7 ms·

This is really some next level victimhood. Building houses often does involve dealing with whiny homeowners/builders with bad taste and no clue who want everyth

• al_borland 3y ago
  I’d be more accepting of these things from outside clients. I am less accepting of it from internal stakeholders.
• twelvechairs 3y ago
  Yes. Conversely if programmers had to work like Architects they'd be paid a fraction, not get promoted to run serious projects until they are 50+, work copious unpaid overtime, not be allowed to work from home, be held legally liable for their work, spend most of their days focussing on compliance rather than outcomes, be more client focussed than they have ever considered regardless of above, etc.
  • oivey 3y ago
    Yes, and, if they wanted to just build to a spec like a construction worker, they’d get to look forward to getting paid even worse still, physically demanding labor, working in the hot, working in the cold, shitting in boiling portapotties, and shitting in frozen portapotties.
  • throwitaway222 3y ago
    Some architects get hired to do a 50 unit apartment complex for 200k that only takes them a few months. The owners of those businesses farm it out to a junior to do the entire thing, then look over it quickly. Said junior usually only does this for a maximum of 10 years and graduates to owning their own business. However 85% of them graduate to running a drafter business which just draws plans.
    • freddie_mercury 3y ago
      There is not enough industry growth for every junior to own their own business in 10 years.
      • whatshisface 3y ago
        There is if the average size of said business is between 2 and 1.
    • darkwater 3y ago
      BUT if there is a serious issue in the houses built by following the project you had signed, well, you will go to jail (or pay the fine). I still have to see a software engineer held PERSONALLY accountable, in front of the law, for a PII leak, for example.
      • adrianN 3y ago
        Try working in safety critical software. There liability is the norm.
        • darkwater 3y ago
          Yes, but basically every architect work is safety critical. If a construction collapses on itself, it will kill you.
          • sojournerc 3y ago
            Architects design, a structural engineer makes sure it stands up
            • darkwater 3y ago
              I think it depends on the type of work (and also legislation). For example I had architects calculating which kind/size of iron girder/joist (IDK the exact English word for it) put to replace a supporting wall. If they calculate that badly, the roof comes down at some point, and I die.
  • watwut 3y ago
    Programmers are rarely promoted to run serious projects. Many work a lot of unpaid overtime. Many of use spend our days focusing on compliance rather then outcomes.
  • wwilim 3y ago
    And be used as factotums if the investors ever notice they're good at getting things done. The amount of times my dad was asked to drive 5 hours somewhere to deliver a giant stack of paperwork to a local administration office to secure a building permit...
  • shrimp_emoji 3y ago
    > not get promoted to run serious projects until they are 50+ Uh, based?
  • seemaze 3y ago
    > be held legally liable for their work I've always been amazed that in software, you can call yourself an 'architect', 'engineer', or 'contractor' without any legal accountability. But I'm from the brick-and-mortar side of the fence.
• yen223 3y ago
  The charitable take is that this is a way to tell architects what life as a programmer is like. (I 100% believe that if an architect read this article, their takeaway would be that programmers have it too easy)
• magicalhippo 3y ago
  > I’ll add another shocker: sometimes blueprints are poorly specified and/or incorrect. A family member bought a plot, some blueprints for a two-story house from an architect firm and hired someone to build it. Well into the construction, the builders asked if he would like them to raise the roof of the building by one meter, as it would be a negligible increase in cost. He was going to reject the offer but changed his mind and accepted. Once completed he realized that if he had rejected the offer, he wouldn't be able to use the second floor at all. The house had a Gable-style roof[1], and the stairs a U shape along one of the outer walls. Had he not raised the roof, one couldn't have walked up the stairs due to the roof being so low along the outer walls. Even after raising the roof, tall people would still need to tilt their heads going up. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gable_roof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gable_roof
  • dasil003 3y ago
    I love that they just asked it but they didn't explain why.
    • magicalhippo 3y ago
      Yeah I've always assumed they figured this wouldn't work, but ya never know... The guy did get the drawings independently checked BTW, they were indeed drawn with the roof too low.
      • whstl 3y ago
        Maybe the builder assumed they noticed too, and if they had said no the builder would try to explain. I only ever did one big renovation and built one house, but I've seen builders fixing mistakes from engineers and architects sooo many times.
        • mjevans 3y ago
          Minimum height in the stairway isn't part of the specification. The house being structurally sound so it doesn't collapse / otherwise cause a safety hazard in the building is. Not sure if there's a type of architect that has to think about the wholistic picture including function, usability and general ergonomics. They probably cost more too.
• ozim 3y ago
  Not really. Most of developers jobs are “here is Jira ticket build what is written there”. You get product owners, business analysts, scrum masters that should take away 90% of BS. But still it is not the case and a lot of those business roles seem like they are just useless and I would do much better job directly talking to the customer.
