3 ms·

Just like "if it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid", if you were smart enough to see all the problems in all your past jobs but those companies still went

by lmm 2y ago

Just like "if it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid", if you were smart enough to see all the problems in all your past jobs but those companies still went bankrupt, maybe you weren't actually the ideal employee you think you are. And if programming interviews are beneath you and only passed by your inferiors but you can't pay rent, maybe they're not actually so far beneath you. Using your l33t knowledge of AWS to make the query go from 7 seconds to 40ms or the batch job go from 40 hours to 20 minutes is rarely the difference between a successful company and a failure. Executive dysfunction often is that difference, but if all you do is remember it for your snarky blog post then you're not giving people a reason to employ you. Wanting companies to be better at sysadminning is good up to a point, but when you focus too much on better database design and AWS cost savings then you're the middle stonemason in that McKinsey parable.

jackblemming 2y ago
The way he talks and the way you talk are cut from the same cloth.
- lmm 2y ago
  Really? What kind of similarities are you talking about?
givemeethekeys 2y ago
> if you were smart enough to see all the problems in all your past jobs but those companies still went bankrupt, maybe you weren't actually the ideal employee you think you are. If you're smart enough to see all the problems but the company goes bankrupt, maybe are were actually just the ideal employee. For the vast majority of roles, tech and otherwise, hiring managers prefer to hire someone who'll ask questions like, "how high?" when told to jump, and not, "no" and "why?". You should be senior enough to do the job well but not senior enough to make your boss feel like they're junior.
- woooooo 2y ago
  The dirty secret is that everyone can see the problems. But the first person to point them out becomes "the problem".
  - Tao3300 2y ago
    I ran into that one hard once. "Hey, money isn't coming out of this function correctly. No, really, here's the math..." "PACK UP YOUR DESK NOW."
troebr 2y ago
What do you mean? That as a sysadmin he should also have solved the product/sales/marketing woes of the company? You can only do so much at certain positions. Even if you go out of your way to make people aware that they are making a costly mistake, it's can be really hard to sway them. If the marketing team does a shit job, maybe I can tell the marketing is shit, but I can't do more than trying to make people aware of it. Even with the best diplomacy skills you often can't fix that from the engineering side unless you are high enough on the totem pole. I've once expressed polite concerns about a marketing decision to the CEO whose good friend was newly appointed head of marketing, got told off by the CEO and the marketing lady proceeded to wreck our branding and confuse our customers.
- lmm 2y ago
  > What do you mean? That as a sysadmin he should also have solved the product/sales/marketing woes of the company? You can only do so much at certain positions. Well, it seems that he's pointedly not willing to be just a code monkey, that he thinks he should care about product/sales/marketing to the detriment of working within his position. Which is a good quality in some ways, but only to the extent that it translates into actual added value. A coder who increases marketing's productivity is an asset, but one who just points out problems without achieving anything by that is a liability compared to one who stays siloed off and gets on with their coding. And, y'know, lots of people think that the problem with the company is everyone else and they know how to do everyone else's jobs better than they do. How do you distinguish the few people who think this and are right from the many people who think this and are wrong? Well, that's the wrong question; unless someone can actually do something about it, it doesn't matter whether they're right or wrong. If you worked with an incompetent marketing person who you knew was going to sink the company and you just rode that all the way down while complaining and blogging about it, that's actually worse than being the person who has no idea why the company sank.
risenshinetech 2y ago
What a cute take. As if seeing the problems and being given the authority to solve them always came in pairs. My guess is you're one of the interviewers/employees he was talking about in the article.
- lmm 2y ago
  > As if seeing the problems and being given the authority to solve them always came in pairs. My point is that there's no value in seeing the problems if you can't or won't do anything about them. Like he seems to want to be congratulated/rewarded/hired for being able to blame other people for the failure of the places he previously worked at.
  - buttercraft 2y ago
    What? The problems described were created before he got to those places. And he did solve them.
    - lmm 2y ago
      He fixed some specific DBA/sysadmin-ey problems. That matters, but less than you might think. He didn't fix the underlying problems in those cases or the more important problems that he identifies. > Yet, the company still said they “don’t need to hire people with experience because everything is cloud native so anybody can just figure things out.” — This company tolerated a year of 80 hour data imports because “cloud native” means “experience doesn’t matter” and they didn’t have anybody in the entire company to even detect the problem because “only product features matter, we don’t want to hire low value sysadmins.” > It’s not my fault companies fail though. I try to help, but when VC brain disease runs all companies into the ground instead of prioritizing building good products on high performance platforms, there’s only so much you can do before leaving dying companies (then repeat at the next dying company forever?). > I’ve seen companies making $5 million a month in revenue just evaporate over 3 years because their original idea falls out of popularity and the executives refuse to adapt to better ideas. I’ve seen companies go from a billion in funding to being sold for parts because the CEO is too busy buying horses to keep his wife happy instead of actually running the company. I’ve seen companies just give up and get acquired by some big tech because the CEO was offered a personal $100 million gift when he agrees to the acquisition, then 90% of the company is let go after the acquisition. Feels great to work forever on the zero-reward side of a winner-take-most-but-the-winner-aint-you professional economy. > I don’t know about you, but I care about company structure, product issues, platform scalability and reliability, customer usability, developer usability, performance, legal compliance, security, corporate scalability, and team cohesion all at the same time. Caring is good but only if you care about the stuff that matters. At some point, yeah, if the last 5 companies you worked for died and you're making a point of selling yourself as someone who cares about the important stuff, then either you're not as good at identifying what's important as you think you are, or you're ineffective at actually fixing the problems you've identified. Which is naturally not going to get you hired. > it looks like I am a full time architecture-only, no-product-value person, but it’s only because... There's only so much "it's only because..." that people will look past.
Tao3300 2y ago
Lmao. That sort of simping for incompetence belongs on LinkedIn, not here.
solidsnack9000 2y ago
What is the McKinsey parable?
- helicalmix 2y ago
  https://www.nycp.com/elements/HA1/1345 https://www.nycp.com/elements/HA1/1345 Basically, in business and life, if you're too in love with craftsmanship of a specific function, but can't relate that well to the general goal, you're more of a liability than an asset.
  - Tao3300 2y ago
    I noticed the third stonecutter wasn't doing jackshit.

