5 ms·

After doing a round of onsite with fb tools team, I got the impression there were lots of bright engineers that wanted fb pay without having to touch fb product

After doing a round of onsite with fb tools team, I got the impression there were lots of bright engineers that wanted fb pay without having to touch fb products.

jfengel 4y ago
A lot of programmers would rather write tools for other programmers than for non-programmer end users. It's the target market that they know best, and it's most prestigious. I wish more of those bright engineers would try to solve problems for other users rather than re-re-re-re-re-optimizing the life of their colleagues. But writing code for users involves, among other things, knowing something about users, which is more bogged down and less fun.
- mym1990 4y ago
  Their colleagues ARE users, they are just a different type, and a type that engineers understand more. I would rather a good engineer put their skills towards helping others use their skills more effectively than put that same engineer in a place where they don't like the work and produce below par results.
- xiphias2 4y ago
  For some of us it's really hard to understand / solve problems of people whose life is spent on browsing instagram most of the time - when it's not TikTok.
  - hobs 4y ago
    Start by removing a heap of condescension and recognizing that there's interesting problems all around you.
    - NumberCruncher 4y ago
      Dealing drugs involves solving interesting problems too nevertheless IMHO it is bad for society and I try to avoid both dealers and addicts if possible.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - giraffe_lady 4y ago
        Funny because I've had a lot more positive experiences with and, frankly, respect for, addicts than software engineers.
        cto_of_antifa 4y ago
        samhw 4y ago
        Couldn't agree more. Anyone who survives and escapes that - including several of my close friends - is a fucking strong person. If I have to read one more comment disparaging addicts and then whining about how sOcIaL MeDiA Is a dAnGeRoUs aDdIcTiOn, I might actually blow my brains out.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    This is an unkind comment. Why condescend like this?
    - xiphias2 4y ago
      I'm not sure why is it condescending. I have met people who do this all the time while I'm trying to just have a drink/dinner or get to know a person, but I'm just not able to connect with heavy instagram/facebook users. I prefer not to see them again, as for me it's very boring, and I see them as being unkind, when in all fairness they are probably just social network addicts.
      - chrisseaton 4y ago
        It's condescending because you're focusing on the media that people use rather than what they have to say in life. There are (obviously) millions of interesting, passionate, intelligent, creative people using both of these apps.
  - jackomelon 4y ago
    Keep the holier-than-thou judgmental stuff to yourself. Your comment adds nothing.
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    You’re getting downvoted, and that’s not undeserved because this is very judgmental on its face. But I get the sense there’s a sincere answer to a few sincere questions worth at least asking: have you asked them (users you’ve categorized this way) that direct question? Or asked how work you’re invested in isn’t addressing their problems/goals? If so, and if you found their answers unrelatable, did you ask further questions which might clarify for you what they want? I know all of that is a lot to ask of anyone. But you might find you learn things you have in common with people you don’t expect to. And it might make your job less frictionful too.
    - xiphias2 4y ago
      It's not like I don't understand their problems/goals. Just yesterday the person I was spending time with showed a cat video from Facebook, and as I seemed half interested only, she asked me if I like animals. I love animals in real life, but that doesn't mean that I love watching videos of animals on a screen, for me it's not the same experience. The main goal that I see social networks addressing with many people is entertainment, but I feel that it takes away from my social life with people, that's why I have aversion to short videos for example. Facebook didn't have these short videos forced on me, but just a few months ago it started to show video reels for me, and I couldn't stop myself watching them. After bringing the settings back to just showing what's happening with my friends, the next time I opened it, it started showing addictive videos to me again. Youtube disabled showing downvotes, which was the best signal for me to see if it's worth to see a 15 minute video, or if it's just a spam talking about nothing for 15 minutes just to optimize content length for the algorithm. And shorts are not a solution, as they don't have any depth either. Also it started spamming me with new channels that reupload videos of interesting people from years ago just to make me think that it's new content. The main problem for me working on social networks is that making profit can't be separated from making people addicted to the lowest forms of entertainment (I'm a Xoogler).
      - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
