4 ms·

As a tech lead, the big problem I see now is that people are not hungry anymore. The best engineers I've ever worked with were consistently asking for more and

As a tech lead, the big problem I see now is that people are not hungry anymore. The best engineers I've ever worked with were consistently asking for more and leveling up the team at the same time. Now, the post-covid hires, especially the junior engineers, just do the bare minimum to scrape by, and they seem totally unbothered by it. One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I even called this out during a formal performance review and her behavior hasn't changed at all. (Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.)

nine_zeros 3y ago
> As a tech lead, the big problem I see now is that people are not hungry anymore. The best engineers I've ever worked with were consistently asking for more and leveling up the team at the same time. Now, the post-covid hires, especially the junior engineers, just do the bare minimum to scrape by, and they seem totally unbothered by it. Because they see management not pulling their weight for the pay they get. Why should lowly paid junior engineers work harder than management who are just sitting back, dumping poor decisions on them? > One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I even called this out during a formal performance review and her behavior hasn't changed at all. (Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.) Wow, blame someone for having a healthy life.
- lopkeny12ko 3y ago
  What do you consider a fair pay for junior engineers in order for them to contribute at the capacity they're expected to? Our fresh college grads are paid a total compensation higher than $200K. Is that not enough to expect working, at minimum, 8 hours a day?
  - nine_zeros 3y ago
    > What do you consider a fair pay for junior engineers in order for them to contribute at the capacity they're expected to? Our fresh college grads are paid a total compensation higher than $200K. Is that not enough to expect working, at minimum, 8 hours a day? I consider fair pay = $200k + a management that makes $600k pulling their weight by solving cross-team problems instead of pushing everything down to engineers. Juniors want "leadership" to act like leaders and take responsibility. Get laid off first for your own poor decision-making.
  - m0rissette 3y ago
    Well then I guess you should offer me a 400k salary bc I can run circles around your junior engineers, and get paid less than 200k
  - nxx788 3y ago
    [dead]
  - jasonlotito 3y ago
    > What do you consider a fair pay for junior engineers in order for them to contribute at the capacity they're expected to? Our fresh college grads are paid a total compensation higher than $200K. Is that not enough to expect working, at minimum, 8 hours a day No good lead assumes hours per day is equal to quality of output.
  - stravant 3y ago
    I would dare to say that the person your consider your best engineer probably only had ass on chair 4 hours a day and your don't even realize it.
  - redgreenshoe 3y ago
    Pay = hour expectations isn't reality, and we only pretend it is when we want to abuse juniors. Effort and time are not strongly connected to pay, in office jobs. It's not even clear that they should be (but if so, and we made effective reform that direction, oh boy, it's not the juniors who are gonna feel the most pain). These juniors are savvy if they've realized this without having to experience work getting easier, more pleasant, and more laid-back the more money they make, directly. [EDIT] Oh, your pay may actually be connected to this, now that I think about it. If you're leetcoding and such (guessing, based on $200k+ for juniors) you're selecting for a certain culture and set of expectations. "Play the game, get the fat paycheck". Effort not connected to playing said game is just wasted, with the way rewards are dolled out in that world. Not laziness, just rational behavior based on hiring & such being batshit crazy and favoring a rather "prep for the test, the most efficient way possible—the score is all that matters" mindset—which isn't the fault of these folks, they're looking at the system and doing exactly what it demands they do for maximum reward. If they're coming up through prestigious universities, they may well have lived their whole life like that. Check the box, get the reward, prep for checking the next box, and you'll go absolutely nuts from over-work if you don't optimize each step (if you try to do it all in the spirit of the thing, rather than the minimum required by the rules, explicit or implicit). Results focused, just not the results you want... but the ones you're accidentally asking for! If they're smart, they're doing as much as they need to keep the job, while planning their next, career- and comp-advancing