24 ms·

An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

265 points by chobeat 4y ago

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
You might get away with this if you work for the DMV or something but behaving like this to any meaningful extent in a workplace where everyone else isn't already is a great way to be shown the door first.
drewcon 4y ago
This has to be satire.
valcron1000 4y ago
Is this some kind of twisted joke? If not, the author is mentally ill.
wufufufu 4y ago
Had me in the first half, lost me in the second. Why not try to create unions instead of "don't document anything because you're making yourself replaceable"?
- chobeat 4y ago
  why not both?
  - striking 4y ago
    Because, as they state under another heading, > It’s not in your interest as a worker to let capital think that its workers are saboteurs. And although documentation can make you somewhat replaceable, it is a joyless and tiring experience to work on something that is quickly evolving yet completely undocumented. I'd rather be made slightly more replaceable if it meant my job wouldn't be a tiring, joyless grind.
    - fluoridation 4y ago
      The trick is to have documentation but keep it a secret.
    - lmz 4y ago
      The part about code reviews and meetings is about working to rule, to further delay progress. Don't take risks with bugs, review thoroughly. Don't ask for forgiveness, ask dor permission and escalate it in meetings.
  - greenie_beans 4y ago
    it's not nice to the other workers — that's not very good class solidarity.
    - keskival 4y ago
      The article was missing the words "together" and "solidarity". It seemed to be a product of a culture of extreme individualism.
      - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
        Yeah. "I, the individual, am going to do my best to make sure that I get mine, even if it harms the company and my coworkers". That's not "class warfare". That's narcissism.
        cudgy 4y ago
        As opposed to “I, the executive or founder, am going to do my best to make sure that I get mine, even if it harms the company and my employees." Who has the most incentive and power to be the narcissist? Employees would be smart to understand this dynamic.
- justizin 4y ago
  This is called, "The Tyranny of Competence", and is hostile to other workers. Companies also don't have a way to quantify this, and sometimes will hesitate to term someone, until they are fed up and will just decide it is worthwhile at all costs. I have worked with or been the successor to folks who did this and it made me absolutely furious, and reflected poorly on my performance.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    Yeah, leaving your fellow employees out to dry is absolutely not class warfare, except insofar as it is friendly fire.
  - letitbeirie 4y ago
    > hostile to other workers It's also hostile to the practitioner if they last long enough at the same company. I end up reinventing my "clever" (until I forget the context at least) hacks more often than I care to admit and I'm not actively trying to sabotage my company.
- xupybd 4y ago
  I work hard to become replaceable. I want to move up, I can't be too important at my current level. If that means automating things, documentation and training juniors then I'm all for it.
- dljsjr 4y ago
  This is exactly what the article says to do. I also paused at that section that listed all those crazy things, if you power through and get to the end you'll find this: >If you’re a conscientious engineer, you are probably going to find the above suggestions somewhere between counterintuitive and horrifying. You should! They are horrifying! This is how deeply capital’s war on workers is scarring our profession. >These people are actively trying to take your wealth away from you and keep it for themselves. You need to protect yourself. >Oh, yeah, we should also have a union. Sure. Let’s get on that one of these days.
  - frollo 4y ago
    For being the point of the article (and it is), it's very well hidden. I like the article and feel like we need more of this out there, but they should be written a little better.
- pdonis 4y ago
  Lost me in the first half. The whole capital vs. labor thing is a false dichotomy, particularly here where we're talking about highly skilled tech workers. Your skills are capital, and your pay for using those skills is mostly return on capital, not "labor cost". The real dichotomy here is simple: it's between people who understand that they own capital and work to maximize their return on that capital, and people who don't.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    Capitalist vs laborer is a true dichotomy, in that one cannot be both simultaneously within one context. But it is important to remember these are embodied roles and not character traits. I.e., a laborer becomes a consumer when they leave their place of employment to drive to the grocery store.
    - qualudeheart 4y ago
      What about owner-operators? Truckers who own their own trucks are both laborers and capitalists.
      - uoaei 4y ago
        A truck is useless without a route. In the case of trucking, "the means of production" includes customer lead generation, driver dispatch, etc. Owning their truck only gives them the flexibility to switch employers more easily.
        ddoolin 4y ago
        Agreed. But just as a thought experiment: what about a truck driver who owns their own trucking company, employs around a dozen other drivers, and also drives as one of its drivers? I would guess, theoretically, this is impossible past a certain size of enterprise, but in the meantime I would imagine that they would be both. A capitalist laboring as part of their own means of production.
kemiller2002 4y ago
I don't live in NY or Seattle. The tech sector is much smaller where I am. I've never seen it be advantageous to treat other people as someone I'm in competition with. I've been laid off. Yeah it sucks, but no job is forever, and being nice to people means I get to sleep at night. I've also never seen anyone who can't be replaced. Time and time again something wasn't documented, and other devs/dbas/admins stepped in and figured it out. I'd rather be the guy people say, "I help out when there is a problem" instead of, "I hate working with him, because I never know what he's doing." It's nicer, and makes it easier to work with someone you did before. That's just me though. Edit: I've also been on the hiring side and passed on people I know like that. My job is to mitigate risk, and those people are a liability.
- eternalban 4y ago
  Fine, I'll play the political officer here and try to help you understand the error of your position. /g Your post is entirely singular and individualistic in perspective. We could look at the situation differently, from the perspective of OP. In this case, it would be you and your politically aware colleagues who understand the necessities of the situation. To put it boldly, it is a revolutionary movement that seeks to introduce a much needed balance into the equation of capital and labor in the age of thinking machines. You and your colleagues will get along just fine, if you are clear eyed comrades. And you will sleep even more soundly, knowing that you are not only helping your contemporaries, but also laying the foundation for a more equitable society for your progeny.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  "In competition" is a fundamental misunderstanding of the interests at play. It's adversarial whether you integrate that understanding into your actions or not. And acknowledging the adversarial nature of workers and owners doesn't mean you have to be nasty to anyone on an interpersonal level.
  - qsort 4y ago
    Some aspects are adversarial, some aspects aren't. How much compensation I get is adversarial. How much documentation I write or how many internal tools I develop isn't adversarial, not even if you put la liberté guidant le peuple above the fold.
kachurovskiy 4y ago
This is plain bad advice that sounds smart because it comes from the "ultra-practical" but short-term corner of thinking. In reality being a good person is what pays off long-term. If I'm laid off, I will continue my professional journey elsewhere - perhaps on my own, maybe even with more satisfaction?
BenGosub 4y ago
Earnings fail, valuations go down and layoffs happen. This cycle of layoffs has been one of the most expected since I remember. And people in the software space still have so many options. There could be an event that will lead to a situation that won't be as good as we have it right now and I am fully aware of this. But, I don't see a reason to view the layoffs through the lens of this author.
- cratermoon 4y ago
  > Earnings fail, valuations go down and layoffs happen And yet the investors and senior executives still get 7- to 8- figure compensation, pull down yet more money from stock buybacks, and generally benefit. The overall amount of money changing hands doesn't go down, but less of it goes to the line employees while more falls into the pockets of the ones with already overflowing pockets.
  - BenGosub 4y ago
    well, during early stages of startups the investors lose money, while employees get wages. I agree that compensation in the finance space doesn't make sense, but that's a different problem.
jpollock 4y ago
My job as an engineer has been to make my current position unnecessary. That's how I justify my pay increases, by becoming more efficient and making the organisation more efficient. I look at where the organisation is going and solve problems.
lampshades 4y ago
Yes, I agree 100%. Do not help those who seek to devalue you. Extract as much value for as little work as possible. The people who run these companies are not your friends and they’re not your family, take advantage of them at every opportunity you can. Don’t care if the company fails, don’t pay any mind to burning bridges, don’t bother giving two weeks, and certainly don’t do anything more than the bare minimum. All true thought work should be done on your own time for your own projects. CEOs don’t deserve your mind, so don’t give it to them.
- lll-o-lll 4y ago
  Wait what? You did mean to add the /s at the end right?
  - lampshades 4y ago
    /s for serious
- teucris 4y ago
  > Do not help those who seek to devalue you Excellent statement. The rest only applies if you can confirm that your company is seeking to devalue you. That is becoming more common but I don’t think it’s universally true.
  - brightstep 4y ago
    All companies seek to devalue their workers. It is the nature of the profit motive. The less a company can pay for labor, the more it reaps as profit.
    - Natsu 4y ago
      Man, you must have worked for some terrible companies. I have friends at everywhere I ever worked and we always tried to cooperate.
      - 4y ago
dvt 4y ago
