3 ms·

Something tells me there's a new agenda being pushed from the echelons that a lot of people in big companies are unproductive and I see some people are buying i

Something tells me there's a new agenda being pushed from the echelons that a lot of people in big companies are unproductive and I see some people are buying into it. It's not the fault of an engineer if they are mismanaged or provided with leadership where they can actually ship useful products. There's a lot of people working on things that dont produce monetary value for the company because someone decided it's necessary. Do you think a lot of companies need all that insane machinery and automation to ship a trivial web page? Probably not. A lot of work is done for vertical integration, indirectly driving new customers to your main platform or maintaining your existing customers. There's insane amount of manpower being allocated to work on app screens that will probably be used by a very few users. Productivity cannot really be measured.

donnie12345 4y ago
I disagree. Software engineers will be judged by the quality of product they produce. Meta employees are not using the same product that they have created. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/10/07/report-even-metas-employees-dont-want-to-go-its-own-metaverse/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/...
- mathverse 4y ago
  It's not the engineers fault that the product they created is bad. It might simply be because there's no place for such product in the first place independent of execution.
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  Surely you're not saying that Meta's Metaverse is a bad product because the engineers are likely bad? Or is Meta's Metaverse likely bad because there's probably a bad management setup with many layers of managers all trying to get their influence into parts of the product, lots of teams that don't communicate very well, lots of pointless meetings that drain the motivation out of people, dictates from higher ups that must be implemented on a set schedule with no thought to a cohesive product? Love or hate Steve Jobs, I think the most likely way a massive company can genuinely thrive is if they have a central figure who genuinely understands human psychology and enough about the technology to make the right tradeoffs in designing products.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Outside of the startup bubble, this is how 90% of software engineering jobs work. If I had a dime for every product I worked on that I didn't go on to use, I would have one dime for every place I've worked at. Honestly, your gripes with Meta and Google sound like they could be fixed by cleaning out management and making them engineering-led again. All of these companies hire plenty of talent, but your issue seems to be that they're applying it to useless walled-garden products. It is indeed a problem, but only regulation and worsening market conditions can compel them to stop; engineers don't call all the shots in any of these businesses. > Software engineers will be judged by the quality of product they produce. This hasn't felt true for as long as managers have run performance reviews.
  - donnie12345 4y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34996991 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34996991 Please answer this question. I would like to know your opinion

donnie12345 4y ago

I disagree. Software engineers will be judged by the quality of product they produce. Meta employees are not using the same product that they have created. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/10/07/report-even-metas-employees-dont-want-to-go-its-own-metaverse/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/...

mathverse 4y ago
It's not the engineers fault that the product they created is bad. It might simply be because there's no place for such product in the first place independent of execution.
logicalmonster 4y ago
Surely you're not saying that Meta's Metaverse is a bad product because the engineers are likely bad? Or is Meta's Metaverse likely bad because there's probably a bad management setup with many layers of managers all trying to get their influence into parts of the product, lots of teams that don't communicate very well, lots of pointless meetings that drain the motivation out of people, dictates from higher ups that must be implemented on a set schedule with no thought to a cohesive product? Love or hate Steve Jobs, I think the most likely way a massive company can genuinely thrive is if they have a central figure who genuinely understands human psychology and enough about the technology to make the right tradeoffs in designing products.
smoldesu 4y ago
Outside of the startup bubble, this is how 90% of software engineering jobs work. If I had a dime for every product I worked on that I didn't go on to use, I would have one dime for every place I've worked at. Honestly, your gripes with Meta and Google sound like they could be fixed by cleaning out management and making them engineering-led again. All of these companies hire plenty of talent, but your issue seems to be that they're applying it to useless walled-garden products. It is indeed a problem, but only regulation and worsening market conditions can compel them to stop; engineers don't call all the shots in any of these businesses. > Software engineers will be judged by the quality of product they produce. This hasn't felt true for as long as managers have run performance reviews.
- donnie12345 4y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34996991 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34996991 Please answer this question. I would like to know your opinion