move. Try framing things in terms of the "impact" they'll get to claim if they complete steps X, Y, and Z, and see what happens, LOL. I bet they'll jump at it—that's exactly what they want to be able to talk about when they're looking for the next job in 18-24 months. May be hard to frame, say, maintenance work and minor bugfixes and such that way, though. You probably need to change how you're hiring, if you want people who'll be happy to do those things. If you're seeing these folks leave for better (higher paid, if nothing else) roles, after a short time, and shaking your head in confusion because you thought they were bad at their jobs—I'd say the above is exactly what's happening. You're getting what you're selecting for. Worth considering, perhaps. [EDIT EDIT] Above section most-relevant if they're also underperforming according to what you expect. If they're actually getting stuff done but just taking walks... then there's no real problem.
  - djangelic 3y ago
    I think the distinction being drawn here is that there is a disconnect between hiring managers and workers. A hiring manager has an expectation that 200k will incentivize someone to work for 8 hours a day consistently and constantly where work is the point, not the tasks themselves. They expect the worker to figure out what additional tasks are to be done for that price and work at the upper limit of the time expectations (8 hour a day). Whereas the average worker is coming to the workplace to complete a set of tasks defined by the manager, not to figure out more tasks to do in their free time. They expect the manager to know what tasks needs to be done and understand that their results need to be tracked. As jobs become more and more compartmentalized it becomes less of an advantage for an employee to be hungry for more work, when their chance for promotion diminishes the better they are at their job, as in my anecdotal experience, management is loathe to lose that efficient cog in the system in that specific point. Which then reinforces the employees becoming jaded and resorting to the least amount of work possible. I believe it’s because in todays corporate world more often than not, most employees have no skin in the game. That is, they are not privy to the more long term planning for their companies and are not usually compensated based on performance (outside of sales anyway).
    - nine_zeros 3y ago
      This is on point for me. I don't come into work to "invent" my own work. Management is expected to know what workers should work on, make sure it has the right ROI for the company, and that the rewards of that work flow to the workers. At many FAANG-like companies, engineers are supposed to find "scope" themselves to keep their own job? Are you crazy? What the fuck is management doing in these companies?
      - djangelic 3y ago
        I believe management has in many cases lost focus on strategy because they are either not driven as well since they also are not fully invested in the company’s overall vision or are so overwhelmed with meetings that they simply don’t have time to even understand what their subordinates actually do in technical terms, much less strategize.
  - tcoff91 3y ago
    Software engineering isn’t like manual labor. Only results should be measured. A programmer in a flow state who is completely focused will get more accomplished in 2 hours than they would in 8 if they were feeling uninspired and disengaged. Our job is foremost to think and solve problems. She might very well be thinking about solutions to her coding issues while walking the dog. You are not a very deep thinker if you think butt-in-seat time = results.
    - nine_zeros 3y ago
      I wonder why those managers who think butts in seats == productivity aren't fired first. They literally don't understand the business of managing Software.
xwdv 3y ago
It’s not “work from home” abuse. You’re not really paying people to be at a computer working exactly 40 hours a week. You’re paying people to solve problems and create value. There is not a 1:1 correlation between time and results in this field. Most days I only need maybe 3 or 4 hours to take care of work related stuff. As long as people do what is asked, why should they worry about burning out the extra time that remains?
jen20 3y ago
