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2nding this. I am hiring for engineers and it is still difficult to find quality candidates. I think for most engineers, the issue will not be "finding my next

2nding this. I am hiring for engineers and it is still difficult to find quality candidates. I think for most engineers, the issue will not be "finding my next job" it will be that we all have raised expectations on output and quality. The idea of taking weds thru friday basically off to loaf and surf the internet while you wait for other threads on your project to get back to you will hopefully die.

projectazorian 4y ago
> The idea of taking weds thru friday basically off to loaf and surf the internet while you wait for other threads on your project to get back to you will hopefully die. I don't like sitting around waiting for PR feedback, and will typically find other ways to be productive when this happens, but I'm unclear what you expect people to do in this situation. If you have some code that needs to be reviewed, and the available reviewers aren't reviewing it after you requested their review, then you have three options: - Remind them. Always a good idea, but you can only do it so often. Sending someone daily reminders over a non-urgent PR is a great way to get your PRs reviewed even more slowly next time. Also, once you're senior or above, your reviewers tend to be busy. You can't wave a magic wand and clear their calendars. - Escalate to your manager. May or may not be effective. Will make you unpopular if you do it too often, especially if the two of you have the same manager. - Escalate to their manager. May or may not be effective, but you just irrevocably burned your bridges with that person, hope it was worth it. And this is just for code review. If QA is involved then you have a whole other layer of bureaucracy to deal with, except with a different reporting chain. There's a reason engineers at large companies seem so unproductive and it often has nothing to do with their work ethic.
ljm 4y ago
I don't want to put too much of a point on it but if engineers are 'loafing and surfing' for most of the working week and you're not embellishing the story, then I don't think it's an engineering problem you got but a management or prioritisation one. Engineers doing their work in 2 days and being blocked for the next 5?
- zmmmmm 4y ago
  engineering manager here ... I think it's stated in a bit of an extreme way but I definitely encounter this as a challenge. Example scenario: hand off a task, describe it fully, ask it be prioritised. Let me know how it goes, please raise any issues. Come back a week later to check in: employee hit minor obstacle, couldn't proceed, waiting on X or Y to do Z, almost nothing has progressed. No communication to me. Instead: spent time refactoring favorite library to do C which was not asked for and now is going to land on me to do code review before it can merge. It's a low responsibility culture that many staff have and yeah - I can invest a lot of time and effort nannying these people or I can put even more effort into culture shift. But boy it is easier if you just don't have these people in the team to begin with.
  - oofta-boofta 4y ago
    You could just not have the expectation that people are robots who are the corporate definition of productive, 24/7.
- chrisfrantz 4y ago
  Yeah, ironically the problem here isn't a lazy engineer, it's the management or poor systems.
- joshlemer 4y ago
  I think online software development discussions tend to lean slightly towards blaming management rather than engineers, probably because we're most of us engineers and can empathize with them better, but in this case I think it's reasonable to blame the engineer. A manager's job isn't to micro-manage every single task and to make sure that an engineer is highly engaged at every hour of the day. If the engineer is blocked on everything, above a certain level of seniority which is not so high, it's incumbent on them to find ways to contribute or find things to do, and if need be convey their situation to their manager.
  - 8note 4y ago
    A managers job is to set prioritization, and see trends. A trend of "everyone's constantly waiting on <blank>" should trigger the manager to think "if we could make <blank> not a bottle neck, we could raise our sprint utilization factor by x%" and thus set prioritization accordingly. Engineers still have to figure out how to do that. The engineers need to surface information about where their processes suck, but they need prioritization to implement fixes
JohnFen 4y ago
> The idea of taking weds thru friday basically off to loaf and surf the internet while you wait for other threads on your project to get back to you will hopefully die. I have literally never seen this happen at any place I've worked. I think I must be doing it wrong!
red-iron-pine 4y ago
> The idea of taking weds thru friday basically off to loaf and surf the internet while you wait for other threads on your project to get back to you will hopefully die. that hasn't changed, and has nothing to do with layoffs. projects move at whatever speed they move at, and fires will pop up to steal the attention of others.
tayo42 4y ago
> I am hiring for engineers and it is still difficult to find quality candidates. Do you have more info about the job. I keep seeing this, i did some interesting and hard work and it doesn't match what im coming across. like remote ok? how much are you paying? whats the tech and problems being worked on?

