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I can see some of the tone being too adversarial, but I think the gist, that we are after all professional engineers, who studied and spent time and money to un

by aprilthird2021 2y ago

I can see some of the tone being too adversarial, but I think the gist, that we are after all professional engineers, who studied and spent time and money to understand how to build such systems to high standards. And since we are that and are paid for that knowledge, we should strive to improve software / system quality as much as possible. Isn't the job of executives, managers, etc. to figure out the constraints we have and strive to improve profit and shipping speed as much as possible? Together, with our combined expertise we can get the practical best of all three. But if eng just nod along knowing they are sacrificing quality, security, scalability, etc. then they are doing a disservice to the team, no?

pertymcpert 2y ago
Those kinds of orgs eventually get eaten alive by orgs who had better alignment because they’re inefficient. Executives are human and they need the help of engineering teams to make some decisions. If every question about “can be ship this faster?” is answered with “no because we’re professional engineers who’ve studied a long time to build systems to high standards”, then that company will lose vs another competitor who had a more collaborative approach.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  > Executives are human and they need the help of engineering teams to make some decisions. If every question about “can be ship this faster?” is answered with “no because we’re professional engineers who’ve studied a long time to build systems to high standards”, then that company will lose vs another competitor who had a more collaborative approach. It's the executives' job to synthesize info from other orgs and understand the business. In social media apps for example, delaying a feature launch for better quality may not be worth it. In commercial aeronautics software, it matters a lot better.
  - pertymcpert 2y ago
    You can go on all you want about which job is who's but in the end I'm still right. Those organizations who work better together will out-compete those which don't, all other things being equal. I'm sure the engineers looking for work after their employer files chapter 7 will feel smug that at least they didn't have to take responsibility for anything outside of engineering.

pertymcpert 2y ago

Those kinds of orgs eventually get eaten alive by orgs who had better alignment because they’re inefficient. Executives are human and they need the help of engineering teams to make some decisions. If every question about “can be ship this faster?” is answered with “no because we’re professional engineers who’ve studied a long time to build systems to high standards”, then that company will lose vs another competitor who had a more collaborative approach.

aprilthird2021 2y ago
> Executives are human and they need the help of engineering teams to make some decisions. If every question about “can be ship this faster?” is answered with “no because we’re professional engineers who’ve studied a long time to build systems to high standards”, then that company will lose vs another competitor who had a more collaborative approach. It's the executives' job to synthesize info from other orgs and understand the business. In social media apps for example, delaying a feature launch for better quality may not be worth it. In commercial aeronautics software, it matters a lot better.
- pertymcpert 2y ago
  You can go on all you want about which job is who's but in the end I'm still right. Those organizations who work better together will out-compete those which don't, all other things being equal. I'm sure the engineers looking for work after their employer files chapter 7 will feel smug that at least they didn't have to take responsibility for anything outside of engineering.