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The larger the team I am on, the less happy I am. I moved from a 40 person team serving a few dozen clients in a multi-tenant setup, to essentially working for
by steveBK123 4y ago
The larger the team I am on, the less happy I am.
I moved from a 40 person team serving a few dozen clients in a multi-tenant setup, to essentially working for one of the clients directly as their only full time developer.
I have probably written more code in the last 6 months than the preceding 5 years.
It's not because I suddenly got smarter or I am some 10x engineer, it's because all the BS got out of the way.
No agile, no jira, no backlog grooming, no story points, no standups, no sprints, no product owner, no stakeholder management, no churn. No "two masters" or principal-agent problems.
Client/boss knows what they want, and so thats what I work on. It's clear whats important, so that's where I spend my time. He trusts my advice and feedback because he doesn't have 10 other senior engineers whispering conflicting BS in his ear. He is clear on how robust a solution they want, and if it's worth moving onto a new idea or wrapping up the current one.
So, freed from all the other problems, I just build.
- Aeolun 4y agoI mean, I certainly enjoy that, but I find the challenge of trying to make a 200 people IT org do that a lot more… not necessarily interesting, but it’s something new to do. Just building by myself has an upper limit. To be fair, that upper limit is roughly 20% of what that whole 200 person org does, but still. I keep imagining what we could accomplish if we reached even 10% of the theoretical limit.
- steveBK123 4y agoRight, which is nice to be mindful of and to have career options. One path may get tiring after a few cycles, and you take the other path for a few.. rinse & repeat.
- jrochkind1 4y agoA lot of Fred Brooks' _The Mythical Man-Month_ is about how larger teams are inherently harder to function well than smaller ones, and the larger the harder.