I mean, apart from the highfalutin class warfare nonsense and generally bad advice, this is a pretty decent post. I completely agree that over the past 30-40 years, companies have been pushing down engineering salaries. It's not really as incendiary as the author might have you believe, though. Programming, as a profession, has simply become more commoditized. It used to be kind of like being a brain surgeon, and it's becoming more like being a plumber. I haven't researched it, but I imagine railroad engineers probably went through a similar economic reality in the early 20th century. What the author doesn't really get, is that there's no putting the genie back in the bottle. The party is over. Salaries will never be as comparatively high as they were in the 80s and 90s, no matter how many code reviews you try to sabotage (weird "advice," by the way). In the capitalist game, being an employee is never going to be a way to garner any real amount of wealth, so expecting to be a 1%'er while working for BigCo as engineer #23435 is an unrealistic expectation to have.
- bediger4000 4y ago
  Offshoring and H1-Bs have definitely kept programmer wages lower than they would have been otherwise.
  - treeman79 4y ago
    I make better than 3x times my wife’s teacher salary. If I really pushed hard career wise I could probably get to 6x.
    - bediger4000 4y ago
      I'm not sure how this is relevant to the market distortion caused by offshoring and H1-B. Could you explain further?
    - primeblue 4y ago
      [dead]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
etothepii 4y ago
The problem with this article is that one does not need capital to start a tech company. This very website, sneered at in the article, is littered with examples of people who have built something at the side. I'm not sure knowledge workers can make the same complaints about class struggle that mechanical labourers can. We tend to get more valuable with age and experience.
- pdonis 4y ago
  > The problem with this article is that one does not need capital to start a tech company Yes, one does. One needs tech skills. Those are capital. (You agree with this since you say tech workers get more valuable with age and experience.) They're just not capital in the form of a large pot of cash that can be used to throw money at problems.
  - ameister14 4y ago
    Skills are not capital assets.
    - pdonis 4y ago
      Yes, they are. The people who own and run Google and Facebook and Amazon didn't magically get "capital" from nowhere. They used their skills, and turned those skills into huge amounts of money. In other words, they understood what capital they owned, and acted to maximize their return on that capital. If you insist on refusing to view your own skills as capital, you're just giving up the chance to maximize (or at least improve) your return on that capital.
      - dudzik 4y ago
        Following that, capital is potential energy. Skills are the ability to meet spec quicker than someone who has to learn as they go. Sounds like potential energy to me. Since capital acts like potential energy, it follows that skills are capital.
      - cratermoon 4y ago
moffkalast 4y ago
> Documentation: The entire point of documentation is to make it easier for the people who come behind you to work. You should write as little documentation as you possibly can. Ah, so no change then?
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  Actually what I see is people producing reams of documentation because they're required to, but it's all completely useless. /** * This is the constructor */ type stuff is plentiful.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
Animats 4y ago
Earlier today I wrote on HN: "We can see it coming now - the Final Solution to high tech salaries. Expect to see a huge downward salary trend in the web front end/back end sector. That stuff is a solved problem. Expect salaries for new hires to drop below $100K and old hires being gradually pushed out." This new post says that's already happening.
- qualudeheart 4y ago
  That’s easily viewed as a pricing in of automation. Amjad Masad of Replit is predicting fully automatic software engineer bot by end of year. Me and my girlfriend were ahead of the curve and are high enough up the ladder that we won’t be effected. Others will have a harder time.
  - phist_mcgee 4y ago
    >effected Yeah sounds about right for a middle manager.
andrewmutz 4y ago
> Especially if the company you’re working for is not actually struggling economically right now. If you work for Google, say, you must be thinking, “What is it about the coming recession that makes a company that’s doing just fine institute broad layoffs for the first time in its 23-year history?” People commenting about the layoffs keep citing the financial health of the companies that are doing the layoffs as evidence that there is some ulterior motive, but this misses why companies perform layoffs. Companies don't choose to hire when they are profitable and layoff when they are losing money. As an example, most tech companies spend their early years losing money while growing hiring and no one assumes they have an ulterior motive. The reason companies perform layoffs is that they believe the labor they are buying is more expensive than the profits from the products they were planning to build with those employees. If they think consumer demand is going to drop, then new investment opportunities won't be as lucrative and they thought they were. Yes, it sucks for the employees and yes we want corporate leaders to have better economic foresight so this doesn't happen. But you don't need some elaborate Marxist theory of class warfare to explain why this is happening, and it does not represent monopsony collusion.
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  > the labor they are buying is more expensive than the profits from the products they were planning to build with those employees Thats it. Thats where the Marxism enters. Most of these companies (or the bigger ones) aren't losing money with these new products, they were just losing profit margin because its profitable but not as profitable. They chose to have fatter profits over your employment and wellbeing. WRT your employment, you’re not their top priority, so they shouldn’t be yours. Also, FWIW big companies lobby to keep healthcare employment tied, not because they love paying for healthcare, but because they love the forced loyalty - it makes quitting/being fired way more risky. Companies expect 2 weeks notice on quitting, but will lay you off overnight via email. Companies will ask you your salary expectation to underpay you, but won't tell you their salary range up front (except in California where it is now law to do so). The imbalance is crazy.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    If you are working at Google, your well-being is already very good. Ride the highs and the lows, start saving some of that huge pay and you will be able to coast along while looking for new jobs. Otherwise you could just work in government and get paid bellow average but be stable in all economic environments.
uoaei 4y ago
This reads as someone who gets most of their left theory from Instagram. I agree class warfare is real and is being waged, but based on even the author's description of the term "capital" I don't think they have a good grasp on what class war looks like. Everything they advocate runs counter to any and all notions of worker solidarity. Instead this article seems to be an instruction manual for how to be an unwitting saboteur to your fellow employees' quality of life to no real benefit of your own. It's not like you are going to ingratiate yourself to the company acting this way, nor that earning accolades will make them more likely to promote you to the ownership class.
neilv 4y ago
> Engineering culture encourages workers to collectively improve the company’s effectiveness. It encourages them to share knowledge with one another. To train each other. To build tools for one another. To bring new workers up to speed, and review each other’s work. To speed the company up. To seek out weaknesses in the company and fix them. / Engineers do this while they’re doing their actual job, the one the company thinks it’s paying them for: tending the machine that makes money. No, I think most of these are usually part of the job of a software engineer, and it's part of developing solutions that work, rather than just gaming individual metrics. (And, at Staff+, all of these are.) > There is no reason at all for engineers to continue performing this kind of free labor for entities that are trying to cut their wages. It is in their interest to do the exact opposite. It's not free labor. It's part of the job for which we're paid. Seems like anyone on a project team who doesn't share knowledge, help other team members, document, etc., would soon be disliked by team members who are focused on the project and team.
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  >> Engineering culture encourages workers to collectively improve the company’s effectiveness. It encourages them to share knowledge with one another. To train each other. To build tools for one another. To bring new workers up to speed, and review each other’s work. To speed the company up. To seek out weaknesses in the company and fix them. / Engineers do this while they’re doing their actual job, the one the company thinks it’s paying them for: tending the machine that makes money. Isn't it why any serious engineering job will have stocks as part of the comp package? That's pretty much the whole point: if the company does better, your stock does better...
  - darth_avocado 4y ago
    The company does better when they pay you less.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      That depends. If they lose you to a competitor that pays more, then the company loses. It's that old Supply & Demand thing again.
bob1029 4y ago
> If you build a tool, you’re making it possible for capital to get more productivity out of its workers at the same time that it is reducing workers’ wages. This is actually our central business model. We sell B2B automation/workflow software so that other companies can retain much cheaper talent. Most of the people involved would define our product as "progress", but I can understand how others would perceive it as a form of warfare.
karaterobot 4y ago
This is terrible advice: Don't write documentation, don't pay down technical debt, sabotage interviews, don't share tools with colleagues? Go pound sand. This has all the practicality of college freshman Marxism combined with the slapdash rhetoric of a Medium post.
ravivooda 4y ago
I resonate with this sentiment very well. I was deeply disturbed when a Venture Fund publicly stated that engineers are making too much money in a statement (https://www.tcifund.com/files/corporateengageement/alphabet/20th%20January%202023.pdf https://www.tcifund.com/files/corporateengageement/alphabet/...)
- qualudeheart 4y ago
  How wonderful that we can name and shame that fund. More people should do this.
tonfreed 4y ago
I mean, yes offense, but this guy is a literally who trying to call people to radical action. And let's face it, large companies often hire dead weight to beef up their stock prices, it was inevitable they were going to shave headcount when the purse strings needed to tighten. While I'm not wholly unsympathetic to those laid off, I've personally found that people that post this kind of thing are the first to try and guilt you into free labor themselves.
