5 ms·

This is the main reason, and you can't blame engineers. The only way to raise your salary is to job hop, so the only point of having a job is to train for your

This is the main reason, and you can't blame engineers. The only way to raise your salary is to job hop, so the only point of having a job is to train for your next job. Also, as a company trying to hire people you need to use the latest fads to attract new employees. It is a vicious cycle for sure. There is no room in this dysfunctional industry to use simple proven technology that is appropriate to your size.

weatherlite 5y ago
> and you can't blame engineers I think you can definitely blame them and in fact I'd expect CTO's and managers to discourage employees from doing that. A small silly decision can later cost millions in rewrites or maintenance. In the end we'll all benefit if not every brochure website needs to have 50 micro services and use the latest nosql solution. We're the ones who end up maintaining these systems.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jacobsenscott 5y ago
  You can discourage that. And people move on to jobs where they can pad their resume, and it gets harder and harder to hire people because they don't see a future in your "boring tech stack".
  - weatherlite 5y ago
    Just as there are people who'd leave if the stack is "boring" there are people who'd leave if the tech stack is insane. Personally I wouldn't want to work in a team that prioritizes resume driven development. It's usually teams that care very little about the company or product, their only motivation is tinkering with shiny tech. That's not for me.
    - AA-BA-94-2A-56 5y ago
      Means to an end. I'd work in a team that prioritises resume-driven development for about a year, to brush myself up on all the new stuff. I think it'd be foolish not to, honestly. It comes down to whether you see the software you write or yourself as the important product of writing software. Paradoxically, I see myself as the most important product. Usually my work is a tradeoff between being productive and teaching myself. If I'm being too productive, I back off and experiment more and teach myself concepts.
      - weatherlite 5y ago
        > being productive and teaching myself You can learn Kafka, Map Reduce, Elixir, DynamoDB and shiny new JS framework X like Meteor or whatever, or you can just go deeper on the fundamentals and the traditional tech you already know (learning SQL to a deeper level, becoming really good in Java/.NET/PHP/vanilla JS etc etc). I think the job market has room for both; and to me the second path is more enjoyable and sustainable but to each his own.
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    Is the chicken or egg first? Are companies constantly changing to hip new stacks to attract talent, or are developers constantly scrambling to gain experience on hip new stacks in order to be employable by companies who are constantly changing to hip new stacks? Developers complain "I need to learn NewTech because OldTech is old and no cool company uses it anymore." And hiring managers complain "We need to move from OldTech to NewTech because we can't find developers interested in OldTech anymore."
    - mmcdermott 5y ago
      My observation is that both occur and the balance tends to vary by company. I've been in the room when technology N+1 was selected because there weren't many developers for technology N, but I've also seen developers working cool and trendy things into projects that don't strictly need it (where there is a sliding Overton Window around what is "cool" or "trendy").
- ElevenLathe 5y ago
  > We're the ones who end up maintaining these systems. ...and making good salary doing it!
  - weatherlite 5y ago
    I agree but we can put more focus on the product, code quality and users if we don't practice resume driven development that much. And still earn a nice paycheck.
- wpietri 5y ago
  Yeah, I don't get this "You can't blame people for doing the totally self-centered thing." I can and will. That's basically the point of blame: to shift consequences for a harmful action back to the person who made the choice. That's not the only thing we should do, of course. Systemic problems are better fixed with systemic changes. But there's nothing wrong with holding people accountable.
  - horsawlarway 5y ago
    I don't really understand your complaint here. Unless they have a real stake in the company (as in non-trivial equity grants) why the hell would they prioritize making you additional money (or saving money) by using tooling that will make them a less valuable hire in the future? They are getting paid to accomplish a task for you, they are NOT getting paid more if they use tools that would be more effective but hurt their future prospects. You can set guidelines around tooling if you want to prevent engineers from doing this, but otherwise assume that part of the reason they're willing to show up for the salary they get paid is to learn more and eventually make more. If they can't make more through the company making more (equity) don't expect them to prioritize that.
    - wpietri 5y ago
      Is there anything more to your comment then a long elaboration of a cash-focused self-centeredness? Certainly you seem aggressively unaware of anything other than "the company", setting aside other relevant parties, like colleagues, users, and society at large. While also ignoring quite a lot of things that even engineers value in their work besides money. Econ 101 is an ok first-cut model, but it's pretty bad as a religion. There are more things, Horatio.
      - horsawlarway 5y ago
        > Is there anything more to your comment then a long elaboration of a cash-focused self-centeredness? Big ooof, given the entire discussion is predicated around using simple and plain tooling to save a company money, and then berating developers who dare to learn new tools on the job. It turns out part of learning is picking the wrong tool occasionally. Who knew?