        > The main goal that I see social networks addressing with many people is entertainment, but I feel that it takes away from my social life with people, that's why I have aversion to short videos for example. Having a different idea of fun than another person is very common. My partner and I, whom I share a lot of personality traits with, have some different definitions of fun. I can spend hours working through math problems and find it fun while plenty of others would find that horribly boring. To _judge_ other people for having a different idea of fun than you is to be condescending; it deifies your idea of entertainment while putting down the others'. > The main problem for me working on social networks is that making profit can't be separated from making people addicted to the lowest forms of entertainment (I'm a Xoogler). Is it that hard to accept that other people have different ideas for what being social means? Does everyone have to be like you or you judge them negatively? Your take isn't uncommon on certain parts of the Web (especially the anti-social-media parts) but I've always found it trite and judgemental exactly for the reasons I expressed above. Not everyone has to think and feel the way you do and that's okay. Humanity is large. Some of us like to go to hyper-commercial malls, some like to go on challenging hikes, and others are at the club dancing and imbibing their hearts out. Sometimes people even change what they like to do for fun as they age! That's okay, it's human.
- OJFord 4y ago
  But on the contrary.. many of the things well-built for the majority of 'non-programmer end users' are not the way I (as a 'programmer end user', whether the particular thing is a programming-adjacent tool or not) would ideally like them to be. So I'd selfishly adjust it to 'solve other problems for the same users'! Asahi, for example, awesome stuff - I've lost count how many times I've had to explain (to both colleagues and non-engineer family/friends/etc.) 'no no, absolutely agree, love Mac hardware [...]'.
- stevage 4y ago
  I'm very curious what made you say that building tooling for developers is "most prestigious". It doesn't really match my intuition, can you explain more?
  - mi_lk 4y ago
    +1, that statement needs a citation, dev tools team is not more prestigious than some medium teams in FAANG in my experience
    - botverse 4y ago
      I’d say citation is not needed when the person has experience in the field, can cite himself telling you their opinion and that will suffice. Your opinion may differ of course
- zem 4y ago
  I work on developer tools at google, and it's not even remotely one of the prestigious teams. it is however the most fun and interesting time I've ever had in a job, and if I left it would only be for the same kind of work. also you seem to have fallen for the same fallacy as the people who complain about open source devs not working on what they consider sufficiently important problems. trust me, there are no shortage of engineers willing and eager to work on end user problems, and the dev tools work enables them to deliver solutions to those problems faster, and makes those solutions work more reliably. it's a rising tide that lifts everyone's boats, not a zero sum game.
  - skeletonjelly 4y ago
    > I work on developer tools at google, and it's not even remotely one of the prestigious teams Out of interest, what is? (In your opinion)
    - zem 4y ago
      hard to say from inside the company, since you get to thinking of everyone as just colleagues who happen to be working on different parts of the system. but in terms of larger world prestige I would say the machine learning folks are definitely up there, also the internet/petabyte scale stuff that other developers know enough about the difficulties behind to be impressed by (spanner for instance), and perhaps go since it has achieved a massive amount of popularity. I honestly don't know if there are currently any end user google products "sexy" enough that working on them is extra prestigious.
      - H8crilA 4y ago
        You're missing webranking, and other core components of core products. Deciding in which order results pop up on google.com is both very challenging and we'll recognized. Same with people that do ad ranking, people that manage the enormous storage systems, etc. If it is core to the company it is prestigious, you never have to explain the impact of your job.
    - ngc248 4y ago
- siloed 4y ago
  They are definitely not "it's [sic] most prestigious" market, but they inspire admiration among other devs
- Siira 4y ago
  Considering the state of our tooling, where documentation frequently does not show up without extensive config or is not soft-wrapped in Jetbrains products (which are only possibly second to Visual Studio in overall quality), and projects simply stop compiling and need magic tricks like invalidating caches to work again (and sometimes the trick reduces to reinstall every thing and delete all config), I don’t see how more tooling is so scorned.
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
> I got the impression there were lots of bright engineers that wanted fb pay without having to touch fb products. I chose a job at Google Engprod (a tooling/developer productivity org) because I specifically like to work on dev tooling and I'm much less interested in working on products aimed at end users. Surely, many engineers at FB feel the same way.