by lmm 2y ago

jackblemming 2y ago

The way he talks and the way you talk are cut from the same cloth.

lmm 2y ago
Really? What kind of similarities are you talking about?

givemeethekeys 2y ago

> if you were smart enough to see all the problems in all your past jobs but those companies still went bankrupt, maybe you weren't actually the ideal employee you think you are. If you're smart enough to see all the problems but the company goes bankrupt, maybe are were actually just the ideal employee. For the vast majority of roles, tech and otherwise, hiring managers prefer to hire someone who'll ask questions like, "how high?" when told to jump, and not, "no" and "why?". You should be senior enough to do the job well but not senior enough to make your boss feel like they're junior.

woooooo 2y ago
The dirty secret is that everyone can see the problems. But the first person to point them out becomes "the problem".
- Tao3300 2y ago
  I ran into that one hard once. "Hey, money isn't coming out of this function correctly. No, really, here's the math..." "PACK UP YOUR DESK NOW."

troebr 2y ago

What do you mean? That as a sysadmin he should also have solved the product/sales/marketing woes of the company? You can only do so much at certain positions. Even if you go out of your way to make people aware that they are making a costly mistake, it's can be really hard to sway them. If the marketing team does a shit job, maybe I can tell the marketing is shit, but I can't do more than trying to make people aware of it. Even with the best diplomacy skills you often can't fix that from the engineering side unless you are high enough on the totem pole. I've once expressed polite concerns about a marketing decision to the CEO whose good friend was newly appointed head of marketing, got told off by the CEO and the marketing lady proceeded to wreck our branding and confuse our customers.