trieste92 4y ago
Something that I've noticed in these anti work types is they assume work has negative value, that by working for someone you are "losing" While you don't get paid the exact revenue you generate, I think that this kind of work has inherent value. It has plenty of learning opportunities which lead to income increases (edit: through promotion or going to a different employer, whichever is more optimal) because you become more productive and knowledgeable over time As far as engineering culture is concerned, you're worse off working with anti work types like op because you don't learn as much and piss away more time, providing fewer learning opportunities in the long run
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > While you don't get paid the exact revenue you generate If you did, why would a company hire you? The idea is the employee must create more value than he costs. And the employee gets more pay than his labor is worth to himself. That's why it's a win-win relationship.
  - grumpy_coder 4y ago
    Except the company cut has been getting bigger and bigger for the last 40 years. Productivity has increased and wages have not.
    - littlestymaar 4y ago
      That's indeed true for the average worker, but are you sure it is the case for software engineer? How high were the salaries in the 80s?
      - Gigachad 4y ago
        Ultimately you always have the option of writing your own software. This is much easier than say starting your own package shipping center or whatever. But there is a huge risk the software will never make money. Billions have been spent on failed software, the employees got to cash out and not care. So you trade risk for reward.
WalterBright 4y ago
> See, for instance, K. Marx Yeah, I figured it was yet another attempt to sell Marxism.
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  Well, the title was "introduction to class warfare". I was hoping it might be a funny discussion about object oriented design, but it wasn't.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  I mean, Marxism really did do much better at giving the profits to the workers. Wait...
60secs 4y ago
Fire all zero sum thinkers
jazzyjackson 4y ago
Is this satire?
labrador 4y ago
I agree with the capital class vs. the worker class, but I don't think it's at play here as much as the author writes. The future looks very unpredictable right now, so you do what any good captain would do and tighten ship to get ready for the storm. AI could eliminate the need for some of your services. It will likely eliminate the need for some of your employees. What would WW3 do to our business? How about another pandemic. Only the companies who are flexible and adaptable will make it.
qez2 4y ago
> To use the language of antitrust, these companies are a cartel that is using its monopsony power to drive down demand for labor. Except there is absolutely no reason to believe this at all. Author is just making stuff up. If they were doing that, it would be to cut wages; layoffs are not part of it.
nemo44x 4y ago
My favorite part was the section that was bullet point after bullet point of horrible advice. The 19th and early/mid 20th century lenses used in this blog post are just not relevant to todays tech worker. The labor theory of value simply doesn't apply in the world of power law distributions we are now in.
recycledfood 4y ago
To the owner class and their handmaidens, all workers are just expenses to be minimized in a spreadsheet. A tech worker is the same to them as the plumber who fixed their toilet last week. The plumber doesn't imagine himself to be the next Elon Musk (if not for a sufficiently lucky break), though. Tech workers are prone to giving away free labor and the author's "advice" illustrates one example (things which are "part of the job" but really separate from the core of The Machine). Continuing the analogy: when you hire a plumber to fix your toilet, he doesn't repipe the rest of your house or do your laundry unless you pay him specifically to do those things. Your relationship is transactional and without loyalty on either side. Just like how most employers view their relationship with employees. Many if not most tech workers suffer from misplaced loyalty towards their employers, whose owners will continue coordinating as a class, taking all they can, while workers remain distracted and divided.
lumb63 4y ago
I’m exhausted of hearing the “class warfare” battle cry from the upper 2%, against the 1%.
swamp40 4y ago
Well, in case you were wondering what a communist was, here is a perfect example. As an engineer, I'm not falling for his sad attempt to drive a wedge between tech workers, engineers and management. I have more in common with tech company lofty goals than I do with his. > Google, Amazon, IBM, Spotify, PayPal, Salesforce, 3M, Coinbase, and more are all conducting mass layoffs at the same time. Yes, it's a conspiracy just to lower tech wages, not a recession.
- steele 4y ago
  Marxism*
  - swamp40 4y ago
    Ok, true.
- leshow 4y ago
  Unemployment is at record low levels, that's not indicative of a recession.
  - swamp40 4y ago
    Lots of companies laying off though. The numbers lag. And the fed will continue hitting the brakes until it gets what it wants. A recession isn't even called until it is over.
UIUC_06 4y ago
Ah, Marxism: that 19th century idea that refuses to die no matter how often it fails. You would think, wouldn't you, that the several dozen countries over the last 100 years that became avowedly Marxist, and turned into prison farms that citizens couldn't wait to leave, would have convinced everyone that it doesn't work? But no. The college freshman mentality keeps vomiting it up again.
Reasonin 4y ago
150+ years and how many failed revolutions and people are still preaching the labor theory of value like it's gospel...
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Real revolutions have never been tried yet.
benreesman 4y ago
I'll pass on all the class warfare melodrama, but it does seem a bit strange to be blasting tens of thousands of employees you paid through the nose to identify, recruit, and retain during a period of time when the biggest actors in tech are facing a level of competitive pressure that they haven't in a long time. Maybe some cuts were needed to reassure the Street and support the stock price, and maybe that's easier to do with some air cover about interest rates and shit, but everyone remembers what happened the last time even one of the big actors broke ranks and started doubling people's salaries: Google has had a little problem called "Facebook" ever since. I'm not sure I'd be keen to repeat the experiment with OpenAI/ChatGPT and ByteDance/TikTok running around. FANG has had a good run but they're not invincible. So I don't think they're going to be able to meaningfully depress big tech compensation for very long. But who knows, I've been wrong before.
- thwayunion 4y ago
  There are multiple classes of tech workers. Historically all of FAANG has been more or less part of the upper-middle and upper class. I think there will be a bifurcation along those lines within FAANG, and the big tech companies will look more like the big banks than like high finance going forward. You even see this in the layoffs, which hit folks outside of engineering harder than folks inside of engineering and within engineering really took a knife to the folks below "senior". I think you could see a bifurcation in Eng tracks at FAANGs.
jojobas 4y ago
Not that I'd expect something clever from someone calling for "class warfare", but this is a load of bollocks even by Marxist standards. 21st century IT work is Marx's wet dream come true and an occasional layoff doesn't change that, it's not that those laid off are doomed to experience any hardship. There are (still) plenty of offers with stock options and it still pays at least top quarter. There is an important caveat however - you have to be good. Marx couldn't imagine only 5% or so of those willing being good at working the lathe. You'll only need class warfare if you're no good.
wpwpwpw 4y ago
all good but he forgot the most important thing: unionization
steele 4y ago
ITT, temporarily embarrassed billionairea
- frollo 4y ago
  Great thread, if you need to polish your shoes
SergeAx 4y ago
I believe that the best antidote for this utterly bullshit marxist propaganda is ESR[0]'s essay "Why hackers should eject SWJs". Please take time to read this (and, if you like it, other his essays): http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918 [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond
- mustacheemperor 4y ago
  I truly cannot see the connection between ESR's criticisms in that essay, and the subject matter of the OP article. Can you you please add some clarifying context?
  - SergeAx 4y ago
    Let me just quote it for you: " If we fall away from meritocracy – if we allow the SJWs to remake us as they wish, into a hell-pit of competitive grievance-mongering and political favoritism for the designated victim group of the week – we will betray not only what is best in our own traditions but the entire civilization that we serve". s/SJWs/Marxists/
    - mustacheemperor 4y ago
      I'm not seeing the connection between the specific ideological groups Raymond is criticizing, and anyone in the OP submission. Are you bucketing the author of this article with the people Raymond is criticizing? That connection seems so broad that anyone calling for any systemic change of any kind in the tech space could be likewise bucketed, which seems unreasonable. Aside, I don't think that was Raymond's intent with the essay, where he employs some very specific examples of what groups/ideologies he is criticizing. I'm asking for context, one quote from the article I already read is not providing it. It's only confusing me further. I did not understand your perspective after reading that article, so you quoting one line of it that seems especially salient to you from your perspective is not helping me understand you. Breaking down the acronym in his essay, I don't really see the connection between the "social justice" advocacy he is specifically criticizing, and the advocacy in the article for worker rights / class equality. And to be clear, I'm really doing my best not to voice any opinion for/against Raymond's own views in that essay or the author's views in the OP submission - I just truly cannot understand why you are drawing this comparison between the subject matter of each article.
maedayx 4y ago
I'm all on board for expanding the class consciousness in our profession, but I feel like "get a union" is much better advice than "stop writing documentation".
- GoToRO 4y ago
  from TFA: "Oh, yeah, we should also have a union. Sure."
jongjong 4y ago
