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Good write-up. But to me this reads more like “Everything I dislike about ‘software engineering’”, and this question pops up in my mind: isn’t there some way ar

Good write-up. But to me this reads more like “Everything I dislike about ‘software engineering’”, and this question pops up in my mind: isn’t there some way around all this? I know this is kind of an unpopular opinion, but I think an important reason we end up with this kind of work environment is that we have no formal division of labor into separate professions. Compare e.g. with healthcare: I sometimes jokingly explain the situation to friends by saying imagine if there was only a single profession called “Healthcare Worker”, and every hospital had to self organize “Hunger Games”-style. Everybody is hired as a “[Junior/Medior/Senior] Healthcare Worker” and then they battle it out to decide who gets to sit in the corner office, who gets to be a doctor and who gets to clean the toilets. Often it turns out everybody does a bit of everything, otherwise it’s perceived as “unfair”. When there is no rigid formal power structure people make up for it with “politics”. I think that’s to a large extent what’s happening, and it’s sort of consuming our lives…

zmgsabst 4y ago
This is something I talk about with SDE teams I’m coaching: - we’re like a football team - and that means it’s okay we have different roles that utilize our unique skills - or because we need a single play caller - but that doesn’t mean your role isn’t important; QBs can’t work with no linemen - and managements job is to be high level direction, staffing, and play calling - but they need to step back and let the people on the field do business - and only bad managers don’t take feedback from the people on the field You can give the same speech about military units or professional kitchens; because it turns out the ways humans organize aren’t all that varied. I just wish we could get to a paradigm of “team building” instead of “fungible cogs in the process chart”. Both sides, employees and employers, would be happier.
- bjornsing 4y ago
  > I just wish we could get to a paradigm of “team building” instead of “fungible cogs in the process chart”. Both sides, employees and employers, would be happier. Sadly I’m not so sure about that. If you’re mostly cleaning toilets in a hospital then you would benefit greatly from confusion about your role, so that you can have a bit of the compensation and recognition of a senior physician. In fact when there is a wide distribution of ability a clear majority benefits from this confusion. I think the reason it works in football is that (almost) anybody can judge ability, so the confused state cannot be maintained for very long. But sure, with exceptional leadership that will stick their neck out to “give credit where credit is due” you can get around this. It’s just very rare.
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    Except that doesn’t happen: “Janitor” and “physician” are different kind of cogs. What actually happens is that you don’t build the depth in your janitorial department that trades require — so the overall quality decreases. “Janitor” and “physician” are different teams: they don’t “play the same sport”.
    - bjornsing 4y ago
      In healthcare, yes, and everybody understands that. In software engineering, not so much. I think the OP illustrates that fairly well. What he’s describing is a janitorial job, but he clearly thinks he’s a physician, and he has written a blog post titled “What it’s actually like to practice medicine”.

zmgsabst 4y ago

This is something I talk about with SDE teams I’m coaching: - we’re like a football team - and that means it’s okay we have different roles that utilize our unique skills - or because we need a single play caller - but that doesn’t mean your role isn’t important; QBs can’t work with no linemen - and managements job is to be high level direction, staffing, and play calling - but they need to step back and let the people on the field do business - and only bad managers don’t take feedback from the people on the field You can give the same speech about military units or professional kitchens; because it turns out the ways humans organize aren’t all that varied. I just wish we could get to a paradigm of “team building” instead of “fungible cogs in the process chart”. Both sides, employees and employers, would be happier.

bjornsing 4y ago
> I just wish we could get to a paradigm of “team building” instead of “fungible cogs in the process chart”. Both sides, employees and employers, would be happier. Sadly I’m not so sure about that. If you’re mostly cleaning toilets in a hospital then you would benefit greatly from confusion about your role, so that you can have a bit of the compensation and recognition of a senior physician. In fact when there is a wide distribution of ability a clear majority benefits from this confusion. I think the reason it works in football is that (almost) anybody can judge ability, so the confused state cannot be maintained for very long. But sure, with exceptional leadership that will stick their neck out to “give credit where credit is due” you can get around this. It’s just very rare.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  Except that doesn’t happen: “Janitor” and “physician” are different kind of cogs. What actually happens is that you don’t build the depth in your janitorial department that trades require — so the overall quality decreases. “Janitor” and “physician” are different teams: they don’t “play the same sport”.
  - bjornsing 4y ago
    In healthcare, yes, and everybody understands that. In software engineering, not so much. I think the OP illustrates that fairly well. What he’s describing is a janitorial job, but he clearly thinks he’s a physician, and he has written a blog post titled “What it’s actually like to practice medicine”.