4 ms·

What a ridiculous viewpoint. I spent two days last week to write a single line of code. It cuts the startup time of the app in half with no downsides. I had to

What a ridiculous viewpoint. I spent two days last week to write a single line of code. It cuts the startup time of the app in half with no downsides. I had to make sure it works in all flavors, on all OS builds, benchmark it to show it works, cherry pick it into various release branches, talk to people about it, etc If you ask me to print my code and defend it in a meeting, I will instead skip the meeting and respond to one of the dozens recruiters who reach out every week in my inbox. You can keep the engineers who wrote the slow code in the first place. I'm sure they'll have thousands of lines of code to print. It's just a demeaning process meant to assert the dominance of the new owners.

jessaustin 4y ago
Congratulations on your good work. ISTM if you could evangelize the improvement to all those different people, you could also evangelize it to one more person? Sure, your assigned Tesla auditor could be an idiot (although that seems less likely for a Tesla person than for a twitter person), but would it hurt to try?
HWR_14 4y ago
> If you ask me to print my code and defend it in a meeting, I will instead skip the meeting and respond to one of the dozens recruiters who reach out every week in my inbox. Isn't that his goal? Reduce headcount before vesting bonuses on Nov. 1st? It seems like you would be just the sucker that Musk is trying to get rid of before one last milestone cash payment. On top of which, why couldn't you defend that line in a meeting? "I changed this one line cutting the loading time in half for the program. It took 2 days of profiling to find where to change and another week to ensure that it works across all build targets and work on a deployment timeline." > 's just a demeaning process meant to assert the dominance of the new owners. It is in fact a bit of that. Employees who quit are cheaper than fired employees or continued-to-be-hired employees. doing something unreasonable to make them quit seems reasonable, even if that might skew more towards the better employees. But it's also a rough attempt to identify deadweight who cannot explain why they did anything of value in 2 months.
- dotBen 4y ago
  Your comment basically sums up the entire goal and strategy of this exercise - it's surprising how many smart people here seem to have missed the point, gone down rabbit holes about how you can't traverse functions on printed paper, etc etc. It's about identifying the most extreme offenders and pushing out people like the GP who will rage quit without severance.
  - optymizer 4y ago
    I'm at a point in my life where I value what I do more than I value money, because I don't need more money to sustain my lifestyle.
    - dotBen 4y ago
      Then bluntly but respectfully, join a startup (or a non profit like archive.org, Mozilla, Signal etc). Don't hang out at Twitter. Not sure if you personally are a Twitter employee but Twitter fits a certain demographic of employee who wants to traverse that fine line between not wanting to risk an early startup for potential huge upside but also doesn't want a boring cushy job at Salesforce or Google or whatever. If you value your time and not the money, there's better places to apply your talents and labor than Twitter (pre or post Elon)
vincnetas 4y ago
“ If you ask me to print my code and defend it in a meeting” Its not about “defending”, its about explaining. Even from your reply one can feel the instant defensive position you take when asked about (your) code. I think ability to disassociate from your code and just be able to discuss it (not defend) and explain what and why (tradeoffs) and how was done is very valuable in developer, and in anyone actually if you extend it beyond the code. When take over a company ant talk with people and they take defensive position thats a red flag for me. (I take over companies in my head only so far)
- the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
  That’s a ridiculous position. I would expect good engineers to laugh at the entire process and not see a future in that company. There is no way that engineers can be accurately assessed on code output. It doesn’t matter if it’s about defending or explaining. Either one is an absolutely absurd situation to find yourself in where you have to explain stuff to people with zero context to save your job. If I was given these instructions I’m out.
  - vincnetas 4y ago
    why do you think that explaining something is ridiculous? i have been to meetings multiple times with representatives of other departmens and openly asked them to explain to me things that i didnt knew and needed to get understanding to implement some functionality. why its ridiculous when its other way arround and someone asks to explain what and why is this code doing? again, it looks like ypure taking it personally.
    - the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
      It’s ridiculous because this is not genuine interest in someone’s work but a way to sieve out at scale. (I don’t have a horse in this race. I don’t work there. So not sure why you think I’m taking this personally)
      - downvote_magnet 4y ago
throwaway09223 4y ago
> "What a ridiculous viewpoint. I spent two days last week to write a single line of code. " Sure, I've done the exact same thing. What's stopping you from bringing that line of code to an interview and talking about it? > "If you ask me to print my code and defend it in a meeting, I will instead skip the meeting and respond to one of the dozens recruiters who reach out every week in my inbox. " When you interview with your new employer, won't you be discussing notable achievements such as the single line of code you wrote that cuts app startup time by half? > "It's just a demeaning process meant to assert the dominance of the new owners." Are interviews demeaning? In a sense, sure. Sounds like you're doing it one way or the other, though.
- thwayunion 4y ago
  > Sure, I've done the exact same thing. What's stopping you from bringing that line of code to an interview and talking about it? GP's answer is essentially "sure, but what stops me from not doing that instead?": >> I will instead skip the meeting and respond to one of the dozens recruiters who reach out every week in my inbox. I have to say, I agree. Why stay around for the circus when you can leave and make an honest living as a respected professional instead of playing post-acquisition hunger games as a pawn in a rich boy's ego trip gone awry?
  - throwaway09223 4y ago
    > "GP's answer is essentially "sure, but what stops me from not doing that instead?":" Nothing of course -- and this is always true, every second of every day. > "I have to say, I agree. Why stay around for the circus when you can leave and make an honest living as a respected professional instead of playing post-acquisition hunger games as a pawn in a rich boy's ego trip gone awry? " If you see it that way then it seems in everyone's best interest that you leave the company, which means the system worked exactly as intended. As to the question of whether this makes sense, it would seem we all agree that it does, then.
    - thwayunion 4y ago
      > that you leave the company I don't and have never worked at Twitter :) > As to the question of whether this makes sense, it would seem we all agree that it does, then. My comments are mostly about the likely future of Twitter, which is almost certainly atrophy and death.

jessaustin 4y ago

Congratulations on your good work. ISTM if you could evangelize the improvement to all those different people, you could also evangelize it to one more person? Sure, your assigned Tesla auditor could be an idiot (although that seems less likely for a Tesla person than for a twitter person), but would it hurt to try?