weatherlite 5y ago

> and you can't blame engineers I think you can definitely blame them and in fact I'd expect CTO's and managers to discourage employees from doing that. A small silly decision can later cost millions in rewrites or maintenance. In the end we'll all benefit if not every brochure website needs to have 50 micro services and use the latest nosql solution. We're the ones who end up maintaining these systems.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jacobsenscott 5y ago
You can discourage that. And people move on to jobs where they can pad their resume, and it gets harder and harder to hire people because they don't see a future in your "boring tech stack".
- weatherlite 5y ago
  Just as there are people who'd leave if the stack is "boring" there are people who'd leave if the tech stack is insane. Personally I wouldn't want to work in a team that prioritizes resume driven development. It's usually teams that care very little about the company or product, their only motivation is tinkering with shiny tech. That's not for me.
  - AA-BA-94-2A-56 5y ago
    Means to an end. I'd work in a team that prioritises resume-driven development for about a year, to brush myself up on all the new stuff. I think it'd be foolish not to, honestly. It comes down to whether you see the software you write or yourself as the important product of writing software. Paradoxically, I see myself as the most important product. Usually my work is a tradeoff between being productive and teaching myself. If I'm being too productive, I back off and experiment more and teach myself concepts.
    - weatherlite 5y ago
      > being productive and teaching myself You can learn Kafka, Map Reduce, Elixir, DynamoDB and shiny new JS framework X like Meteor or whatever, or you can just go deeper on the fundamentals and the traditional tech you already know (learning SQL to a deeper level, becoming really good in Java/.NET/PHP/vanilla JS etc etc). I think the job market has room for both; and to me the second path is more enjoyable and sustainable but to each his own.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  Is the chicken or egg first? Are companies constantly changing to hip new stacks to attract talent, or are developers constantly scrambling to gain experience on hip new stacks in order to be employable by companies who are constantly changing to hip new stacks? Developers complain "I need to learn NewTech because OldTech is old and no cool company uses it anymore." And hiring managers complain "We need to move from OldTech to NewTech because we can't find developers interested in OldTech anymore."
  - mmcdermott 5y ago
    My observation is that both occur and the balance tends to vary by company. I've been in the room when technology N+1 was selected because there weren't many developers for technology N, but I've also seen developers working cool and trendy things into projects that don't strictly need it (where there is a sliding Overton Window around what is "cool" or "trendy").
ElevenLathe 5y ago
> We're the ones who end up maintaining these systems. ...and making good salary doing it!
- weatherlite 5y ago
  I agree but we can put more focus on the product, code quality and users if we don't practice resume driven development that much. And still earn a nice paycheck.
wpietri 5y ago
Yeah, I don't get this "You can't blame people for doing the totally self-centered thing." I can and will. That's basically the point of blame: to shift consequences for a harmful action back to the person who made the choice. That's not the only thing we should do, of course. Systemic problems are better fixed with systemic changes. But there's nothing wrong with holding people accountable.
- horsawlarway 5y ago
  I don't really understand your complaint here. Unless they have a real stake in the company (as in non-trivial equity grants) why the hell would they prioritize making you additional money (or saving money) by using tooling that will make them a less valuable hire in the future? They are getting paid to accomplish a task for you, they are NOT getting paid more if they use tools that would be more effective but hurt their future prospects. You can set guidelines around tooling if you want to prevent engineers from doing this, but otherwise assume that part of the reason they're willing to show up for the salary they get paid is to learn more and eventually make more. If they can't make more through the company making more (equity) don't expect them to prioritize that.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    Is there anything more to your comment then a long elaboration of a cash-focused self-centeredness? Certainly you seem aggressively unaware of anything other than "the company", setting aside other relevant parties, like colleagues, users, and society at large. While also ignoring quite a lot of things that even engineers value in their work besides money. Econ 101 is an ok first-cut model, but it's pretty bad as a religion. There are more things, Horatio.
    - horsawlarway 5y ago
      > Is there anything more to your comment then a long elaboration of a cash-focused self-centeredness? Big ooof, given the entire discussion is predicated around using simple and plain tooling to save a company money, and then berating developers who dare to learn new tools on the job. It turns out part of learning is picking the wrong tool occasionally. Who knew?