After doing a round of onsite with fb tools team, I got the impression there were lots of bright engineers that wanted fb pay without having to touch fb products.

jfengel 4y ago

A lot of programmers would rather write tools for other programmers than for non-programmer end users. It's the target market that they know best, and it's most prestigious. I wish more of those bright engineers would try to solve problems for other users rather than re-re-re-re-re-optimizing the life of their colleagues. But writing code for users involves, among other things, knowing something about users, which is more bogged down and less fun.

mym1990 4y ago
Their colleagues ARE users, they are just a different type, and a type that engineers understand more. I would rather a good engineer put their skills towards helping others use their skills more effectively than put that same engineer in a place where they don't like the work and produce below par results.
xiphias2 4y ago
For some of us it's really hard to understand / solve problems of people whose life is spent on browsing instagram most of the time - when it's not TikTok.
- hobs 4y ago
  Start by removing a heap of condescension and recognizing that there's interesting problems all around you.
  - NumberCruncher 4y ago
    Dealing drugs involves solving interesting problems too nevertheless IMHO it is bad for society and I try to avoid both dealers and addicts if possible.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      Funny because I've had a lot more positive experiences with and, frankly, respect for, addicts than software engineers.
      - cto_of_antifa 4y ago
      - samhw 4y ago
        Couldn't agree more. Anyone who survives and escapes that - including several of my close friends - is a fucking strong person. If I have to read one more comment disparaging addicts and then whining about how sOcIaL MeDiA Is a dAnGeRoUs aDdIcTiOn, I might actually blow my brains out.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  This is an unkind comment. Why condescend like this?
  - xiphias2 4y ago
    I'm not sure why is it condescending. I have met people who do this all the time while I'm trying to just have a drink/dinner or get to know a person, but I'm just not able to connect with heavy instagram/facebook users. I prefer not to see them again, as for me it's very boring, and I see them as being unkind, when in all fairness they are probably just social network addicts.
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      It's condescending because you're focusing on the media that people use rather than what they have to say in life. There are (obviously) millions of interesting, passionate, intelligent, creative people using both of these apps.
- jackomelon 4y ago
  Keep the holier-than-thou judgmental stuff to yourself. Your comment adds nothing.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  You’re getting downvoted, and that’s not undeserved because this is very judgmental on its face. But I get the sense there’s a sincere answer to a few sincere questions worth at least asking: have you asked them (users you’ve categorized this way) that direct question? Or asked how work you’re invested in isn’t addressing their problems/goals? If so, and if you found their answers unrelatable, did you ask further questions which might clarify for you what they want? I know all of that is a lot to ask of anyone. But you might find you learn things you have in common with people you don’t expect to. And it might make your job less frictionful too.
  - xiphias2 4y ago
    It's not like I don't understand their problems/goals. Just yesterday the person I was spending time with showed a cat video from Facebook, and as I seemed half interested only, she asked me if I like animals. I love animals in real life, but that doesn't mean that I love watching videos of animals on a screen, for me it's not the same experience. The main goal that I see social networks addressing with many people is entertainment, but I feel that it takes away from my social life with people, that's why I have aversion to short videos for example. Facebook didn't have these short videos forced on me, but just a few months ago it started to show video reels for me, and I couldn't stop myself watching them. After bringing the settings back to just showing what's happening with my friends, the next time I opened it, it started showing addictive videos to me again. Youtube disabled showing downvotes, which was the best signal for me to see if it's worth to see a 15 minute video, or if it's just a spam talking about nothing for 15 minutes just to optimize content length for the algorithm. And shorts are not a solution, as they don't have any depth either. Also it started spamming me with new channels that reupload videos of interesting people from years ago just to make me think that it's new content. The main problem for me working on social networks is that making profit can't be separated from making people addicted to the lowest forms of entertainment (I'm a Xoogler).
    - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