This is an interesting article. I hope that the capital class will realize that this article is basically a summary of what tech workers at big companies have already been doing over the last 5 years or so. Good developers who are passionate about their work have been getting absolutely crushed in this environment of "Don't try to clear technical debt. Don't hire good candidates who may replace you. Don't help train your co-workers, etc..." It's been impossible for me to get a job at Big Tech over the last 5 years for these very reasons. I think Capital should be respected. That said, over a decade of 0-percent interest monetary policy have really made a mess of things and made it very difficult to respect capital. The bad actors have already cashed out, bought assets and tarnished the image of capitalism.
msluyter 4y ago
This article overlooks the potentially positive impact of your peer network. All of the things that the article suggest you shouldn’t do are things that make you valuable to your peers. And your peers may be instrumental in helping you find your next job.
vfclists 4y ago
Hacker News is so full of corporate shills it is laughable. The guy is making a point here. Do not add to your employer's assets unless you are expressly instructed to. Quite simply, don't write any software to improve your employer's operations unless you are instructed by your boss to do so. Don't use your own initiative to do something unless it is acknowledged and approved by your superiors. Factory workers don't go about fixing broken equipment on the assembly line. The equipment manufacturer's service employees are the ones who do it. Trust me, those guys won't touch any piece of equipment until they are instructed to do so in writing from the customer or from their managers. Software and engineering guys are only to happy to write stuff for their employees and even sign agreements not to develop their own software even when it isn't done on company time.
- thiagoharry 4y ago
  Exactly. The ideology that romanticizes free labor is very strong in software industry. Would my employer spend extra hours just to make me more comfortable or to help solving my problems? Would they be proactive to find ways to increase my wage instead of their profits? If not, why should I act in the opposite way going out my way to help their profits? We have a contract, so I fulfill exactly what is written in the contract: no more and no less. And even accepting this, I am being very generous, as I know that I produce more wealth than what I am paid for.
- foobarian 4y ago
  > Quite simply, don't write any software to improve your employer's operations unless you are instructed by your boss to do so. Don't use your own initiative to do something unless it is acknowledged and approved by your superiors. Heh, are there actual companies where this is possible? If I went off coding random pet projects to "improve operations" I'd get in trouble real quick. Unless it's discussed and prioritized from higher up it's hard to make time to work on substantial projects. Maybe I should be looking for a new opportunity eh!
  - frollo 4y ago
    > Heh, are there actual companies where this is possible? I've seen companies where this was presented as a benefit. The small ones said things like "you have X ours a week you can spend working on whatever part of our product/infrastructure you want, even outside your current role!" while bigger ones restricted it to "corporate hackathons" (aka work after hours for a cold pizza and some warm beer). If there's a why to persuade an engineer to work for free, out there there's at least a couple MBAs who've tried it.
solarmist 4y ago
(This is only a partially developed thought. I'm sure some of my reasoning isn't sound. Please help me to develop it more fully.) This is an extremely misguided essay. It conflates two types of programmers. There are two classes (as in labor classes) of programmers. It's like confusing the difference between an electrician and an electrical engineer. Many businesses already recognize this fact, but the author doesn't seem to have a clue. The first, "programmers," do routine things to implement features, which it sounds like the author is advocating everyone turn into. The second, "software engineers," are a new class of workers, knowledge workers. Creativity and collaboration are core job functions for this class of workers. Is implementation a piece of it, yes, but it is decidedly not the point of the job. Software engineers ARE "the machine that makes money". Trust is the mechanism that keeps a technology company viable. Apple and Microsoft are great examples. They are ascendent when there is trust in the motives of the company, but when they were headed for rent-seeking or "lost their soul" (for lack of a better description) they quickly started declining and were on the path to bankruptcy or at best irrelevance. For a software engineer leaving is like leaving a half completed painting. You leave behind the artifacts, but they were never the (most) important part. When leaving the company is sufficient to change its prospects (taking your ball with you) elaborate strike behavior is unnecessary. Without creative engineers, tech companies will die and creativity requires psychological safety.
migf 4y ago
Author is ignoring the value of building a network of engineers and professional relationships that will withstand any particular gig. This is the mode we have for building solidarity among developers. Software is unique as a means of production precisely because it is a much more efficient way to turn labor into capital assets (software programs). I think the way out it presents us is to start software focused businesses that are wholly employee owned without VC input; bootstrapped as employee cooperatives. I'm working on this right now, although it's a hard climb to figure next steps. Anyone else interested?
- recycledfood 4y ago
  > I think the way out it presents us is to start software focused businesses that are wholly employee owned without VC input; bootstrapped as employee cooperatives. I like this idea and think it's in the same vein as proposed in Developer Hegemony[0]. Stumbling blocks for me: - I don't think anyone in my network also wants to do this and I'm afraid to take the first step. This one's on me obviously. - health insurance. In the US, it seems small business health plans only cover full-time employees, and a certain number of covered employees are needed to have a decently-priced risk pool (so good luck if not everyone is all-in right off the bat). The individual insurance marketplace absolutely sucks, at least in my state, cynically viewed as by design but also probably because it's a Lemon Market. - reputation. How do you generate quality leads and close deals without either an established reputation as a business or significant funding? [0]: https://daedtech.com/developer-hegemony-the-crazy-idea-that-software-developers-should-run-software-development/ https://daedtech.com/developer-hegemony-the-crazy-idea-that-...
justusw 4y ago
It is funny to see how many people in the comments here seem to be personally angered by this article. What is at stake for them, I wonder? Also, unionization, good choice as always. And doing exactly the work you are being paid for, not more, not less.
mdip 4y ago
I'm curious how the mass layoffs play out when the large tech outfits find themselves needing to fill difficult positions. My expectation, unfortunately, is that for the biggest players it won't be much more than "we have to pay more for talent to be willing to work for us." However, for some it may play out as it did for the survivors of the early-00s dot-com bust. I know of one company, in particular, that narrowly avoided bankruptcy by laying off about half of their staff. They did this in the ugliest way possible (at the time) ... having people sent to rooms to receive either "you're safe/new job" letters or have their badges taken from them and walked -- en mass -- out the door after an apology speech delivered via video. Unfortunately, this company was located in a market that even in the worst economic times never broke 1% unemployment for devs/engineers. When the need to expand/fix what fell apart came, they found it impossible to hire mid-level and above programming and support positions[0]. After discovering an unusually low number of referrals (despite large bonuses offered) for programmers, they polled staff and found that the issue was the reputation of the company among the staff's professional network... and being a (still) large employer in the area, that represented the overall reputation of job-seekers in the area[1]. The company I worked for (or, at least, the company that we merged with) had a similar problem, though had a much larger pool of engineering talent to pull from (and I'm not sure they ever did "door #1/door #2" style lay-offs). It was a big problem for them for a few years, but was managed by increasing offers and accepting less qualified candidates (which are realities for large businesses with a lot of bureaucracy, anyway). [0] I know of several cases where they paid employees to move across the country in order to fill needed positions. It was always puzzling to me why they didn't just hire remotely, but they had a reasonably centralized operation. [1] My buddy continued working there after they laid off most of his coworkers; apparently the environment improved, dramatically, about two years later but the hiring problem persisted until he left a decade later. I suspect it's better by now. I don't even know if the company has the same name.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
somsak2 4y ago
An interesting idea that is then followed-up with a bunch of bad advice. I'm just not seeing how taking the advice here doesn't turn into your job being excruciatingly annoying to actually perform day-to-day. So maybe you've tipped the balance in labor's favor, but you've given up any semblance of actually enjoying your job. There have to be other ways. I would welcome an article that started with the goal to further the same thesis but got there in an alternative way.
nvfkpwydxt 4y ago
This is not a plan, this is a temper tantrum, thrown by an infant. A plan is to shame management and foment collective response. E.g., as background - Research on profits vs time for companies - Research on real wages for SWE vs time for same companies - Illustration on timing of layoffs compared to these And, as foreground: - Collectively asking management for response to these facts in available forums, e.g., town halls or slack channels Or, if these fora don't exist - creating them by collective action e.g., meeting with each other and discussing at these meetings Small side point: while the post opens with an image referring to events of 1830 there is almost no history in the post. If anyone has recommended links to some actionable history that would also be useful
phillias 4y ago
Fighting against your employer is exactly what they want and gives them leverage to clamp down harder. Your efforts are best spent pushing initiatives like the FTCs repeal of non-competes. Corporations have captured our government, our only chance is to take our government back not to continue in fighting.