I work for a pretty successful company (by any measure), and have had multiple startup exits before that, and I would know it was time to retire immediately if I started thinking like you. > One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I once came up with the idea for a product which has generated several hundred million dollars in revenue on a dog walk in the middle of the day. This morning while on a dog walk (on Sunday), I came up with the solution to a problem which has been vexing a team of 8-9 people for many months and will unblock millions of dollars of potential. The very notion that someone is not working because they are not in front of their computer screen marks you as someone who is wholly unfit to be a manager of people. 80% of the job of a software engineer is thinking. > Now, the post-covid hires, especially the junior engineers, just do the bare minimum to scrape by The entire industry would be better off if people just DID LESS. Complexity abounds because people want to be seen to "be doing something" to impress people like you. Again, 80% of the job of a software engineer is thinking. > Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation. If you think people don't work at home, you should see what they do at an office when they can make small talk with other incapables.
- MattPalmer1086 3y ago
  Yeah... I used to go for walks to think. There is much evidence that it helps people in general, but I know it does for me. I got dinged on my performance review for being away from my desk. Didn't stay long at that company.
  - kwhitefoot 3y ago
    > got dinged on my performance review I thought performance reviews were supposed to focus on performance, that is on whether you got the job done on time!
    - MattPalmer1086 3y ago
      Maybe I'm cynical, but in my experience, performance reviews have very little to do with managing employee performance. They are a bureacratic ritual that lets the company demonstrate they have been managing your performance. This is useful to the company if they want to let people go, to mitigate any legal risks. They have a record that your performance was being managed. Even though 9 times out of 10 there was no actual management throughout the year.
almost_usual 3y ago
> One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I even called this out during a formal performance review and her behavior hasn't changed at all. (Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.) Good for her, it takes confidence to do this. Overworking engineers into burnout isn’t a healthy career path.
- bluefishinit 3y ago
  I was going to say, she sounds like someone I'd want in management. Confidently putting life before work in the work/life balance is the way to avoid burnout, maximize creativity and hire amazing people.
  - itsboring 3y ago
    Whoa, is this why The Bobs wanted to promote Peter?
nxx788 3y ago
[dead]
DanAtC 3y ago
So what?
jasonlotito 3y ago
> do the bare minimum That's doing their job. You are complaining you aren't getting free labor. They are meeting the requirements. > people are not hungry anymore People aren't willing to do things for free. > One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I even called this out during a formal performance review and her behavior hasn't changed at all. (Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.) Sounds like bad management/leadership. If you are complaining about how she spends 2 hours of her time rather than on the results, and you are complaining about people not giving you free work... I never had this problem. I had the opposite, encouraging people to work only the hours they should so they don't burn themselves out. But hey, prove me wrong. Work for free. Let me know, I have stuff I can shovel your way and you can do it for free. Prove to me that you practice what you preach.
add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
I've seen the same thing in others and in myself, but I'd put it as pre- and post-Agile/Jira. The industry used to be full of enthusiasm but now it's like Office Space.
- brtkdotse 3y ago
  I think it’s because we’ve realized we’re not building a better future but rather Yet Another Online Ad* System. * “online ad” can be replaced with “gig economy” if you like
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Interesting observation, it hadn't occurred to me but I think you're right. My dissatisfaction with software work started right around the time that agile practices became popular. The work changed, and started feeling like less of a craft and more like flipping burgers.
  - itsboring 3y ago
    At least flipping burgers you don’t have to have a morning call where you say, “Yesterday I flipped burgers, today I’m going to flip more burgers. No blockers.” Or a Jira user story titled “As a burger eater, I want to eat a burger that’s been flipped so it’s cooked on both sides.”
FBISurveillance 3y ago
Good for her! Taking care of personal well-being and spending time with loved ones while being productive enough - otherwise you'd have left her go, right? Why the default assumption that everyone wants to participate in a rat race and play office politics to get a chance to be promoted?
zmgsabst 3y ago