      > The main goal that I see social networks addressing with many people is entertainment, but I feel that it takes away from my social life with people, that's why I have aversion to short videos for example. Having a different idea of fun than another person is very common. My partner and I, whom I share a lot of personality traits with, have some different definitions of fun. I can spend hours working through math problems and find it fun while plenty of others would find that horribly boring. To _judge_ other people for having a different idea of fun than you is to be condescending; it deifies your idea of entertainment while putting down the others'. > The main problem for me working on social networks is that making profit can't be separated from making people addicted to the lowest forms of entertainment (I'm a Xoogler). Is it that hard to accept that other people have different ideas for what being social means? Does everyone have to be like you or you judge them negatively? Your take isn't uncommon on certain parts of the Web (especially the anti-social-media parts) but I've always found it trite and judgemental exactly for the reasons I expressed above. Not everyone has to think and feel the way you do and that's okay. Humanity is large. Some of us like to go to hyper-commercial malls, some like to go on challenging hikes, and others are at the club dancing and imbibing their hearts out. Sometimes people even change what they like to do for fun as they age! That's okay, it's human.
OJFord 4y ago
But on the contrary.. many of the things well-built for the majority of 'non-programmer end users' are not the way I (as a 'programmer end user', whether the particular thing is a programming-adjacent tool or not) would ideally like them to be. So I'd selfishly adjust it to 'solve other problems for the same users'! Asahi, for example, awesome stuff - I've lost count how many times I've had to explain (to both colleagues and non-engineer family/friends/etc.) 'no no, absolutely agree, love Mac hardware [...]'.
stevage 4y ago
I'm very curious what made you say that building tooling for developers is "most prestigious". It doesn't really match my intuition, can you explain more?
- mi_lk 4y ago
  +1, that statement needs a citation, dev tools team is not more prestigious than some medium teams in FAANG in my experience
  - botverse 4y ago
    I’d say citation is not needed when the person has experience in the field, can cite himself telling you their opinion and that will suffice. Your opinion may differ of course
zem 4y ago
I work on developer tools at google, and it's not even remotely one of the prestigious teams. it is however the most fun and interesting time I've ever had in a job, and if I left it would only be for the same kind of work. also you seem to have fallen for the same fallacy as the people who complain about open source devs not working on what they consider sufficiently important problems. trust me, there are no shortage of engineers willing and eager to work on end user problems, and the dev tools work enables them to deliver solutions to those problems faster, and makes those solutions work more reliably. it's a rising tide that lifts everyone's boats, not a zero sum game.
- skeletonjelly 4y ago
  > I work on developer tools at google, and it's not even remotely one of the prestigious teams Out of interest, what is? (In your opinion)
  - zem 4y ago
    hard to say from inside the company, since you get to thinking of everyone as just colleagues who happen to be working on different parts of the system. but in terms of larger world prestige I would say the machine learning folks are definitely up there, also the internet/petabyte scale stuff that other developers know enough about the difficulties behind to be impressed by (spanner for instance), and perhaps go since it has achieved a massive amount of popularity. I honestly don't know if there are currently any end user google products "sexy" enough that working on them is extra prestigious.
    - H8crilA 4y ago
      You're missing webranking, and other core components of core products. Deciding in which order results pop up on google.com is both very challenging and we'll recognized. Same with people that do ad ranking, people that manage the enormous storage systems, etc. If it is core to the company it is prestigious, you never have to explain the impact of your job.
  - ngc248 4y ago
siloed 4y ago
They are definitely not "it's [sic] most prestigious" market, but they inspire admiration among other devs
Siira 4y ago
Considering the state of our tooling, where documentation frequently does not show up without extensive config or is not soft-wrapped in Jetbrains products (which are only possibly second to Visual Studio in overall quality), and projects simply stop compiling and need magic tricks like invalidating caches to work again (and sometimes the trick reduces to reinstall every thing and delete all config), I don’t see how more tooling is so scorned.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

> I got the impression there were lots of bright engineers that wanted fb pay without having to touch fb products. I chose a job at Google Engprod (a tooling/developer productivity org) because I specifically like to work on dev tooling and I'm much less interested in working on products aimed at end users. Surely, many engineers at FB feel the same way.