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As a common Software Engineer, I see my type of position as transient, whereas those database guys, the ones who make sure all the guts run, all that crazy shit
by andirk 4y ago
As a common Software Engineer, I see my type of position as transient, whereas those database guys, the ones who make sure all the guts run, all that crazy shit, they're needed night and day. They can fire me and hire a version of me the next day, but the people next to the bare metal seem to have a lot more stored in their brain than can be easily replicated with the next recruit.
- jstx1 4y agoYou're putting them on a pedestal a bit too much. Their work isn't as different as you think.
- klodolph 4y agoI worked closely enough with the people maintaining custom database software at $COMPANY. They were damn smart and had lots of good experience. BigTable at Google was created by an all-star team and they raised a generation of amazing programmers and SREs under them. There’s a lot of cross-pollination, staff moving between Google and Facebook, and Facebook has its own teams of amazing programmers working on database problems. Maybe the work “isn’t so different” but it is more difficult, on a technical level, than most projects. Some real interesting, ground-breaking work was done in the past 20 years or so and a lot of the people who did that work are still around.