How do you connect the available rewards to extra effort made? — do your team members trust that you’ll follow through? In my experience, that behavior happens when rewards aren’t clear and/or don’t happen: when you fail to reward or even punish an animal for putting in effort, they stop. If being “hungry” is exploited by businesses but doesn’t result in rewards, why would sane people continue? — there’s productive areas of their life they could invest that same effort.
quasarsunnix 3y ago
I walk my dog two hours a day. I just work around my meetings (sometimes can take the meeting whilst walking) and ensure I still work 5-8hrs on tasks. Is your gripe that you think she should be glued to her desk 9-5? I don’t know what her role is, but as a software engineer I can’t say I’d ever be interested in a job where someone wanted to micromanage me like that. As long as the work gets done why care?
- cognivore 3y ago
  I'd be willing to bet that the problem is the work isn't getting done. I've seen this many times now. No one is going to care how much you time you spend walking your dog if you're getting your work done - you only draw attention to yourself when you're lacking, and then your manager starts looking for reasons, sees you work 20% less than expected, and then what would you say? You'd call them on the carpet, too. I'd give them a part time job since that's what they seem to be capable of. I've religiously filled out time-sheets, in various forms) for 30 years, and I don't think they have been looked at more than a few times by my managers since my work gets done, and more. But I know for damn sure the laggards get scrutinized.
A_non_e-moose 3y ago
> As a tech lead, the big problem I see now is that people are not hungry anymore. What incentives need to be aligned and how, to starve them a bit more and make them hungry again?
cognivore 3y ago
I see this too, and not just post-COVID. 10+ years ago we used to have "Let's Learn This Now!" where the developers would agree on particular subject and then learn and discuss it on our own time, and occasionally it would lead to improvements in our development. We went through Ruby (on Rails), Angular (nope, not even) to React (meh), queuing (ZeroMQ mostly), Asp.NET MVC, Redis, Docker, Octo, NoSQL dbs - the list goes on (even custom mechanical keyboard building). It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to have all the perspectives and interesting ideas shared. Now there is only a few of us that still attempt this, as the rest are not interested in anything beyond their job description. Honestly in the last 10 years the phrase "That's not my job" has entered the company's phraseology when previously it was perceived as an opportunity for growth or even just cross training. Hell, that's 90% of how I advanced up the ranks - taking on new responsibilities. A dev manager we had a while back, who has been managing developers for 20 years, told me that a lot of the problem is passion vs money. Many recent developers are in the industry because they heard that software development is good money, so they got a CS degree. But they're not as interested in the continuing education that is a necessity for the career, and only those with a passion for it thrive. He sees them dev'ing a few years, realizing it's not for them, and then trying management, and then dropping out of industry because they're not interested in the effort to excel. But if you have a passion for software development, love tech, and the whole 9 yards, work is just doing what you like, and you enjoy it (well, when your company isn't screwing it up - that's a different problem).
- linuxftw 3y ago
  There was a lot more interesting work 10+ years ago. All the interesting bits have been commoditized.
  - itsboring 3y ago
    I hate to say it, but I think we (as in, developers) did this to ourselves, or we were at least complicit. People like to think that these massive piles of abstractions we’ve built are for the benefit of future developers, but I’m starting to look at the software landscape more like a landfill with layer upon layer of waste output.
JoshuaEN 3y ago
What's the point in being "hungry"? To fill the pockets of some soulless corporation and hope they'll pass down some scraps while making record profits? I have worked at the same place for 5 years; worked hard, continuously received great/exelecent reviews, several promotions, but I have only just kept up with inflation the past few years (and am probably net negative accounting for the timing of the rases), and before that it was 2% effective (for top marks). Plus "post-COVID" forced RTO, with all the costs associated with that. All in all, I am paid around the market rate (for the area) for my prior role, despite having performed at my current role for 2+ years now (with continued high marks). I still put in an honest 8 hours of work, but no more (mostly). Sometimes I wish I could be like those who work a little as possible and likely get paid almost as much (or more if they joined after), but that's not who I am.