265 points by chobeat 4y ago

You might get away with this if you work for the DMV or something but behaving like this to any meaningful extent in a workplace where everyone else isn't already is a great way to be shown the door first.

drewcon 4y ago

This has to be satire.

valcron1000 4y ago

Is this some kind of twisted joke? If not, the author is mentally ill.

wufufufu 4y ago

Had me in the first half, lost me in the second. Why not try to create unions instead of "don't document anything because you're making yourself replaceable"?

chobeat 4y ago
why not both?
- striking 4y ago
  Because, as they state under another heading, > It’s not in your interest as a worker to let capital think that its workers are saboteurs. And although documentation can make you somewhat replaceable, it is a joyless and tiring experience to work on something that is quickly evolving yet completely undocumented. I'd rather be made slightly more replaceable if it meant my job wouldn't be a tiring, joyless grind.
  - fluoridation 4y ago
    The trick is to have documentation but keep it a secret.
  - lmz 4y ago
    The part about code reviews and meetings is about working to rule, to further delay progress. Don't take risks with bugs, review thoroughly. Don't ask for forgiveness, ask dor permission and escalate it in meetings.
- greenie_beans 4y ago
  it's not nice to the other workers — that's not very good class solidarity.
  - keskival 4y ago
    The article was missing the words "together" and "solidarity". It seemed to be a product of a culture of extreme individualism.
    - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
      Yeah. "I, the individual, am going to do my best to make sure that I get mine, even if it harms the company and my coworkers". That's not "class warfare". That's narcissism.
      - cudgy 4y ago
        As opposed to “I, the executive or founder, am going to do my best to make sure that I get mine, even if it harms the company and my employees." Who has the most incentive and power to be the narcissist? Employees would be smart to understand this dynamic.
justizin 4y ago
This is called, "The Tyranny of Competence", and is hostile to other workers. Companies also don't have a way to quantify this, and sometimes will hesitate to term someone, until they are fed up and will just decide it is worthwhile at all costs. I have worked with or been the successor to folks who did this and it made me absolutely furious, and reflected poorly on my performance.
- uoaei 4y ago
  Yeah, leaving your fellow employees out to dry is absolutely not class warfare, except insofar as it is friendly fire.
- letitbeirie 4y ago
  > hostile to other workers It's also hostile to the practitioner if they last long enough at the same company. I end up reinventing my "clever" (until I forget the context at least) hacks more often than I care to admit and I'm not actively trying to sabotage my company.
xupybd 4y ago
I work hard to become replaceable. I want to move up, I can't be too important at my current level. If that means automating things, documentation and training juniors then I'm all for it.
dljsjr 4y ago
This is exactly what the article says to do. I also paused at that section that listed all those crazy things, if you power through and get to the end you'll find this: >If you’re a conscientious engineer, you are probably going to find the above suggestions somewhere between counterintuitive and horrifying. You should! They are horrifying! This is how deeply capital’s war on workers is scarring our profession. >These people are actively trying to take your wealth away from you and keep it for themselves. You need to protect yourself. >Oh, yeah, we should also have a union. Sure. Let’s get on that one of these days.
- frollo 4y ago
  For being the point of the article (and it is), it's very well hidden. I like the article and feel like we need more of this out there, but they should be written a little better.
pdonis 4y ago
Lost me in the first half. The whole capital vs. labor thing is a false dichotomy, particularly here where we're talking about highly skilled tech workers. Your skills are capital, and your pay for using those skills is mostly return on capital, not "labor cost". The real dichotomy here is simple: it's between people who understand that they own capital and work to maximize their return on that capital, and people who don't.
- uoaei 4y ago
  Capitalist vs laborer is a true dichotomy, in that one cannot be both simultaneously within one context. But it is important to remember these are embodied roles and not character traits. I.e., a laborer becomes a consumer when they leave their place of employment to drive to the grocery store.
  - qualudeheart 4y ago
    What about owner-operators? Truckers who own their own trucks are both laborers and capitalists.
    - uoaei 4y ago
      A truck is useless without a route. In the case of trucking, "the means of production" includes customer lead generation, driver dispatch, etc. Owning their truck only gives them the flexibility to switch employers more easily.
      - ddoolin 4y ago
        Agreed. But just as a thought experiment: what about a truck driver who owns their own trucking company, employs around a dozen other drivers, and also drives as one of its drivers? I would guess, theoretically, this is impossible past a certain size of enterprise, but in the meantime I would imagine that they would be both. A capitalist laboring as part of their own means of production.

kemiller2002 4y ago

I don't live in NY or Seattle. The tech sector is much smaller where I am. I've never seen it be advantageous to treat other people as someone I'm in competition with. I've been laid off. Yeah it sucks, but no job is forever, and being nice to people means I get to sleep at night. I've also never seen anyone who can't be replaced. Time and time again something wasn't documented, and other devs/dbas/admins stepped in and figured it out. I'd rather be the guy people say, "I help out when there is a problem" instead of, "I hate working with him, because I never know what he's doing." It's nicer, and makes it easier to work with someone you did before. That's just me though. Edit: I've also been on the hiring side and passed on people I know like that. My job is to mitigate risk, and those people are a liability.

eternalban 4y ago
Fine, I'll play the political officer here and try to help you understand the error of your position. /g Your post is entirely singular and individualistic in perspective. We could look at the situation differently, from the perspective of OP. In this case, it would be you and your politically aware colleagues who understand the necessities of the situation. To put it boldly, it is a revolutionary movement that seeks to introduce a much needed balance into the equation of capital and labor in the age of thinking machines. You and your colleagues will get along just fine, if you are clear eyed comrades. And you will sleep even more soundly, knowing that you are not only helping your contemporaries, but also laying the foundation for a more equitable society for your progeny.
giraffe_lady 4y ago
"In competition" is a fundamental misunderstanding of the interests at play. It's adversarial whether you integrate that understanding into your actions or not. And acknowledging the adversarial nature of workers and owners doesn't mean you have to be nasty to anyone on an interpersonal level.
- qsort 4y ago
  Some aspects are adversarial, some aspects aren't. How much compensation I get is adversarial. How much documentation I write or how many internal tools I develop isn't adversarial, not even if you put la liberté guidant le peuple above the fold.

kachurovskiy 4y ago

This is plain bad advice that sounds smart because it comes from the "ultra-practical" but short-term corner of thinking. In reality being a good person is what pays off long-term. If I'm laid off, I will continue my professional journey elsewhere - perhaps on my own, maybe even with more satisfaction?

BenGosub 4y ago

Earnings fail, valuations go down and layoffs happen. This cycle of layoffs has been one of the most expected since I remember. And people in the software space still have so many options. There could be an event that will lead to a situation that won't be as good as we have it right now and I am fully aware of this. But, I don't see a reason to view the layoffs through the lens of this author.

cratermoon 4y ago
> Earnings fail, valuations go down and layoffs happen And yet the investors and senior executives still get 7- to 8- figure compensation, pull down yet more money from stock buybacks, and generally benefit. The overall amount of money changing hands doesn't go down, but less of it goes to the line employees while more falls into the pockets of the ones with already overflowing pockets.
- BenGosub 4y ago
  well, during early stages of startups the investors lose money, while employees get wages. I agree that compensation in the finance space doesn't make sense, but that's a different problem.

jpollock 4y ago

My job as an engineer has been to make my current position unnecessary. That's how I justify my pay increases, by becoming more efficient and making the organisation more efficient. I look at where the organisation is going and solve problems.

lampshades 4y ago

Yes, I agree 100%. Do not help those who seek to devalue you. Extract as much value for as little work as possible. The people who run these companies are not your friends and they’re not your family, take advantage of them at every opportunity you can. Don’t care if the company fails, don’t pay any mind to burning bridges, don’t bother giving two weeks, and certainly don’t do anything more than the bare minimum. All true thought work should be done on your own time for your own projects. CEOs don’t deserve your mind, so don’t give it to them.

