7 ms·

“Stack overflow did not elaborate” A year after a major hiring push? Guessing it’s the “save money by ridding ourselves of expertise” workflow: 1) hire a bunc

by wredue 3y ago

“Stack overflow did not elaborate” A year after a major hiring push? Guessing it’s the “save money by ridding ourselves of expertise” workflow: 1) hire a bunch of fresh blood who are willing to work long hours for no money for some reason 2) get them trained up 3) lay off the expensive senior people 4) lol ceo big bonus

sprynr 3y ago
Sounds like engineering caught a break on this one, but overall I wouldn't be surprised.
schnebbau 3y ago
If the fresh blood can do the same job as the seniors but for less money then why wouldn't you do this?
- MisterBastahrd 3y ago
  Probably because they can until they can't. You're (a) expecting the new folks to stick around long enough to fully learn the system and (b) that they will have access to all the knowledge around the real tricky parts of the system that they have. A senior dev who has shown he wants to be there is better than 3 new recruits, all day, every day.
  - JAlexoid 3y ago
    I don't know where you are... but my biggest issue with the last few years, was that promotions were handed out left and right. Half of the engineering teams I worked with in the last 3 years should be demoted from being called Senior anything, considering most of them are at most 3-5 years out of college. Just today - a Staff DBA was completely befuddled by the 5000 concurrent connections config parameter on Postgres RDS, when they had the task of making sure that the services stop dropping connections for the last month. My previous job has a "senior" engineer that routinely blocks any attempt to move from an in house NodeJS proxy, because it would cost an extra $70 per month... and for the architectural decisions the explanation is routinely "because I like it".
- ahi 3y ago
  Because they can't do the same job as the seniors. An org will crumble if it can't maintain institutional knowledge.
- hanniabu 3y ago
  Age discrimination
- imchillyb 3y ago
  > If the fresh blood can do the same job as the seniors but for less money then why wouldn't you do this? Brain Drain, it's a real phenomena that has real economic impact on a surrounding locality, local economy, and state economies. Brain Drain affects companies as well, but by the time they notice Brain Drain has occurred, it's too late to rectify. Hiring for bottom dollar, instead of experience, will increase the the outflow, decrease supporting services in the area, and decrease the available pool of potential employees. It's a cycle that once begun is almost impossible to stop, even with legislation. Here's what our Federal Government, and several States have done to discourage the BD effect. > https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/2019/4/losing-our-minds-brain-drain-across-the-united-states https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/2019...
this_user 3y ago
I think you vastly overestimate the level of planning and forethought that the average management is capable of.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  Management is obviously capable of long-term planning - there just aren't incentives in place for that.
  - this_user 3y ago
    Most of them aren't Machiavellian masterminds though. Most of them are barely passable managers who are mostly just reacting to what is right on front of their noses. Company is growing? Extrapolate linearly, and hire enough people to cover the projected growth over the next 12-18 months. Growth didn't increase linearly, costs have gone up due to inflation, and we can't borrow more cheap money? Lay off a bunch of people to stem the bleeding, hope the company makes it through alive.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
      > Most of them aren't Machiavellian masterminds though. They also aren't squirrels. They're capable of foresight.
- wredue 3y ago
  It’s a pretty common workflow for big business. Wait till you hear how businesses intentionally pit employees against each other by granting different benefits at different levels so that the majority doesn’t feel as bad about things. This is, for example, how businesses got rid of comprehensive retirement packages.

by wredue 3y ago

sprynr 3y ago

Sounds like engineering caught a break on this one, but overall I wouldn't be surprised.

schnebbau 3y ago

If the fresh blood can do the same job as the seniors but for less money then why wouldn't you do this?

MisterBastahrd 3y ago
Probably because they can until they can't. You're (a) expecting the new folks to stick around long enough to fully learn the system and (b) that they will have access to all the knowledge around the real tricky parts of the system that they have. A senior dev who has shown he wants to be there is better than 3 new recruits, all day, every day.
- JAlexoid 3y ago
  I don't know where you are... but my biggest issue with the last few years, was that promotions were handed out left and right. Half of the engineering teams I worked with in the last 3 years should be demoted from being called Senior anything, considering most of them are at most 3-5 years out of college. Just today - a Staff DBA was completely befuddled by the 5000 concurrent connections config parameter on Postgres RDS, when they had the task of making sure that the services stop dropping connections for the last month. My previous job has a "senior" engineer that routinely blocks any attempt to move from an in house NodeJS proxy, because it would cost an extra $70 per month... and for the architectural decisions the explanation is routinely "because I like it".
ahi 3y ago
Because they can't do the same job as the seniors. An org will crumble if it can't maintain institutional knowledge.
hanniabu 3y ago
Age discrimination
imchillyb 3y ago
> If the fresh blood can do the same job as the seniors but for less money then why wouldn't you do this? Brain Drain, it's a real phenomena that has real economic impact on a surrounding locality, local economy, and state economies. Brain Drain affects companies as well, but by the time they notice Brain Drain has occurred, it's too late to rectify. Hiring for bottom dollar, instead of experience, will increase the the outflow, decrease supporting services in the area, and decrease the available pool of potential employees. It's a cycle that once begun is almost impossible to stop, even with legislation. Here's what our Federal Government, and several States have done to discourage the BD effect. > https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/2019/4/losing-our-minds-brain-drain-across-the-united-states https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/2019...

this_user 3y ago

I think you vastly overestimate the level of planning and forethought that the average management is capable of.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
Management is obviously capable of long-term planning - there just aren't incentives in place for that.
- this_user 3y ago
  Most of them aren't Machiavellian masterminds though. Most of them are barely passable managers who are mostly just reacting to what is right on front of their noses. Company is growing? Extrapolate linearly, and hire enough people to cover the projected growth over the next 12-18 months. Growth didn't increase linearly, costs have gone up due to inflation, and we can't borrow more cheap money? Lay off a bunch of people to stem the bleeding, hope the company makes it through alive.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    > Most of them aren't Machiavellian masterminds though. They also aren't squirrels. They're capable of foresight.
wredue 3y ago
It’s a pretty common workflow for big business. Wait till you hear how businesses intentionally pit employees against each other by granting different benefits at different levels so that the majority doesn’t feel as bad about things. This is, for example, how businesses got rid of comprehensive retirement packages.