projectazorian 4y ago

> The idea of taking weds thru friday basically off to loaf and surf the internet while you wait for other threads on your project to get back to you will hopefully die. I don't like sitting around waiting for PR feedback, and will typically find other ways to be productive when this happens, but I'm unclear what you expect people to do in this situation. If you have some code that needs to be reviewed, and the available reviewers aren't reviewing it after you requested their review, then you have three options: - Remind them. Always a good idea, but you can only do it so often. Sending someone daily reminders over a non-urgent PR is a great way to get your PRs reviewed even more slowly next time. Also, once you're senior or above, your reviewers tend to be busy. You can't wave a magic wand and clear their calendars. - Escalate to your manager. May or may not be effective. Will make you unpopular if you do it too often, especially if the two of you have the same manager. - Escalate to their manager. May or may not be effective, but you just irrevocably burned your bridges with that person, hope it was worth it. And this is just for code review. If QA is involved then you have a whole other layer of bureaucracy to deal with, except with a different reporting chain. There's a reason engineers at large companies seem so unproductive and it often has nothing to do with their work ethic.

ljm 4y ago

I don't want to put too much of a point on it but if engineers are 'loafing and surfing' for most of the working week and you're not embellishing the story, then I don't think it's an engineering problem you got but a management or prioritisation one. Engineers doing their work in 2 days and being blocked for the next 5?

zmmmmm 4y ago
engineering manager here ... I think it's stated in a bit of an extreme way but I definitely encounter this as a challenge. Example scenario: hand off a task, describe it fully, ask it be prioritised. Let me know how it goes, please raise any issues. Come back a week later to check in: employee hit minor obstacle, couldn't proceed, waiting on X or Y to do Z, almost nothing has progressed. No communication to me. Instead: spent time refactoring favorite library to do C which was not asked for and now is going to land on me to do code review before it can merge. It's a low responsibility culture that many staff have and yeah - I can invest a lot of time and effort nannying these people or I can put even more effort into culture shift. But boy it is easier if you just don't have these people in the team to begin with.
- oofta-boofta 4y ago
  You could just not have the expectation that people are robots who are the corporate definition of productive, 24/7.
chrisfrantz 4y ago
Yeah, ironically the problem here isn't a lazy engineer, it's the management or poor systems.
joshlemer 4y ago
I think online software development discussions tend to lean slightly towards blaming management rather than engineers, probably because we're most of us engineers and can empathize with them better, but in this case I think it's reasonable to blame the engineer. A manager's job isn't to micro-manage every single task and to make sure that an engineer is highly engaged at every hour of the day. If the engineer is blocked on everything, above a certain level of seniority which is not so high, it's incumbent on them to find ways to contribute or find things to do, and if need be convey their situation to their manager.
- 8note 4y ago
  A managers job is to set prioritization, and see trends. A trend of "everyone's constantly waiting on <blank>" should trigger the manager to think "if we could make <blank> not a bottle neck, we could raise our sprint utilization factor by x%" and thus set prioritization accordingly. Engineers still have to figure out how to do that. The engineers need to surface information about where their processes suck, but they need prioritization to implement fixes

JohnFen 4y ago

> The idea of taking weds thru friday basically off to loaf and surf the internet while you wait for other threads on your project to get back to you will hopefully die. I have literally never seen this happen at any place I've worked. I think I must be doing it wrong!

red-iron-pine 4y ago

> The idea of taking weds thru friday basically off to loaf and surf the internet while you wait for other threads on your project to get back to you will hopefully die. that hasn't changed, and has nothing to do with layoffs. projects move at whatever speed they move at, and fires will pop up to steal the attention of others.

tayo42 4y ago

> I am hiring for engineers and it is still difficult to find quality candidates. Do you have more info about the job. I keep seeing this, i did some interesting and hard work and it doesn't match what im coming across. like remote ok? how much are you paying? whats the tech and problems being worked on?