lll-o-lll 4y ago
Wait what? You did mean to add the /s at the end right?
- lampshades 4y ago
  /s for serious
teucris 4y ago
> Do not help those who seek to devalue you Excellent statement. The rest only applies if you can confirm that your company is seeking to devalue you. That is becoming more common but I don’t think it’s universally true.
- brightstep 4y ago
  All companies seek to devalue their workers. It is the nature of the profit motive. The less a company can pay for labor, the more it reaps as profit.
  - Natsu 4y ago
    Man, you must have worked for some terrible companies. I have friends at everywhere I ever worked and we always tried to cooperate.
    - 4y ago

dvt 4y ago

I mean, apart from the highfalutin class warfare nonsense and generally bad advice, this is a pretty decent post. I completely agree that over the past 30-40 years, companies have been pushing down engineering salaries. It's not really as incendiary as the author might have you believe, though. Programming, as a profession, has simply become more commoditized. It used to be kind of like being a brain surgeon, and it's becoming more like being a plumber. I haven't researched it, but I imagine railroad engineers probably went through a similar economic reality in the early 20th century. What the author doesn't really get, is that there's no putting the genie back in the bottle. The party is over. Salaries will never be as comparatively high as they were in the 80s and 90s, no matter how many code reviews you try to sabotage (weird "advice," by the way). In the capitalist game, being an employee is never going to be a way to garner any real amount of wealth, so expecting to be a 1%'er while working for BigCo as engineer #23435 is an unrealistic expectation to have.

bediger4000 4y ago
Offshoring and H1-Bs have definitely kept programmer wages lower than they would have been otherwise.
- treeman79 4y ago
  I make better than 3x times my wife’s teacher salary. If I really pushed hard career wise I could probably get to 6x.
  - bediger4000 4y ago
    I'm not sure how this is relevant to the market distortion caused by offshoring and H1-B. Could you explain further?
  - primeblue 4y ago
    [dead]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

etothepii 4y ago

The problem with this article is that one does not need capital to start a tech company. This very website, sneered at in the article, is littered with examples of people who have built something at the side. I'm not sure knowledge workers can make the same complaints about class struggle that mechanical labourers can. We tend to get more valuable with age and experience.

pdonis 4y ago
> The problem with this article is that one does not need capital to start a tech company Yes, one does. One needs tech skills. Those are capital. (You agree with this since you say tech workers get more valuable with age and experience.) They're just not capital in the form of a large pot of cash that can be used to throw money at problems.
- ameister14 4y ago
  Skills are not capital assets.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    Yes, they are. The people who own and run Google and Facebook and Amazon didn't magically get "capital" from nowhere. They used their skills, and turned those skills into huge amounts of money. In other words, they understood what capital they owned, and acted to maximize their return on that capital. If you insist on refusing to view your own skills as capital, you're just giving up the chance to maximize (or at least improve) your return on that capital.
    - dudzik 4y ago
      Following that, capital is potential energy. Skills are the ability to meet spec quicker than someone who has to learn as they go. Sounds like potential energy to me. Since capital acts like potential energy, it follows that skills are capital.
    - cratermoon 4y ago

moffkalast 4y ago

> Documentation: The entire point of documentation is to make it easier for the people who come behind you to work. You should write as little documentation as you possibly can. Ah, so no change then?

commandlinefan 4y ago
Actually what I see is people producing reams of documentation because they're required to, but it's all completely useless. /** * This is the constructor */ type stuff is plentiful.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

Animats 4y ago

Earlier today I wrote on HN: "We can see it coming now - the Final Solution to high tech salaries. Expect to see a huge downward salary trend in the web front end/back end sector. That stuff is a solved problem. Expect salaries for new hires to drop below $100K and old hires being gradually pushed out." This new post says that's already happening.

qualudeheart 4y ago
That’s easily viewed as a pricing in of automation. Amjad Masad of Replit is predicting fully automatic software engineer bot by end of year. Me and my girlfriend were ahead of the curve and are high enough up the ladder that we won’t be effected. Others will have a harder time.
- phist_mcgee 4y ago
  >effected Yeah sounds about right for a middle manager.

andrewmutz 4y ago

> Especially if the company you’re working for is not actually struggling economically right now. If you work for Google, say, you must be thinking, “What is it about the coming recession that makes a company that’s doing just fine institute broad layoffs for the first time in its 23-year history?” People commenting about the layoffs keep citing the financial health of the companies that are doing the layoffs as evidence that there is some ulterior motive, but this misses why companies perform layoffs. Companies don't choose to hire when they are profitable and layoff when they are losing money. As an example, most tech companies spend their early years losing money while growing hiring and no one assumes they have an ulterior motive. The reason companies perform layoffs is that they believe the labor they are buying is more expensive than the profits from the products they were planning to build with those employees. If they think consumer demand is going to drop, then new investment opportunities won't be as lucrative and they thought they were. Yes, it sucks for the employees and yes we want corporate leaders to have better economic foresight so this doesn't happen. But you don't need some elaborate Marxist theory of class warfare to explain why this is happening, and it does not represent monopsony collusion.

vineyardmike 4y ago
> the labor they are buying is more expensive than the profits from the products they were planning to build with those employees Thats it. Thats where the Marxism enters. Most of these companies (or the bigger ones) aren't losing money with these new products, they were just losing profit margin because its profitable but not as profitable. They chose to have fatter profits over your employment and wellbeing. WRT your employment, you’re not their top priority, so they shouldn’t be yours. Also, FWIW big companies lobby to keep healthcare employment tied, not because they love paying for healthcare, but because they love the forced loyalty - it makes quitting/being fired way more risky. Companies expect 2 weeks notice on quitting, but will lay you off overnight via email. Companies will ask you your salary expectation to underpay you, but won't tell you their salary range up front (except in California where it is now law to do so). The imbalance is crazy.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  If you are working at Google, your well-being is already very good. Ride the highs and the lows, start saving some of that huge pay and you will be able to coast along while looking for new jobs. Otherwise you could just work in government and get paid bellow average but be stable in all economic environments.

uoaei 4y ago

This reads as someone who gets most of their left theory from Instagram. I agree class warfare is real and is being waged, but based on even the author's description of the term "capital" I don't think they have a good grasp on what class war looks like. Everything they advocate runs counter to any and all notions of worker solidarity. Instead this article seems to be an instruction manual for how to be an unwitting saboteur to your fellow employees' quality of life to no real benefit of your own. It's not like you are going to ingratiate yourself to the company acting this way, nor that earning accolades will make them more likely to promote you to the ownership class.

neilv 4y ago

> Engineering culture encourages workers to collectively improve the company’s effectiveness. It encourages them to share knowledge with one another. To train each other. To build tools for one another. To bring new workers up to speed, and review each other’s work. To speed the company up. To seek out weaknesses in the company and fix them. / Engineers do this while they’re doing their actual job, the one the company thinks it’s paying them for: tending the machine that makes money. No, I think most of these are usually part of the job of a software engineer, and it's part of developing solutions that work, rather than just gaming individual metrics. (And, at Staff+, all of these are.) > There is no reason at all for engineers to continue performing this kind of free labor for entities that are trying to cut their wages. It is in their interest to do the exact opposite. It's not free labor. It's part of the job for which we're paid. Seems like anyone on a project team who doesn't share knowledge, help other team members, document, etc., would soon be disliked by team members who are focused on the project and team.

908B64B197 4y ago
>> Engineering culture encourages workers to collectively improve the company’s effectiveness. It encourages them to share knowledge with one another. To train each other. To build tools for one another. To bring new workers up to speed, and review each other’s work. To speed the company up. To seek out weaknesses in the company and fix them. / Engineers do this while they’re doing their actual job, the one the company thinks it’s paying them for: tending the machine that makes money. Isn't it why any serious engineering job will have stocks as part of the comp package? That's pretty much the whole point: if the company does better, your stock does better...
- darth_avocado 4y ago
  The company does better when they pay you less.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    That depends. If they lose you to a competitor that pays more, then the company loses. It's that old Supply & Demand thing again.

bob1029 4y ago

> If you build a tool, you’re making it possible for capital to get more productivity out of its workers at the same time that it is reducing workers’ wages. This is actually our central business model. We sell B2B automation/workflow software so that other companies can retain much cheaper talent. Most of the people involved would define our product as "progress", but I can understand how others would perceive it as a form of warfare.

karaterobot 4y ago

This is terrible advice: Don't write documentation, don't pay down technical debt, sabotage interviews, don't share tools with colleagues? Go pound sand. This has all the practicality of college freshman Marxism combined with the slapdash rhetoric of a Medium post.

ravivooda 4y ago

I resonate with this sentiment very well. I was deeply disturbed when a Venture Fund publicly stated that engineers are making too much money in a statement (https://www.tcifund.com/files/corporateengageement/alphabet/20th%20January%202023.pdf https://www.tcifund.com/files/corporateengageement/alphabet/...)

qualudeheart 4y ago
How wonderful that we can name and shame that fund. More people should do this.

tonfreed 4y ago

I mean, yes offense, but this guy is a literally who trying to call people to radical action. And let's face it, large companies often hire dead weight to beef up their stock prices, it was inevitable they were going to shave headcount when the purse strings needed to tighten. While I'm not wholly unsympathetic to those laid off, I've personally found that people that post this kind of thing are the first to try and guilt you into free labor themselves.

