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I don't understand how many people can have an impact over a 1-2 year period at a company. That's not nearly enough time to build relationships or see the long

I don't understand how many people can have an impact over a 1-2 year period at a company. That's not nearly enough time to build relationships or see the long term results of your work

davesque 4y ago
I think you're looking at things backwards. The questions you should be asking are how likely is it that any employee who joins a random new company feels as though they can have an impact on that company and how likely is it that they'll be compensated at market rates over a period longer than a year? I'd say the chances are generally pretty low. Therefore, a short tenure should be the average case for a rational employee. Don't kill the collective messenger.
- alkonaut 4y ago
  > Therefore, a short tenure should be the average case for a rational employee. Is rational the same as “maximizing career income”? I just feel it’s hard to give up domain knowledge in one thing (say insurance or flight scheduling or whatever) that you aggregate, to be a complete rookie in some other business. Software skills are the easy bit. It’s the domain knowledge that takes time. Rational employees want to feel good at their job, intellectually challenged, and appreciated for what they do. That involves financial compensation but I think it’s far from the major driver. Perhaps there are two major categories of devs: those that have broadly applicable skills (say web development) but no really deep domain knowledge or interest. They can write crud for insurance year 1 and crud for food delivery year 2 and continue that way forever while making good salary jumps each year. To those it seems almost like a bad idea to grow too fond of the details of insurance, as it would hinder their careers. On the other end of the spectrum you have devs that aggregate lots of domain knowledge in some narrower field. They might switch jobs every 10 years but when they do they almost have to go to a competitor in the same industry because otherwise they throw away too much domain knowledge. The only way they can capitalize is by selling that knowledge.
thrown_22 4y ago
You don't build relationships, you solve the problem you were hired to fix. Companies don't hire employees to be a preschool playpen for adults. They hire them to do work.
- klipt 4y ago
  At least at big companies, fixing problems often requires good cross team relationships.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    Great, something for management to do.
    - astrange 4y ago
      If you can manage your own relationships then you don’t need nearly as many managers. That’s more money for you!
      - thrown_22 4y ago
        And yet I'm always paid more than lifers at a company. Funny how that works.
      - lmm 4y ago
        Sadly how many managers there are seems to have very little connection with how many are needed. If there are a lot of managers with nothing to do, they're not going to just disappear, and sadly the main way they can make themselves look busy is by wasting your time. (And I can't really blame them; I'd do the same in their place).
- eclipxe 4y ago
  Sometimes the hardest problems to fix involve building relationships first.
  - 4y ago
tonightstoast 4y ago
At the web dev startups I have worked at I was able to hit the ground running (okay, maybe like 2 weeks of training). If you know the UI & server frameworks most companies aren’t doing anything complicated from a business perspective. Half of them are crud with layers
- code_runner 4y ago
  They all think what they’re doing is magic and impactful but “crud with layers” is IT
- alkonaut 4y ago
  I think this is the key here: anything that’s crud with layers is the same job. Of course you can be productive within a year if what you are doing is literally the same job. Sadly this is too common. But what about proper changes of job? Going from embedded to game dev to web to HFT to Ai? Do people not do this kind of switch at all when they say “I just work 1-2 year stints”? That sounds like a pretty dreadful career to swap one crud gig for another, never really knowing a domain deeply.
  - tester756 4y ago
    >But what about proper changes of job? while I did switch like the ones you mentioned then I don't agree with you calling it "proper" I'd call it: making yours life harder due to curiosity.
    - alkonaut 4y ago
      I guess. But on the other hand I guess in the last decade of web dev just trying to stay afloat in the sea (or tire fire, depending on your perspective) of web dev frameworks and tooling is a full time job and career. To some that’s probably also something that’s intellectually satisfying.
Tade0 4y ago
Impact? I've had projects get cancelled when I was less than six months in. Often there's no space for impact.
MDTHLN 4y ago
This almost certainly depends on the size of the company. Two years is plenty of time to make an impact at a startup.
snovv_crash 4y ago
If you hire a John Carmack or Jeff Dean (or equivalent) and they can't make a difference in your company within 2 years, your culture is broken and needs to be fixed first.
- yongjik 4y ago
  John Carmack founded id Software in 1991 and stayed until 2013. Jeff Dean joined Google in 1999 and is still there. These are not the kind of people we talk about when one asks "Is two year too short to be a tenure?"
  - snovv_crash 4y ago
    If Carmack or Dean were unable to make an impact after 2 years despite their exceptional skillsets, they probably wouldn't have stayed as long. If your culture doesn't let top performers, well, perform, then why would they waste their time in a place where their contributions can't reach a level of impact that can justify paying them what they're worth?
- throwaway6734 4y ago
  99.9+% of devs don't come close to the skill of those two
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
saagarjha 4y ago
Depends on what your work is. There’s a lot of stuff you can ship on a short timescale with tons of “impact”. You can’t directly see the results of long-term plans, but you can definitely lay the groundwork and watch people execute on it from outside the company.
Gigachad 4y ago
I do Rails/React work and everything is becoming more or less the same thing with the same problems to work on regardless of the job so I'm able to hit the ground running almost immediately.
scruple 4y ago
I used to feel similarly. But (most) businesses today can barely see beyond the next quarter. We're always cutting corners, we're always up against insane deadlines that started as estimates, etc. I'd care a lot more about the long-term effects of the code that I write and the systems that I build if I was given ample opportunity to actually engage with long-term planning. But I'm not, so I care less about what impact I have a year or two from now with each passing day.
A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
It really depends on how you define impact. After joining my more recent team, I had some manual labor thrown my way. Me being me did what I thought a reasonable person should do in those circumstances: automate what I could. As a result, time spent on manual labor was cut by a ridiculous amount. I almost don't get why no one did it before me.. In my career so far, it is not uncommon to see low hanging fruits like that, but then I mostly worked in banking ( which is its own little world ). My point is, you can do a lot in 2 years depending on what you are looking for.
bitL 4y ago
LOL, you probably never heard of Meta or Amazon where not having an impact in the first 6-12 months will get you PIPed...

