5 ms·

The purpose of a system is what it does. All development is promotion driven development, different people can either choose to be clear eyed about this or not

The purpose of a system is what it does. All development is promotion driven development, different people can either choose to be clear eyed about this or not and, subsequently, good at it or not. Your job is the venn diagram intersection of an organized system of rewards and punishments from both inside and outside of the firm intersected with your own goals and aspirations over time. Anything not in this intersection is not a job, it's something else we like to delude ourselves into thinking is a job to preserve our egos. More specifically, your worry about how distorted incentives lead to poor quality software is not your job unless it is your job to worry about said incentives. People keep hoping to go work for one of the magically sane company where all the incentives are correct and everyone is doing the quote-unquote "right" thing at all times. Such a company does not exist because the very concept is incoherent, every system of possible incentives will come with a different set of tradeoffs and the art of operating a firm is to pick from amongst a bunch of shitty options for the least shitty one. People who do not accept this will be perpetually unhappy and bitter about how others obtain undeserved success because they simply did the unsporting thing of playing the game they were asked to play. You can either be one of those people or you can receive the radical acceptance of what a job is.

Spivak 3y ago
I like to think I'm pretty good at this game, swung two promotions and raises by working every request from outside the team out of band to the detriment of my main flow of work -- "everyone loves you and your work is constantly noticed by $upper_management." Wow that's crazy, it's just nice to be appreciated I guess wink wink.
em-bee 3y ago
People who do not accept this will be perpetually unhappy or they go start their own business to get away from this nonsense. when i deal with clients i actually have to deliver something because i am not getting any promotions.
- shalmanese 3y ago
  Client work is its own unique hell of misaligned incentives. You've just replaced one boss with a dozen bosses, all of which have the power to "promote" or fire you. I'm not saying that any one individual can't find a job that is the unique perfect blend of incentives for them, indeed, the entire point of this framework is that alignment between your goals and the incentives of your job is the most powerful lever an employee can pull. But that incentive structure will necessarily make others working there deeply unhappy as its unique choice of tradeoffs is just shitty in a way invisible to you.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    all of which have the power to "promote" or fire you that's fair, because i also have the power to fire them. loosing one client when i have a dozen others is not a big deal. with so many bosses i can focus on the good ones and reject working with the bad ones. i can also unilaterally raise my fees, especially for bad clients.
OkayPhysicist 3y ago
Not all jobs are promotion driven, at all. My current dev job is for a small family biotech business, and the only path upwards from where I currently am would involve church bells and a flower girl.
- shalmanese 3y ago
  But there are still things you need to avoid that would get you fired if your performance dropped and there are still things you can do that would improve or decrease your job prospects on the open market if the company ever goes under or is forced to let you go. I'm using "promotion" in a more abstract sense than literal promotions.
mring33621 3y ago
I do not like it. And I personally (mostly) fight against it. But, I believe that this person is correct.
chunkymilk 3y ago
My last place also called it promotion-driven-devevlopment. It got to the point where some dude built a system that completely floundered but got him a promotion. He then re-wrote it so it sucked slightly less and got another promotion. Last I heard he was working on v3. Never mind that someone with actual domain knowledge would have either not built the system (since it didn't _really_ need to exist) or would have built a much simpler/more reliable system to get the job done.
- its-summertime 3y ago
  He did it like that because thats what he was asked to do, metrics-wise His boss is happy with it because it looks good for him too The company is happy because it allows them to sell milestones to themselves and or customers. Customers are happy because the sales-people took the right person out to a fancy dinner. I don't feel like I could fault anyone acting their part in the play.
  - chunkymilk 3y ago
    Can't disagree. He's was doing what the incentives in place said he should be doing. I would find it boring/tedious to keep rebuilding the same thing since I'm more of a solve the problem, operationalize the solution, then move on person.