trieste92 4y ago

Something that I've noticed in these anti work types is they assume work has negative value, that by working for someone you are "losing" While you don't get paid the exact revenue you generate, I think that this kind of work has inherent value. It has plenty of learning opportunities which lead to income increases (edit: through promotion or going to a different employer, whichever is more optimal) because you become more productive and knowledgeable over time As far as engineering culture is concerned, you're worse off working with anti work types like op because you don't learn as much and piss away more time, providing fewer learning opportunities in the long run

WalterBright 4y ago
> While you don't get paid the exact revenue you generate If you did, why would a company hire you? The idea is the employee must create more value than he costs. And the employee gets more pay than his labor is worth to himself. That's why it's a win-win relationship.
- grumpy_coder 4y ago
  Except the company cut has been getting bigger and bigger for the last 40 years. Productivity has increased and wages have not.
  - littlestymaar 4y ago
    That's indeed true for the average worker, but are you sure it is the case for software engineer? How high were the salaries in the 80s?
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      Ultimately you always have the option of writing your own software. This is much easier than say starting your own package shipping center or whatever. But there is a huge risk the software will never make money. Billions have been spent on failed software, the employees got to cash out and not care. So you trade risk for reward.

WalterBright 4y ago

> See, for instance, K. Marx Yeah, I figured it was yet another attempt to sell Marxism.

commandlinefan 4y ago
Well, the title was "introduction to class warfare". I was hoping it might be a funny discussion about object oriented design, but it wasn't.
AnimalMuppet 4y ago
I mean, Marxism really did do much better at giving the profits to the workers. Wait...

60secs 4y ago

Fire all zero sum thinkers

jazzyjackson 4y ago

Is this satire?

labrador 4y ago

I agree with the capital class vs. the worker class, but I don't think it's at play here as much as the author writes. The future looks very unpredictable right now, so you do what any good captain would do and tighten ship to get ready for the storm. AI could eliminate the need for some of your services. It will likely eliminate the need for some of your employees. What would WW3 do to our business? How about another pandemic. Only the companies who are flexible and adaptable will make it.

qez2 4y ago

> To use the language of antitrust, these companies are a cartel that is using its monopsony power to drive down demand for labor. Except there is absolutely no reason to believe this at all. Author is just making stuff up. If they were doing that, it would be to cut wages; layoffs are not part of it.

nemo44x 4y ago

My favorite part was the section that was bullet point after bullet point of horrible advice. The 19th and early/mid 20th century lenses used in this blog post are just not relevant to todays tech worker. The labor theory of value simply doesn't apply in the world of power law distributions we are now in.

recycledfood 4y ago

To the owner class and their handmaidens, all workers are just expenses to be minimized in a spreadsheet. A tech worker is the same to them as the plumber who fixed their toilet last week. The plumber doesn't imagine himself to be the next Elon Musk (if not for a sufficiently lucky break), though. Tech workers are prone to giving away free labor and the author's "advice" illustrates one example (things which are "part of the job" but really separate from the core of The Machine). Continuing the analogy: when you hire a plumber to fix your toilet, he doesn't repipe the rest of your house or do your laundry unless you pay him specifically to do those things. Your relationship is transactional and without loyalty on either side. Just like how most employers view their relationship with employees. Many if not most tech workers suffer from misplaced loyalty towards their employers, whose owners will continue coordinating as a class, taking all they can, while workers remain distracted and divided.

lumb63 4y ago

I’m exhausted of hearing the “class warfare” battle cry from the upper 2%, against the 1%.

swamp40 4y ago

Well, in case you were wondering what a communist was, here is a perfect example. As an engineer, I'm not falling for his sad attempt to drive a wedge between tech workers, engineers and management. I have more in common with tech company lofty goals than I do with his. > Google, Amazon, IBM, Spotify, PayPal, Salesforce, 3M, Coinbase, and more are all conducting mass layoffs at the same time. Yes, it's a conspiracy just to lower tech wages, not a recession.

steele 4y ago
Marxism*
- swamp40 4y ago
  Ok, true.
leshow 4y ago
Unemployment is at record low levels, that's not indicative of a recession.
- swamp40 4y ago
  Lots of companies laying off though. The numbers lag. And the fed will continue hitting the brakes until it gets what it wants. A recession isn't even called until it is over.

UIUC_06 4y ago

Ah, Marxism: that 19th century idea that refuses to die no matter how often it fails. You would think, wouldn't you, that the several dozen countries over the last 100 years that became avowedly Marxist, and turned into prison farms that citizens couldn't wait to leave, would have convinced everyone that it doesn't work? But no. The college freshman mentality keeps vomiting it up again.

Reasonin 4y ago

150+ years and how many failed revolutions and people are still preaching the labor theory of value like it's gospel...

Gigachad 4y ago
Real revolutions have never been tried yet.

benreesman 4y ago

I'll pass on all the class warfare melodrama, but it does seem a bit strange to be blasting tens of thousands of employees you paid through the nose to identify, recruit, and retain during a period of time when the biggest actors in tech are facing a level of competitive pressure that they haven't in a long time. Maybe some cuts were needed to reassure the Street and support the stock price, and maybe that's easier to do with some air cover about interest rates and shit, but everyone remembers what happened the last time even one of the big actors broke ranks and started doubling people's salaries: Google has had a little problem called "Facebook" ever since. I'm not sure I'd be keen to repeat the experiment with OpenAI/ChatGPT and ByteDance/TikTok running around. FANG has had a good run but they're not invincible. So I don't think they're going to be able to meaningfully depress big tech compensation for very long. But who knows, I've been wrong before.

thwayunion 4y ago
There are multiple classes of tech workers. Historically all of FAANG has been more or less part of the upper-middle and upper class. I think there will be a bifurcation along those lines within FAANG, and the big tech companies will look more like the big banks than like high finance going forward. You even see this in the layoffs, which hit folks outside of engineering harder than folks inside of engineering and within engineering really took a knife to the folks below "senior". I think you could see a bifurcation in Eng tracks at FAANGs.

jojobas 4y ago

Not that I'd expect something clever from someone calling for "class warfare", but this is a load of bollocks even by Marxist standards. 21st century IT work is Marx's wet dream come true and an occasional layoff doesn't change that, it's not that those laid off are doomed to experience any hardship. There are (still) plenty of offers with stock options and it still pays at least top quarter. There is an important caveat however - you have to be good. Marx couldn't imagine only 5% or so of those willing being good at working the lathe. You'll only need class warfare if you're no good.

wpwpwpw 4y ago

all good but he forgot the most important thing: unionization

steele 4y ago

ITT, temporarily embarrassed billionairea

frollo 4y ago
Great thread, if you need to polish your shoes

SergeAx 4y ago

I believe that the best antidote for this utterly bullshit marxist propaganda is ESR[0]'s essay "Why hackers should eject SWJs". Please take time to read this (and, if you like it, other his essays): http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918 [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond

mustacheemperor 4y ago
I truly cannot see the connection between ESR's criticisms in that essay, and the subject matter of the OP article. Can you you please add some clarifying context?
- SergeAx 4y ago
  Let me just quote it for you: " If we fall away from meritocracy – if we allow the SJWs to remake us as they wish, into a hell-pit of competitive grievance-mongering and political favoritism for the designated victim group of the week – we will betray not only what is best in our own traditions but the entire civilization that we serve". s/SJWs/Marxists/
  - mustacheemperor 4y ago
    I'm not seeing the connection between the specific ideological groups Raymond is criticizing, and anyone in the OP submission. Are you bucketing the author of this article with the people Raymond is criticizing? That connection seems so broad that anyone calling for any systemic change of any kind in the tech space could be likewise bucketed, which seems unreasonable. Aside, I don't think that was Raymond's intent with the essay, where he employs some very specific examples of what groups/ideologies he is criticizing. I'm asking for context, one quote from the article I already read is not providing it. It's only confusing me further. I did not understand your perspective after reading that article, so you quoting one line of it that seems especially salient to you from your perspective is not helping me understand you. Breaking down the acronym in his essay, I don't really see the connection between the "social justice" advocacy he is specifically criticizing, and the advocacy in the article for worker rights / class equality. And to be clear, I'm really doing my best not to voice any opinion for/against Raymond's own views in that essay or the author's views in the OP submission - I just truly cannot understand why you are drawing this comparison between the subject matter of each article.

maedayx 4y ago

I'm all on board for expanding the class consciousness in our profession, but I feel like "get a union" is much better advice than "stop writing documentation".