nine_zeros 3y ago

> As a tech lead, the big problem I see now is that people are not hungry anymore. The best engineers I've ever worked with were consistently asking for more and leveling up the team at the same time. Now, the post-covid hires, especially the junior engineers, just do the bare minimum to scrape by, and they seem totally unbothered by it. Because they see management not pulling their weight for the pay they get. Why should lowly paid junior engineers work harder than management who are just sitting back, dumping poor decisions on them? > One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I even called this out during a formal performance review and her behavior hasn't changed at all. (Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.) Wow, blame someone for having a healthy life.

lopkeny12ko 3y ago
What do you consider a fair pay for junior engineers in order for them to contribute at the capacity they're expected to? Our fresh college grads are paid a total compensation higher than $200K. Is that not enough to expect working, at minimum, 8 hours a day?
- nine_zeros 3y ago
  > What do you consider a fair pay for junior engineers in order for them to contribute at the capacity they're expected to? Our fresh college grads are paid a total compensation higher than $200K. Is that not enough to expect working, at minimum, 8 hours a day? I consider fair pay = $200k + a management that makes $600k pulling their weight by solving cross-team problems instead of pushing everything down to engineers. Juniors want "leadership" to act like leaders and take responsibility. Get laid off first for your own poor decision-making.
- m0rissette 3y ago
  Well then I guess you should offer me a 400k salary bc I can run circles around your junior engineers, and get paid less than 200k
- nxx788 3y ago
  [dead]
- jasonlotito 3y ago
  > What do you consider a fair pay for junior engineers in order for them to contribute at the capacity they're expected to? Our fresh college grads are paid a total compensation higher than $200K. Is that not enough to expect working, at minimum, 8 hours a day No good lead assumes hours per day is equal to quality of output.
- stravant 3y ago
  I would dare to say that the person your consider your best engineer probably only had ass on chair 4 hours a day and your don't even realize it.
- redgreenshoe 3y ago
  Pay = hour expectations isn't reality, and we only pretend it is when we want to abuse juniors. Effort and time are not strongly connected to pay, in office jobs. It's not even clear that they should be (but if so, and we made effective reform that direction, oh boy, it's not the juniors who are gonna feel the most pain). These juniors are savvy if they've realized this without having to experience work getting easier, more pleasant, and more laid-back the more money they make, directly. [EDIT] Oh, your pay may actually be connected to this, now that I think about it. If you're leetcoding and such (guessing, based on $200k+ for juniors) you're selecting for a certain culture and set of expectations. "Play the game, get the fat paycheck". Effort not connected to playing said game is just wasted, with the way rewards are dolled out in that world. Not laziness, just rational behavior based on hiring & such being batshit crazy and favoring a rather "prep for the test, the most efficient way possible—the score is all that matters" mindset—which isn't the fault of these folks, they're looking at the system and doing exactly what it demands they do for maximum reward. If they're coming up through prestigious universities, they may well have lived their whole life like that. Check the box, get the reward, prep for checking the next box, and you'll go absolutely nuts from over-work if you don't optimize each step (if you try to do it all in the spirit of the thing, rather than the minimum required by the rules, explicit or implicit). Results focused, just not the results you want... but the ones you're accidentally asking for! If they're smart, they're doing as much as they need to keep the job, while planning their next, career- and comp-advancing move. Try framing things in terms of the "impact" they'll get to claim if they complete steps X, Y, and Z, and see what happens, LOL. I bet they'll jump at it—that's exactly what they want to be able to talk about when they're looking for the next job in 18-24 months. May be hard to frame, say, maintenance work and minor bugfixes and such that way, though. You probably need to change how you're hiring, if you want people who'll be happy to do those things. If you're seeing these folks leave for better (higher paid, if nothing else) roles, after a short time, and shaking your head in confusion because you thought they were bad at their jobs—I'd say the above is exactly what's happening. You're getting what you're selecting for. Worth considering, perhaps. [EDIT EDIT] Above section most-relevant if they're also underperforming according to what you expect. If they're actually getting stuff done but just taking walks... then there's no real problem.
- djangelic 3y ago
  I think the distinction being drawn here is that there is a disconnect between hiring managers and workers. A hiring manager has an expectation that 200k will incentivize someone to work for 8 hours a day consistently and constantly where work is the point, not the tasks themselves. They expect the worker to figure out what additional tasks are to be done for that price and work at the upper limit of the time expectations (8 hour a day). Whereas the average worker is coming to the workplace to complete a set of tasks defined by the manager, not to figure out more tasks to do in their free time. They expect the manager to know what tasks needs to be done and understand that their results need to be tracked. As jobs become more and more compartmentalized it becomes less of an advantage for an employee to be hungry for more work, when their chance for promotion diminishes the better they are at their job, as in my anecdotal experience, management is loathe to lose that efficient cog in the system in that specific point. Which then reinforces the employees becoming jaded and resorting to the least amount of work possible. I believe it’s because in todays corporate world more often than not, most employees have no skin in the game. That is, they are not privy to the more long term planning for their companies and are not usually compensated based on performance (outside of sales anyway).
  - nine_zeros 3y ago
    This is on point for me. I don't come into work to "invent" my own work. Management is expected to know what workers should work on, make sure it has the right ROI for the company, and that the rewards of that work flow to the workers. At many FAANG-like companies, engineers are supposed to find "scope" themselves to keep their own job? Are you crazy? What the fuck is management doing in these companies?
    - djangelic 3y ago
      I believe management has in many cases lost focus on strategy because they are either not driven as well since they also are not fully invested in the company’s overall vision or are so overwhelmed with meetings that they simply don’t have time to even understand what their subordinates actually do in technical terms, much less strategize.
- tcoff91 3y ago
  Software engineering isn’t like manual labor. Only results should be measured. A programmer in a flow state who is completely focused will get more accomplished in 2 hours than they would in 8 if they were feeling uninspired and disengaged. Our job is foremost to think and solve problems. She might very well be thinking about solutions to her coding issues while walking the dog. You are not a very deep thinker if you think butt-in-seat time = results.
  - nine_zeros 3y ago
    I wonder why those managers who think butts in seats == productivity aren't fired first. They literally don't understand the business of managing Software.