HWR_14 4y ago

> If you ask me to print my code and defend it in a meeting, I will instead skip the meeting and respond to one of the dozens recruiters who reach out every week in my inbox. Isn't that his goal? Reduce headcount before vesting bonuses on Nov. 1st? It seems like you would be just the sucker that Musk is trying to get rid of before one last milestone cash payment. On top of which, why couldn't you defend that line in a meeting? "I changed this one line cutting the loading time in half for the program. It took 2 days of profiling to find where to change and another week to ensure that it works across all build targets and work on a deployment timeline." > 's just a demeaning process meant to assert the dominance of the new owners. It is in fact a bit of that. Employees who quit are cheaper than fired employees or continued-to-be-hired employees. doing something unreasonable to make them quit seems reasonable, even if that might skew more towards the better employees. But it's also a rough attempt to identify deadweight who cannot explain why they did anything of value in 2 months.

dotBen 4y ago
Your comment basically sums up the entire goal and strategy of this exercise - it's surprising how many smart people here seem to have missed the point, gone down rabbit holes about how you can't traverse functions on printed paper, etc etc. It's about identifying the most extreme offenders and pushing out people like the GP who will rage quit without severance.
- optymizer 4y ago
  I'm at a point in my life where I value what I do more than I value money, because I don't need more money to sustain my lifestyle.
  - dotBen 4y ago
    Then bluntly but respectfully, join a startup (or a non profit like archive.org, Mozilla, Signal etc). Don't hang out at Twitter. Not sure if you personally are a Twitter employee but Twitter fits a certain demographic of employee who wants to traverse that fine line between not wanting to risk an early startup for potential huge upside but also doesn't want a boring cushy job at Salesforce or Google or whatever. If you value your time and not the money, there's better places to apply your talents and labor than Twitter (pre or post Elon)

vincnetas 4y ago

“ If you ask me to print my code and defend it in a meeting” Its not about “defending”, its about explaining. Even from your reply one can feel the instant defensive position you take when asked about (your) code. I think ability to disassociate from your code and just be able to discuss it (not defend) and explain what and why (tradeoffs) and how was done is very valuable in developer, and in anyone actually if you extend it beyond the code. When take over a company ant talk with people and they take defensive position thats a red flag for me. (I take over companies in my head only so far)

the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
That’s a ridiculous position. I would expect good engineers to laugh at the entire process and not see a future in that company. There is no way that engineers can be accurately assessed on code output. It doesn’t matter if it’s about defending or explaining. Either one is an absolutely absurd situation to find yourself in where you have to explain stuff to people with zero context to save your job. If I was given these instructions I’m out.
- vincnetas 4y ago
  why do you think that explaining something is ridiculous? i have been to meetings multiple times with representatives of other departmens and openly asked them to explain to me things that i didnt knew and needed to get understanding to implement some functionality. why its ridiculous when its other way arround and someone asks to explain what and why is this code doing? again, it looks like ypure taking it personally.
  - the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
    It’s ridiculous because this is not genuine interest in someone’s work but a way to sieve out at scale. (I don’t have a horse in this race. I don’t work there. So not sure why you think I’m taking this personally)
    - downvote_magnet 4y ago

throwaway09223 4y ago

> "What a ridiculous viewpoint. I spent two days last week to write a single line of code. " Sure, I've done the exact same thing. What's stopping you from bringing that line of code to an interview and talking about it? > "If you ask me to print my code and defend it in a meeting, I will instead skip the meeting and respond to one of the dozens recruiters who reach out every week in my inbox. " When you interview with your new employer, won't you be discussing notable achievements such as the single line of code you wrote that cuts app startup time by half? > "It's just a demeaning process meant to assert the dominance of the new owners." Are interviews demeaning? In a sense, sure. Sounds like you're doing it one way or the other, though.

thwayunion 4y ago
> Sure, I've done the exact same thing. What's stopping you from bringing that line of code to an interview and talking about it? GP's answer is essentially "sure, but what stops me from not doing that instead?": >> I will instead skip the meeting and respond to one of the dozens recruiters who reach out every week in my inbox. I have to say, I agree. Why stay around for the circus when you can leave and make an honest living as a respected professional instead of playing post-acquisition hunger games as a pawn in a rich boy's ego trip gone awry?
- throwaway09223 4y ago
  > "GP's answer is essentially "sure, but what stops me from not doing that instead?":" Nothing of course -- and this is always true, every second of every day. > "I have to say, I agree. Why stay around for the circus when you can leave and make an honest living as a respected professional instead of playing post-acquisition hunger games as a pawn in a rich boy's ego trip gone awry? " If you see it that way then it seems in everyone's best interest that you leave the company, which means the system worked exactly as intended. As to the question of whether this makes sense, it would seem we all agree that it does, then.
  - thwayunion 4y ago
    > that you leave the company I don't and have never worked at Twitter :) > As to the question of whether this makes sense, it would seem we all agree that it does, then. My comments are mostly about the likely future of Twitter, which is almost certainly atrophy and death.