now. Really great team, great project, great codebase, loved a lot of things about it. Then a leadership change happened. I've got a new job, gave my notice, and hopefully will keep in touch with the people I like here. Very bittersweet time.
    - tomc1985 5y ago
      The story of my career. Literally EVERY good employer I've had suffered some change a year or two into my tenure that turned the place around... into a shithole.

by kache_ 5y ago

tomc1985 5y ago

Making people fungible dehumanizes them. Personally I hate having to job hop just to get what I wanted from this industry. The business community wants everybody and everything as replaceable and fungible as possible, to its long-term detriment. That so many see short-term "success" and call it that should be far more appalling than it seems to be. Take Circuit City, for example, which, when it was already struggling, let go all of its senior sales people on the floor and replaced them with minimum wage. The knowledgeable salespeople was pretty much the only thing going for Circuit City at the time. Customers noticed, responded, and the business fell off a cliff

hnxs 5y ago
> Making people fungible dehumanizes them. that’s just capitalism
- tomc1985 5y ago
  No, it's not. Far more capitalism in many other countries operates with workforces that have been there for generations. We used to offer pensions here in the US, that is still going elsewhere and in government Human capital has value and appreciates over the long-term
jcadam 5y ago
> Personally I hate having to job hop just to get what I wanted from this industry. A couple of times I've landed at a good company, where I figured I could stay for a long time and build something resembling a traditional career. But something invariably changes - the company gets acquired by some MegaCorp, a leadership changeover, your awesome team gets disbanded and scattered, etc... c'est la vie.
- bluefirebrand 5y ago
  I'm going through this right now. Really great team, great project, great codebase, loved a lot of things about it. Then a leadership change happened. I've got a new job, gave my notice, and hopefully will keep in touch with the people I like here. Very bittersweet time.
  - tomc1985 5y ago
    The story of my career. Literally EVERY good employer I've had suffered some change a year or two into my tenure that turned the place around... into a shithole.