- hansvm 3y ago
  Ah, but he "de-risked" the project by getting it out the door quickly, he started "delivering immediate value" despite the rough edges, and "has the technical acumen to optimize it further."
- dbalatero 3y ago
  I got downleveled in a job offer recently after being interviewed about a project which I labored to make as simple and efficient as possible. They said after careful evaluation, the project wasn't technical enough to merit the title I wanted. Live and learn!
rvbissell 3y ago
This has to be one of the most insightful comments I've ever read.
lowbloodsugar 3y ago
Sure. If one is at a company that is entirely run by incompetent sociopaths, then get with the program, right? But not all companies are sociopath boondoggles. Some are companies where people are trying to do the right thing (make money, grow business), and management would prefer to be successful. In those environments, we still get "promotion-driven-development" because, sadly, most managers are not software engineers and can be successfully bullshitted. And it's not even always malicious: you take someone who is a great people person but a mediocre engineer (huh, that correlates a lot), and they really think that this pile of steaming shit idea is a good idea, and their genuine enthusiasm convinces management who also don't know better. This mediocre engineer really wants to do good but has no idea why their idea is fucking herpes - because they are not competent enough to understand why. Dunning Kruger time. And of course the competent engineers are all Autistic and come across as rude, disparaging assholes in neurotypical management's eyes, and everyone gets herpes except mediocre engineer who gets promoted (possibly into management). In that situation you have to have "... a handful of good engineers and going totally rogue, we outperformed the entire department pretty effortlessly." All of my major career jumps have involved "going rogue", and having the outcome being recognized. And one time I was basically fired for it, and the work buried by a psychopath, and the remaining team did it anyway and delivered the solution, averting a product-ending scaling cliff. YMMV. But not all companies are like that, and in some places you can point out to management that the idea is bad, and management agrees. In my current job we had someone pitch a fabulous promotion opportunity that was not merely a total waste of time but also fundamentally missed (didn't even attempt to identify) the root cause of the problem it was trying to solve, and fortunately management agreed when we pointed it out. Yay! So I don't think it's as hopeless as you make out, at least not everywhere. I'm having fun right now, and getting paid enough (it's never enough).
- throwaway743 3y ago
  > And one time I was basically fired for it, and the work buried by a psychopath, and the remaining team did it anyway and delivered the solution, averting a product-ending scaling cliff. YMMV. You're triggering my PTSD. Not to brag, but on paper, I was top performer in the dept at a previous employer. Was loyal, busted my ass, tried and many times did save the company money, but because I started posing a threat to my two sociopath managers (yes, two legitimate sociopaths) and spoke up against unethical (and likely illegal) activities of theirs, they made my life hell and eventually "laid" me off. Getting fired was actually a blessing though, so fuck them. I'm not playing scummy games and larping as an asskisser for brownie points any more and have been much better off.
gedy 3y ago
> People who do not accept this will be perpetually unhappy and bitter about how others obtain undeserved success This is a good comment, however a giant issue is most companies will not say this out loud, and in fact say the opposite. So while it's fine if you're savvy enough to see through this, it's not really fair to smirk at people who don't and who honestly take what leaders say at face value. It's like a weird western version of Japanese office culture where you need to know the wordless rules, but it's not wordless and you need to ignore the BS said while feigning agreement.
- ludicity 3y ago
  Author here! I wrote on something very similar earlier a few weeks ago, down to a reference to Japanese office culture (though not the exact same part of it). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37806870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37806870
f1shy 3y ago
>> work for one of the magically sane company where all the incentives are correct and everyone is doing the quote-unquote "right" thing at all times. Between the “perfect” company, and the shitshows described here, there is a lot A LOT of shades… I used to work in a company which was far from perfect, but it was great to work there. Until the CEO changed… I just search for a company where thing are just noy insane. I’ve been there, couple of times, and my current position is kind of ok…