lmm 2y ago
> What do you mean? That as a sysadmin he should also have solved the product/sales/marketing woes of the company? You can only do so much at certain positions. Well, it seems that he's pointedly not willing to be just a code monkey, that he thinks he should care about product/sales/marketing to the detriment of working within his position. Which is a good quality in some ways, but only to the extent that it translates into actual added value. A coder who increases marketing's productivity is an asset, but one who just points out problems without achieving anything by that is a liability compared to one who stays siloed off and gets on with their coding. And, y'know, lots of people think that the problem with the company is everyone else and they know how to do everyone else's jobs better than they do. How do you distinguish the few people who think this and are right from the many people who think this and are wrong? Well, that's the wrong question; unless someone can actually do something about it, it doesn't matter whether they're right or wrong. If you worked with an incompetent marketing person who you knew was going to sink the company and you just rode that all the way down while complaining and blogging about it, that's actually worse than being the person who has no idea why the company sank.

risenshinetech 2y ago

What a cute take. As if seeing the problems and being given the authority to solve them always came in pairs. My guess is you're one of the interviewers/employees he was talking about in the article.

lmm 2y ago
> As if seeing the problems and being given the authority to solve them always came in pairs. My point is that there's no value in seeing the problems if you can't or won't do anything about them. Like he seems to want to be congratulated/rewarded/hired for being able to blame other people for the failure of the places he previously worked at.
- buttercraft 2y ago
  What? The problems described were created before he got to those places. And he did solve them.
  - lmm 2y ago
    He fixed some specific DBA/sysadmin-ey problems. That matters, but less than you might think. He didn't fix the underlying problems in those cases or the more important problems that he identifies. > Yet, the company still said they “don’t need to hire people with experience because everything is cloud native so anybody can just figure things out.” — This company tolerated a year of 80 hour data imports because “cloud native” means “experience doesn’t matter” and they didn’t have anybody in the entire company to even detect the problem because “only product features matter, we don’t want to hire low value sysadmins.” > It’s not my fault companies fail though. I try to help, but when VC brain disease runs all companies into the ground instead of prioritizing building good products on high performance platforms, there’s only so much you can do before leaving dying companies (then repeat at the next dying company forever?). > I’ve seen companies making $5 million a month in revenue just evaporate over 3 years because their original idea falls out of popularity and the executives refuse to adapt to better ideas. I’ve seen companies go from a billion in funding to being sold for parts because the CEO is too busy buying horses to keep his wife happy instead of actually running the company. I’ve seen companies just give up and get acquired by some big tech because the CEO was offered a personal $100 million gift when he agrees to the acquisition, then 90% of the company is let go after the acquisition. Feels great to work forever on the zero-reward side of a winner-take-most-but-the-winner-aint-you professional economy. > I don’t know about you, but I care about company structure, product issues, platform scalability and reliability, customer usability, developer usability, performance, legal compliance, security, corporate scalability, and team cohesion all at the same time. Caring is good but only if you care about the stuff that matters. At some point, yeah, if the last 5 companies you worked for died and you're making a point of selling yourself as someone who cares about the important stuff, then either you're not as good at identifying what's important as you think you are, or you're ineffective at actually fixing the problems you've identified. Which is naturally not going to get you hired. > it looks like I am a full time architecture-only, no-product-value person, but it’s only because... There's only so much "it's only because..." that people will look past.

Tao3300 2y ago

Lmao. That sort of simping for incompetence belongs on LinkedIn, not here.

solidsnack9000 2y ago

What is the McKinsey parable?

helicalmix 2y ago
https://www.nycp.com/elements/HA1/1345 https://www.nycp.com/elements/HA1/1345 Basically, in business and life, if you're too in love with craftsmanship of a specific function, but can't relate that well to the general goal, you're more of a liability than an asset.
- Tao3300 2y ago
  I noticed the third stonecutter wasn't doing jackshit.