I don't understand how many people can have an impact over a 1-2 year period at a company. That's not nearly enough time to build relationships or see the long term results of your work

davesque 4y ago

I think you're looking at things backwards. The questions you should be asking are how likely is it that any employee who joins a random new company feels as though they can have an impact on that company and how likely is it that they'll be compensated at market rates over a period longer than a year? I'd say the chances are generally pretty low. Therefore, a short tenure should be the average case for a rational employee. Don't kill the collective messenger.

alkonaut 4y ago
> Therefore, a short tenure should be the average case for a rational employee. Is rational the same as “maximizing career income”? I just feel it’s hard to give up domain knowledge in one thing (say insurance or flight scheduling or whatever) that you aggregate, to be a complete rookie in some other business. Software skills are the easy bit. It’s the domain knowledge that takes time. Rational employees want to feel good at their job, intellectually challenged, and appreciated for what they do. That involves financial compensation but I think it’s far from the major driver. Perhaps there are two major categories of devs: those that have broadly applicable skills (say web development) but no really deep domain knowledge or interest. They can write crud for insurance year 1 and crud for food delivery year 2 and continue that way forever while making good salary jumps each year. To those it seems almost like a bad idea to grow too fond of the details of insurance, as it would hinder their careers. On the other end of the spectrum you have devs that aggregate lots of domain knowledge in some narrower field. They might switch jobs every 10 years but when they do they almost have to go to a competitor in the same industry because otherwise they throw away too much domain knowledge. The only way they can capitalize is by selling that knowledge.

thrown_22 4y ago

You don't build relationships, you solve the problem you were hired to fix. Companies don't hire employees to be a preschool playpen for adults. They hire them to do work.