Spivak 3y ago

I like to think I'm pretty good at this game, swung two promotions and raises by working every request from outside the team out of band to the detriment of my main flow of work -- "everyone loves you and your work is constantly noticed by $upper_management." Wow that's crazy, it's just nice to be appreciated I guess wink wink.

em-bee 3y ago

People who do not accept this will be perpetually unhappy or they go start their own business to get away from this nonsense. when i deal with clients i actually have to deliver something because i am not getting any promotions.

shalmanese 3y ago
Client work is its own unique hell of misaligned incentives. You've just replaced one boss with a dozen bosses, all of which have the power to "promote" or fire you. I'm not saying that any one individual can't find a job that is the unique perfect blend of incentives for them, indeed, the entire point of this framework is that alignment between your goals and the incentives of your job is the most powerful lever an employee can pull. But that incentive structure will necessarily make others working there deeply unhappy as its unique choice of tradeoffs is just shitty in a way invisible to you.
- em-bee 3y ago
  all of which have the power to "promote" or fire you that's fair, because i also have the power to fire them. loosing one client when i have a dozen others is not a big deal. with so many bosses i can focus on the good ones and reject working with the bad ones. i can also unilaterally raise my fees, especially for bad clients.

OkayPhysicist 3y ago

Not all jobs are promotion driven, at all. My current dev job is for a small family biotech business, and the only path upwards from where I currently am would involve church bells and a flower girl.

shalmanese 3y ago
But there are still things you need to avoid that would get you fired if your performance dropped and there are still things you can do that would improve or decrease your job prospects on the open market if the company ever goes under or is forced to let you go. I'm using "promotion" in a more abstract sense than literal promotions.

mring33621 3y ago

I do not like it. And I personally (mostly) fight against it. But, I believe that this person is correct.

chunkymilk 3y ago

My last place also called it promotion-driven-devevlopment. It got to the point where some dude built a system that completely floundered but got him a promotion. He then re-wrote it so it sucked slightly less and got another promotion. Last I heard he was working on v3. Never mind that someone with actual domain knowledge would have either not built the system (since it didn't _really_ need to exist) or would have built a much simpler/more reliable system to get the job done.

its-summertime 3y ago
He did it like that because thats what he was asked to do, metrics-wise His boss is happy with it because it looks good for him too The company is happy because it allows them to sell milestones to themselves and or customers. Customers are happy because the sales-people took the right person out to a fancy dinner. I don't feel like I could fault anyone acting their part in the play.
- chunkymilk 3y ago
  Can't disagree. He's was doing what the incentives in place said he should be doing. I would find it boring/tedious to keep rebuilding the same thing since I'm more of a solve the problem, operationalize the solution, then move on person.
hansvm 3y ago
Ah, but he "de-risked" the project by getting it out the door quickly, he started "delivering immediate value" despite the rough edges, and "has the technical acumen to optimize it further."
dbalatero 3y ago
I got downleveled in a job offer recently after being interviewed about a project which I labored to make as simple and efficient as possible. They said after careful evaluation, the project wasn't technical enough to merit the title I wanted. Live and learn!

rvbissell 3y ago

This has to be one of the most insightful comments I've ever read.

lowbloodsugar 3y ago

Sure. If one is at a company that is entirely run by incompetent sociopaths, then get with the program, right? But not all companies are sociopath boondoggles. Some are companies where people are trying to do the right thing (make money, grow business), and management would prefer to be successful. In those environments, we still get "promotion-driven-development" because, sadly, most managers are not software engineers and can be successfully bullshitted. And it's not even always malicious: you take someone who is a great people person but a mediocre engineer (huh, that correlates a lot), and they really think that this pile of steaming shit idea is a good idea, and their genuine enthusiasm convinces management who also don't know better. This mediocre engineer really wants to do good but has no idea why their idea is fucking herpes - because they are not competent enough to understand why. Dunning Kruger time. And of course the competent engineers are all Autistic and come across as rude, disparaging assholes in neurotypical management's eyes, and everyone gets herpes except mediocre engineer who gets promoted (possibly into management). In that situation you have to have "... a handful of good engineers and going totally rogue, we outperformed the entire department pretty effortlessly." All of my major career jumps have involved "going rogue", and having the outcome being recognized. And one time I was basically fired for it, and the work buried by a psychopath, and the remaining team did it anyway and delivered the solution, averting a product-ending scaling cliff. YMMV. But not all companies are like that, and in some places you can point out to management that the idea is bad, and management agrees. In my current job we had someone pitch a fabulous promotion opportunity that was not merely a total waste of time but also fundamentally missed (didn't even attempt to identify) the root cause of the problem it was trying to solve, and fortunately management agreed when we pointed it out. Yay! So I don't think it's as hopeless as you make out, at least not everywhere. I'm having fun right now, and getting paid enough (it's never enough).

throwaway743 3y ago
> And one time I was basically fired for it, and the work buried by a psychopath, and the remaining team did it anyway and delivered the solution, averting a product-ending scaling cliff. YMMV. You're triggering my PTSD. Not to brag, but on paper, I was top performer in the dept at a previous employer. Was loyal, busted my ass, tried and many times did save the company money, but because I started posing a threat to my two sociopath managers (yes, two legitimate sociopaths) and spoke up against unethical (and likely illegal) activities of theirs, they made my life hell and eventually "laid" me off. Getting fired was actually a blessing though, so fuck them. I'm not playing scummy games and larping as an asskisser for brownie points any more and have been much better off.

gedy 3y ago

> People who do not accept this will be perpetually unhappy and bitter about how others obtain undeserved success This is a good comment, however a giant issue is most companies will not say this out loud, and in fact say the opposite. So while it's fine if you're savvy enough to see through this, it's not really fair to smirk at people who don't and who honestly take what leaders say at face value. It's like a weird western version of Japanese office culture where you need to know the wordless rules, but it's not wordless and you need to ignore the BS said while feigning agreement.

ludicity 3y ago
Author here! I wrote on something very similar earlier a few weeks ago, down to a reference to Japanese office culture (though not the exact same part of it). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37806870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37806870

f1shy 3y ago

>> work for one of the magically sane company where all the incentives are correct and everyone is doing the quote-unquote "right" thing at all times. Between the “perfect” company, and the shitshows described here, there is a lot A LOT of shades… I used to work in a company which was far from perfect, but it was great to work there. Until the CEO changed… I just search for a company where thing are just noy insane. I’ve been there, couple of times, and my current position is kind of ok…