xwdv 3y ago

It’s not “work from home” abuse. You’re not really paying people to be at a computer working exactly 40 hours a week. You’re paying people to solve problems and create value. There is not a 1:1 correlation between time and results in this field. Most days I only need maybe 3 or 4 hours to take care of work related stuff. As long as people do what is asked, why should they worry about burning out the extra time that remains?

jen20 3y ago

I work for a pretty successful company (by any measure), and have had multiple startup exits before that, and I would know it was time to retire immediately if I started thinking like you. > One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I once came up with the idea for a product which has generated several hundred million dollars in revenue on a dog walk in the middle of the day. This morning while on a dog walk (on Sunday), I came up with the solution to a problem which has been vexing a team of 8-9 people for many months and will unblock millions of dollars of potential. The very notion that someone is not working because they are not in front of their computer screen marks you as someone who is wholly unfit to be a manager of people. 80% of the job of a software engineer is thinking. > Now, the post-covid hires, especially the junior engineers, just do the bare minimum to scrape by The entire industry would be better off if people just DID LESS. Complexity abounds because people want to be seen to "be doing something" to impress people like you. Again, 80% of the job of a software engineer is thinking. > Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation. If you think people don't work at home, you should see what they do at an office when they can make small talk with other incapables.

MattPalmer1086 3y ago
Yeah... I used to go for walks to think. There is much evidence that it helps people in general, but I know it does for me. I got dinged on my performance review for being away from my desk. Didn't stay long at that company.
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  > got dinged on my performance review I thought performance reviews were supposed to focus on performance, that is on whether you got the job done on time!
  - MattPalmer1086 3y ago
    Maybe I'm cynical, but in my experience, performance reviews have very little to do with managing employee performance. They are a bureacratic ritual that lets the company demonstrate they have been managing your performance. This is useful to the company if they want to let people go, to mitigate any legal risks. They have a record that your performance was being managed. Even though 9 times out of 10 there was no actual management throughout the year.

almost_usual 3y ago

> One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I even called this out during a formal performance review and her behavior hasn't changed at all. (Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.) Good for her, it takes confidence to do this. Overworking engineers into burnout isn’t a healthy career path.

bluefishinit 3y ago
I was going to say, she sounds like someone I'd want in management. Confidently putting life before work in the work/life balance is the way to avoid burnout, maximize creativity and hire amazing people.
- itsboring 3y ago
  Whoa, is this why The Bobs wanted to promote Peter?

nxx788 3y ago

[dead]

DanAtC 3y ago

So what?

jasonlotito 3y ago

> do the bare minimum That's doing their job. You are complaining you aren't getting free labor. They are meeting the requirements. > people are not hungry anymore People aren't willing to do things for free. > One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I even called this out during a formal performance review and her behavior hasn't changed at all. (Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.) Sounds like bad management/leadership. If you are complaining about how she spends 2 hours of her time rather than on the results, and you are complaining about people not giving you free work... I never had this problem. I had the opposite, encouraging people to work only the hours they should so they don't burn themselves out. But hey, prove me wrong. Work for free. Let me know, I have stuff I can shovel your way and you can do it for free. Prove to me that you practice what you preach.

add-sub-mul-div 3y ago

I've seen the same thing in others and in myself, but I'd put it as pre- and post-Agile/Jira. The industry used to be full of enthusiasm but now it's like Office Space.

brtkdotse 3y ago
I think it’s because we’ve realized we’re not building a better future but rather Yet Another Online Ad* System. * “online ad” can be replaced with “gig economy” if you like
SoftTalker 3y ago
Interesting observation, it hadn't occurred to me but I think you're right. My dissatisfaction with software work started right around the time that agile practices became popular. The work changed, and started feeling like less of a craft and more like flipping burgers.
- itsboring 3y ago
  At least flipping burgers you don’t have to have a morning call where you say, “Yesterday I flipped burgers, today I’m going to flip more burgers. No blockers.” Or a Jira user story titled “As a burger eater, I want to eat a burger that’s been flipped so it’s cooked on both sides.”

