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FWIW. I don't read this as disdain, just stating the fact that less experienced people make more mistakes or may have less experience avoiding tech debt. It's h

by mhss 4y ago

FWIW. I don't read this as disdain, just stating the fact that less experienced people make more mistakes or may have less experience avoiding tech debt. It's hyperbole of course (I hope) because L4/L5s should be reviewing that code, but the point I believe is that coding is sometimes too quickly removed as a valuable activity for L5s and above.

lisasays 4y ago
Sounds like an attempt at spin, frankly. The commenter wasn't saying that the L3s "may have less experience avoiding tech debt"; but that they are, by default, to be viewed as creators of technical debt. Which I guess we all are, at the end of the day. Still there's a snarky edge to the wording in that comment that I find hard to get past.
- saurik 4y ago
  Maybe it is really important to know precisely what an "L3" is, and since I've never worked for whatever company this is I'm unsure; but, FWIW, as someone who was just casually reading the comment, it didn't really come off as snarky in that sense, as if you are forcing all the strongest coders to get promoted then by definition the people who are lower in the org chart are weaker coders, at which point the comment just "made sense" and didn't seem at all to offer actual "disdain" towards anyone except the promotion system (which maybe should itself be a reason to quit, but hopefully they are being paid well). That said, I guess my explanation for the phenomenon--as someone outside such systems--is that in fact these organizations want weaker people at the bottom doing the grunt work as they are easier to control: they are all about figuring out how to build systems out of interchangeable cogs, under the premise that if you do enough build engineering then you can take almost any competent coder and get at least some contribution out of them (even if you end up needing ten times as many employees as a tradeoff).
  - lisasays 4y ago
    I like your theory, which seems to explain a lot of things (like why I'm not attracted to such organizations, for example). Especially the last part: In fact these organizations want weaker people at the bottom doing the grunt work as they are easier to control: They are all about figuring out how to build systems out of interchangeable cogs, under the premise that if you do enough build engineering then you can take almost any competent coder and get at least some contribution out of them (even if you end up needing ten times as many employees as a tradeoff). Corollary being: if the work itself is structured so that much of it is viewed as "grunt work" - then by definition, the people stuck doing it (L3s in this case) are viewed disdainfully.

by mhss 4y ago

lisasays 4y ago

Sounds like an attempt at spin, frankly. The commenter wasn't saying that the L3s "may have less experience avoiding tech debt"; but that they are, by default, to be viewed as creators of technical debt. Which I guess we all are, at the end of the day. Still there's a snarky edge to the wording in that comment that I find hard to get past.

saurik 4y ago
Maybe it is really important to know precisely what an "L3" is, and since I've never worked for whatever company this is I'm unsure; but, FWIW, as someone who was just casually reading the comment, it didn't really come off as snarky in that sense, as if you are forcing all the strongest coders to get promoted then by definition the people who are lower in the org chart are weaker coders, at which point the comment just "made sense" and didn't seem at all to offer actual "disdain" towards anyone except the promotion system (which maybe should itself be a reason to quit, but hopefully they are being paid well). That said, I guess my explanation for the phenomenon--as someone outside such systems--is that in fact these organizations want weaker people at the bottom doing the grunt work as they are easier to control: they are all about figuring out how to build systems out of interchangeable cogs, under the premise that if you do enough build engineering then you can take almost any competent coder and get at least some contribution out of them (even if you end up needing ten times as many employees as a tradeoff).
- lisasays 4y ago
  I like your theory, which seems to explain a lot of things (like why I'm not attracted to such organizations, for example). Especially the last part: In fact these organizations want weaker people at the bottom doing the grunt work as they are easier to control: They are all about figuring out how to build systems out of interchangeable cogs, under the premise that if you do enough build engineering then you can take almost any competent coder and get at least some contribution out of them (even if you end up needing ten times as many employees as a tradeoff). Corollary being: if the work itself is structured so that much of it is viewed as "grunt work" - then by definition, the people stuck doing it (L3s in this case) are viewed disdainfully.