  • rurban 3y ago
    You are a bit naive here. Those type customers are extremely common, and there are specialized jobs to deal with such customers. In SW they are the PM's. Without a good PM to shield you from the customers insanities you are lost. In architecture or other engineering professions it's the same. As architect you have a special man to deal with politicians and special clients, and in many other professions even with the press, who has no idea either. Never talk directly to the customer. Or if so, you are not allowed to make promises.
    • runtu 3y ago
      You shouldn't be talking to the customer to hear what monstrosity of an application they think they want months from now, or even what "features" they think they want added. You should talk to the customer to understand the problems they have, and work with them to figure out the smallest thing that might help them solve their biggest problem. Build and deliver that small thing fast, then iterate.
      • whstl 3y ago
        25 years ago I thought Office Space would be enough to kill the meme of "technical people can't talk to customers". It's amusing but sad to see that Agile rent-seekers have managed to creep into the process once again. And developers have bought it.
    • ozim 3y ago
      Not naive - it is only disappointing level of insanity that still gets through and some business people like PMs or BAs are there to shield devs yes - but there are also vast amounts that don't do their job properly and all turns into basically game of "Chinese whispers" or "human telephone". I don't need someone to copy over what customer wrote from e-mail to Jira that is not what the job is about.
• t_luke 3y ago
  If Programmers Had to Work Like Architects - you aren't allowed to do any programming yourself, you just write a specification - the majority of the people doing the programming are incapable of reading the specification - many of those who can will deliberately ignore it to save money - nevertheless, it's your fault if it's realised incorrectly
  • carlmr 3y ago
    This sounds a lot like normal software architect work at big corp. You write the spec, it gets sent off somewhere cheap, the people there lied on their CV or got their degree from a diploma mill, they will ignore your spec and make all the tests green instead of checking if they do something, and then you need to take responsibility.
  • baud147258 3y ago
    > If Programmers Had to Work Like Architects According to my brother who work in construction, architects are often clueless on how to build stuff and existing material limitation, especially with the money he's given.
    • blauditore 3y ago
      I get the same impression: There are many head-in-the-cloud architects who see themselves as artists. The equivalent totally exists in the software world; it's people who want to be pure "software architects", designing what others should implement. In my experience, this dictating mindset never works - designers (technical or not) should evolve their ideas with the implementors/builders, otherwise such disconnects happen.
    • nazka 3y ago
      Yes they have to work with a structural engineer for that. Just like a car designer have to work with a mechanical engineer or a product manager with an software architect. Architectes are not engineers they are designers and visionaries. You can check this video for more info: Structural Engineer vs Architect - Design Meeting https://youtu.be/29-xtjX8rAk?si=7dupEMwy3DEbs_Yi https://youtu.be/29-xtjX8rAk?si=7dupEMwy3DEbs_Yi
• timeon 3y ago
  Still there is one difference. Architect needs to design not only within client's and technical constraints but also within legal regulations.
  • blauditore 3y ago
    ...and so do programmers, increasingly so nowadays (at least it's very tangible in Europe).
    • whstl 3y ago
      Also true for a while for some industries like finance.
    • timeon 3y ago
      Some programmers. All architects.
• zarathustreal 3y ago
  Such a flippant dismissal yet so little consideration given.. ironically, the reality of what you’re doing is exactly what you’re accusing OP of: assuming a state of victimhood. Shouting “that’s the job!” when it is ostensibly not the job (whatever your experience of the “reality” of it may be) is really an implied assertion that you must make concessions in your work arrangement regardless of the explicit agreement you make with your employer when accepting a job. The desperation to communicate this comes across, to me, as a cry for help with asserting yourself in the workplace. In my experience this is a result of a power imbalance in the employment relationship. Unfortunately the reasons for this imbalance are often extremely complex but some generic, potentially not helpful, advice for anyone in common scenarios I’ve seen would be: 1. Improve your skillset. It will help your (implied) negotiating power when they start adding more meetings or pulling you off task 2. Learn how to politely assert yourself in a work environment. We’re all playing games of imperfect information and light assertiveness and confidence can put an adversary in a position where they can’t afford to assume you’re wrong (in the moment) 3. Know what you’re signing up for and be candid about what you’re bringing to the table. If you’ve spent the last four years in intensive study of algorithms and data structures, be candid about the fact that you’re taking the job to solve computational problems. Let them know ahead of time that you’re not another head to count or butt to fill a seat.
• is_true 3y ago
  The architect would be a PM in the real world. The guys working on site are always fixing issues with the design. And owners always want some changes. The thing with the construction industry is that the user can "see" the frontend before, it would be like if you build the frontend and when the user accepts you build the backend.