GoToRO 4y ago
from TFA: "Oh, yeah, we should also have a union. Sure."

jongjong 4y ago

This is an interesting article. I hope that the capital class will realize that this article is basically a summary of what tech workers at big companies have already been doing over the last 5 years or so. Good developers who are passionate about their work have been getting absolutely crushed in this environment of "Don't try to clear technical debt. Don't hire good candidates who may replace you. Don't help train your co-workers, etc..." It's been impossible for me to get a job at Big Tech over the last 5 years for these very reasons. I think Capital should be respected. That said, over a decade of 0-percent interest monetary policy have really made a mess of things and made it very difficult to respect capital. The bad actors have already cashed out, bought assets and tarnished the image of capitalism.

msluyter 4y ago

This article overlooks the potentially positive impact of your peer network. All of the things that the article suggest you shouldn’t do are things that make you valuable to your peers. And your peers may be instrumental in helping you find your next job.

vfclists 4y ago

Hacker News is so full of corporate shills it is laughable. The guy is making a point here. Do not add to your employer's assets unless you are expressly instructed to. Quite simply, don't write any software to improve your employer's operations unless you are instructed by your boss to do so. Don't use your own initiative to do something unless it is acknowledged and approved by your superiors. Factory workers don't go about fixing broken equipment on the assembly line. The equipment manufacturer's service employees are the ones who do it. Trust me, those guys won't touch any piece of equipment until they are instructed to do so in writing from the customer or from their managers. Software and engineering guys are only to happy to write stuff for their employees and even sign agreements not to develop their own software even when it isn't done on company time.

thiagoharry 4y ago
Exactly. The ideology that romanticizes free labor is very strong in software industry. Would my employer spend extra hours just to make me more comfortable or to help solving my problems? Would they be proactive to find ways to increase my wage instead of their profits? If not, why should I act in the opposite way going out my way to help their profits? We have a contract, so I fulfill exactly what is written in the contract: no more and no less. And even accepting this, I am being very generous, as I know that I produce more wealth than what I am paid for.
foobarian 4y ago
> Quite simply, don't write any software to improve your employer's operations unless you are instructed by your boss to do so. Don't use your own initiative to do something unless it is acknowledged and approved by your superiors. Heh, are there actual companies where this is possible? If I went off coding random pet projects to "improve operations" I'd get in trouble real quick. Unless it's discussed and prioritized from higher up it's hard to make time to work on substantial projects. Maybe I should be looking for a new opportunity eh!
- frollo 4y ago
  > Heh, are there actual companies where this is possible? I've seen companies where this was presented as a benefit. The small ones said things like "you have X ours a week you can spend working on whatever part of our product/infrastructure you want, even outside your current role!" while bigger ones restricted it to "corporate hackathons" (aka work after hours for a cold pizza and some warm beer). If there's a why to persuade an engineer to work for free, out there there's at least a couple MBAs who've tried it.

solarmist 4y ago

(This is only a partially developed thought. I'm sure some of my reasoning isn't sound. Please help me to develop it more fully.) This is an extremely misguided essay. It conflates two types of programmers. There are two classes (as in labor classes) of programmers. It's like confusing the difference between an electrician and an electrical engineer. Many businesses already recognize this fact, but the author doesn't seem to have a clue. The first, "programmers," do routine things to implement features, which it sounds like the author is advocating everyone turn into. The second, "software engineers," are a new class of workers, knowledge workers. Creativity and collaboration are core job functions for this class of workers. Is implementation a piece of it, yes, but it is decidedly not the point of the job. Software engineers ARE "the machine that makes money". Trust is the mechanism that keeps a technology company viable. Apple and Microsoft are great examples. They are ascendent when there is trust in the motives of the company, but when they were headed for rent-seeking or "lost their soul" (for lack of a better description) they quickly started declining and were on the path to bankruptcy or at best irrelevance. For a software engineer leaving is like leaving a half completed painting. You leave behind the artifacts, but they were never the (most) important part. When leaving the company is sufficient to change its prospects (taking your ball with you) elaborate strike behavior is unnecessary. Without creative engineers, tech companies will die and creativity requires psychological safety.

migf 4y ago

Author is ignoring the value of building a network of engineers and professional relationships that will withstand any particular gig. This is the mode we have for building solidarity among developers. Software is unique as a means of production precisely because it is a much more efficient way to turn labor into capital assets (software programs). I think the way out it presents us is to start software focused businesses that are wholly employee owned without VC input; bootstrapped as employee cooperatives. I'm working on this right now, although it's a hard climb to figure next steps. Anyone else interested?

recycledfood 4y ago
> I think the way out it presents us is to start software focused businesses that are wholly employee owned without VC input; bootstrapped as employee cooperatives. I like this idea and think it's in the same vein as proposed in Developer Hegemony[0]. Stumbling blocks for me: - I don't think anyone in my network also wants to do this and I'm afraid to take the first step. This one's on me obviously. - health insurance. In the US, it seems small business health plans only cover full-time employees, and a certain number of covered employees are needed to have a decently-priced risk pool (so good luck if not everyone is all-in right off the bat). The individual insurance marketplace absolutely sucks, at least in my state, cynically viewed as by design but also probably because it's a Lemon Market. - reputation. How do you generate quality leads and close deals without either an established reputation as a business or significant funding? [0]: https://daedtech.com/developer-hegemony-the-crazy-idea-that-software-developers-should-run-software-development/ https://daedtech.com/developer-hegemony-the-crazy-idea-that-...

justusw 4y ago

It is funny to see how many people in the comments here seem to be personally angered by this article. What is at stake for them, I wonder? Also, unionization, good choice as always. And doing exactly the work you are being paid for, not more, not less.

mdip 4y ago

I'm curious how the mass layoffs play out when the large tech outfits find themselves needing to fill difficult positions. My expectation, unfortunately, is that for the biggest players it won't be much more than "we have to pay more for talent to be willing to work for us." However, for some it may play out as it did for the survivors of the early-00s dot-com bust. I know of one company, in particular, that narrowly avoided bankruptcy by laying off about half of their staff. They did this in the ugliest way possible (at the time) ... having people sent to rooms to receive either "you're safe/new job" letters or have their badges taken from them and walked -- en mass -- out the door after an apology speech delivered via video. Unfortunately, this company was located in a market that even in the worst economic times never broke 1% unemployment for devs/engineers. When the need to expand/fix what fell apart came, they found it impossible to hire mid-level and above programming and support positions[0]. After discovering an unusually low number of referrals (despite large bonuses offered) for programmers, they polled staff and found that the issue was the reputation of the company among the staff's professional network... and being a (still) large employer in the area, that represented the overall reputation of job-seekers in the area[1]. The company I worked for (or, at least, the company that we merged with) had a similar problem, though had a much larger pool of engineering talent to pull from (and I'm not sure they ever did "door #1/door #2" style lay-offs). It was a big problem for them for a few years, but was managed by increasing offers and accepting less qualified candidates (which are realities for large businesses with a lot of bureaucracy, anyway). [0] I know of several cases where they paid employees to move across the country in order to fill needed positions. It was always puzzling to me why they didn't just hire remotely, but they had a reasonably centralized operation. [1] My buddy continued working there after they laid off most of his coworkers; apparently the environment improved, dramatically, about two years later but the hiring problem persisted until he left a decade later. I suspect it's better by now. I don't even know if the company has the same name.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

somsak2 4y ago

An interesting idea that is then followed-up with a bunch of bad advice. I'm just not seeing how taking the advice here doesn't turn into your job being excruciatingly annoying to actually perform day-to-day. So maybe you've tipped the balance in labor's favor, but you've given up any semblance of actually enjoying your job. There have to be other ways. I would welcome an article that started with the goal to further the same thesis but got there in an alternative way.

nvfkpwydxt 4y ago

This is not a plan, this is a temper tantrum, thrown by an infant. A plan is to shame management and foment collective response. E.g., as background - Research on profits vs time for companies - Research on real wages for SWE vs time for same companies - Illustration on timing of layoffs compared to these And, as foreground: - Collectively asking management for response to these facts in available forums, e.g., town halls or slack channels Or, if these fora don't exist - creating them by collective action e.g., meeting with each other and discussing at these meetings Small side point: while the post opens with an image referring to events of 1830 there is almost no history in the post. If anyone has recommended links to some actionable history that would also be useful

phillias 4y ago

Fighting against your employer is exactly what they want and gives them leverage to clamp down harder. Your efforts are best spent pushing initiatives like the FTCs repeal of non-competes. Corporations have captured our government, our only chance is to take our government back not to continue in fighting.