FBISurveillance 3y ago

Good for her! Taking care of personal well-being and spending time with loved ones while being productive enough - otherwise you'd have left her go, right? Why the default assumption that everyone wants to participate in a rat race and play office politics to get a chance to be promoted?

zmgsabst 3y ago

How do you connect the available rewards to extra effort made? — do your team members trust that you’ll follow through? In my experience, that behavior happens when rewards aren’t clear and/or don’t happen: when you fail to reward or even punish an animal for putting in effort, they stop. If being “hungry” is exploited by businesses but doesn’t result in rewards, why would sane people continue? — there’s productive areas of their life they could invest that same effort.

quasarsunnix 3y ago

I walk my dog two hours a day. I just work around my meetings (sometimes can take the meeting whilst walking) and ensure I still work 5-8hrs on tasks. Is your gripe that you think she should be glued to her desk 9-5? I don’t know what her role is, but as a software engineer I can’t say I’d ever be interested in a job where someone wanted to micromanage me like that. As long as the work gets done why care?

cognivore 3y ago
I'd be willing to bet that the problem is the work isn't getting done. I've seen this many times now. No one is going to care how much you time you spend walking your dog if you're getting your work done - you only draw attention to yourself when you're lacking, and then your manager starts looking for reasons, sees you work 20% less than expected, and then what would you say? You'd call them on the carpet, too. I'd give them a part time job since that's what they seem to be capable of. I've religiously filled out time-sheets, in various forms) for 30 years, and I don't think they have been looked at more than a few times by my managers since my work gets done, and more. But I know for damn sure the laggards get scrutinized.

A_non_e-moose 3y ago

> As a tech lead, the big problem I see now is that people are not hungry anymore. What incentives need to be aligned and how, to starve them a bit more and make them hungry again?

cognivore 3y ago

I see this too, and not just post-COVID. 10+ years ago we used to have "Let's Learn This Now!" where the developers would agree on particular subject and then learn and discuss it on our own time, and occasionally it would lead to improvements in our development. We went through Ruby (on Rails), Angular (nope, not even) to React (meh), queuing (ZeroMQ mostly), Asp.NET MVC, Redis, Docker, Octo, NoSQL dbs - the list goes on (even custom mechanical keyboard building). It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to have all the perspectives and interesting ideas shared. Now there is only a few of us that still attempt this, as the rest are not interested in anything beyond their job description. Honestly in the last 10 years the phrase "That's not my job" has entered the company's phraseology when previously it was perceived as an opportunity for growth or even just cross training. Hell, that's 90% of how I advanced up the ranks - taking on new responsibilities. A dev manager we had a while back, who has been managing developers for 20 years, told me that a lot of the problem is passion vs money. Many recent developers are in the industry because they heard that software development is good money, so they got a CS degree. But they're not as interested in the continuing education that is a necessity for the career, and only those with a passion for it thrive. He sees them dev'ing a few years, realizing it's not for them, and then trying management, and then dropping out of industry because they're not interested in the effort to excel. But if you have a passion for software development, love tech, and the whole 9 yards, work is just doing what you like, and you enjoy it (well, when your company isn't screwing it up - that's a different problem).

linuxftw 3y ago
There was a lot more interesting work 10+ years ago. All the interesting bits have been commoditized.
- itsboring 3y ago
  I hate to say it, but I think we (as in, developers) did this to ourselves, or we were at least complicit. People like to think that these massive piles of abstractions we’ve built are for the benefit of future developers, but I’m starting to look at the software landscape more like a landfill with layer upon layer of waste output.

JoshuaEN 3y ago

What's the point in being "hungry"? To fill the pockets of some soulless corporation and hope they'll pass down some scraps while making record profits? I have worked at the same place for 5 years; worked hard, continuously received great/exelecent reviews, several promotions, but I have only just kept up with inflation the past few years (and am probably net negative accounting for the timing of the rases), and before that it was 2% effective (for top marks). Plus "post-COVID" forced RTO, with all the costs associated with that. All in all, I am paid around the market rate (for the area) for my prior role, despite having performed at my current role for 2+ years now (with continued high marks). I still put in an honest 8 hours of work, but no more (mostly). Sometimes I wish I could be like those who work a little as possible and likely get paid almost as much (or more if they joined after), but that's not who I am.