klipt 4y ago
At least at big companies, fixing problems often requires good cross team relationships.
- thrown_22 4y ago
  Great, something for management to do.
  - astrange 4y ago
    If you can manage your own relationships then you don’t need nearly as many managers. That’s more money for you!
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      And yet I'm always paid more than lifers at a company. Funny how that works.
    - lmm 4y ago
      Sadly how many managers there are seems to have very little connection with how many are needed. If there are a lot of managers with nothing to do, they're not going to just disappear, and sadly the main way they can make themselves look busy is by wasting your time. (And I can't really blame them; I'd do the same in their place).
eclipxe 4y ago
Sometimes the hardest problems to fix involve building relationships first.
- 4y ago

tonightstoast 4y ago

At the web dev startups I have worked at I was able to hit the ground running (okay, maybe like 2 weeks of training). If you know the UI & server frameworks most companies aren’t doing anything complicated from a business perspective. Half of them are crud with layers

code_runner 4y ago
They all think what they’re doing is magic and impactful but “crud with layers” is IT
alkonaut 4y ago
I think this is the key here: anything that’s crud with layers is the same job. Of course you can be productive within a year if what you are doing is literally the same job. Sadly this is too common. But what about proper changes of job? Going from embedded to game dev to web to HFT to Ai? Do people not do this kind of switch at all when they say “I just work 1-2 year stints”? That sounds like a pretty dreadful career to swap one crud gig for another, never really knowing a domain deeply.
- tester756 4y ago
  >But what about proper changes of job? while I did switch like the ones you mentioned then I don't agree with you calling it "proper" I'd call it: making yours life harder due to curiosity.
  - alkonaut 4y ago
    I guess. But on the other hand I guess in the last decade of web dev just trying to stay afloat in the sea (or tire fire, depending on your perspective) of web dev frameworks and tooling is a full time job and career. To some that’s probably also something that’s intellectually satisfying.

Tade0 4y ago

Impact? I've had projects get cancelled when I was less than six months in. Often there's no space for impact.

MDTHLN 4y ago

This almost certainly depends on the size of the company. Two years is plenty of time to make an impact at a startup.

snovv_crash 4y ago

If you hire a John Carmack or Jeff Dean (or equivalent) and they can't make a difference in your company within 2 years, your culture is broken and needs to be fixed first.

yongjik 4y ago
John Carmack founded id Software in 1991 and stayed until 2013. Jeff Dean joined Google in 1999 and is still there. These are not the kind of people we talk about when one asks "Is two year too short to be a tenure?"
- snovv_crash 4y ago
  If Carmack or Dean were unable to make an impact after 2 years despite their exceptional skillsets, they probably wouldn't have stayed as long. If your culture doesn't let top performers, well, perform, then why would they waste their time in a place where their contributions can't reach a level of impact that can justify paying them what they're worth?
throwaway6734 4y ago
99.9+% of devs don't come close to the skill of those two

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

saagarjha 4y ago

Depends on what your work is. There’s a lot of stuff you can ship on a short timescale with tons of “impact”. You can’t directly see the results of long-term plans, but you can definitely lay the groundwork and watch people execute on it from outside the company.

Gigachad 4y ago

I do Rails/React work and everything is becoming more or less the same thing with the same problems to work on regardless of the job so I'm able to hit the ground running almost immediately.

scruple 4y ago

I used to feel similarly. But (most) businesses today can barely see beyond the next quarter. We're always cutting corners, we're always up against insane deadlines that started as estimates, etc. I'd care a lot more about the long-term effects of the code that I write and the systems that I build if I was given ample opportunity to actually engage with long-term planning. But I'm not, so I care less about what impact I have a year or two from now with each passing day.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago

It really depends on how you define impact. After joining my more recent team, I had some manual labor thrown my way. Me being me did what I thought a reasonable person should do in those circumstances: automate what I could. As a result, time spent on manual labor was cut by a ridiculous amount. I almost don't get why no one did it before me.. In my career so far, it is not uncommon to see low hanging fruits like that, but then I mostly worked in banking ( which is its own little world ). My point is, you can do a lot in 2 years depending on what you are looking for.

bitL 4y ago

LOL, you probably never heard of Meta or Amazon where not having an impact in the first 6-12 months will get you PIPed...