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Some highlights that I remember include: * One project where the CI took something like 48 hours * Trying to apply waterfall hardware engineering processes to

Some highlights that I remember include: * One project where the CI took something like 48 hours * Trying to apply waterfall hardware engineering processes to software development * Mostly hiring devs fresh from university so there was a ton of group think due to a lack of new ideas * Low salaries so most of the devs left once they got promoted beyond a junior level

josh-sematic 2y ago
I had similarly painful experiences. Also the project I was on was mostly in maintenance mode, with mostly junior engineers out of college on it who had little experience with that particular code. Not many tests. Lots of code archaeology and "I'm crossing my fingers I didn't just break some subset of the enormous configuration space of this tool"
- etimberg 2y ago
  The code archaeology was probably the most fun part for me but I had so much free time to do that because my projects were mostly maintenance as well
  - positr0n 2y ago
    Fun NI archeology story. When I was there in the early 2010s, I met a greybeard hardware engineer with a big chip mask poster on his cube wall. He told me they lost the schematics and all documentation to one of their first timing chips that was used in lots of products. They ended up calling the manufacturer and asking for the mask image back, and any question anyone had had to be reverse engineered from the mask.
- jolt42 2y ago
  Did they leave and go to CrowdStrike?
sidewndr46 2y ago
You forgot "cuts the salary of everyone each year, ensuring anyone who can update a resume finds a new job"
- etimberg 2y ago
  Never had that experience while I was there, but about a year after I left the entire office I was in was closed and everyone laid off
- sumtechguy 2y ago
  a friend of mine has worked there for 25+ years. I keep telling him work somewhere else and make more money...
beryilma 2y ago
> Mostly hiring devs fresh from university so there was a ton of group think due to a lack of new ideas This is a very interesting description of group think between less experienced developers. I've never thought of it this way, but it seems to have some truth in it.

josh-sematic 2y ago

I had similarly painful experiences. Also the project I was on was mostly in maintenance mode, with mostly junior engineers out of college on it who had little experience with that particular code. Not many tests. Lots of code archaeology and "I'm crossing my fingers I didn't just break some subset of the enormous configuration space of this tool"

etimberg 2y ago
The code archaeology was probably the most fun part for me but I had so much free time to do that because my projects were mostly maintenance as well
- positr0n 2y ago
  Fun NI archeology story. When I was there in the early 2010s, I met a greybeard hardware engineer with a big chip mask poster on his cube wall. He told me they lost the schematics and all documentation to one of their first timing chips that was used in lots of products. They ended up calling the manufacturer and asking for the mask image back, and any question anyone had had to be reverse engineered from the mask.
jolt42 2y ago
Did they leave and go to CrowdStrike?

sidewndr46 2y ago

You forgot "cuts the salary of everyone each year, ensuring anyone who can update a resume finds a new job"

etimberg 2y ago
Never had that experience while I was there, but about a year after I left the entire office I was in was closed and everyone laid off
sumtechguy 2y ago
a friend of mine has worked there for 25+ years. I keep telling him work somewhere else and make more money...

beryilma 2y ago

> Mostly hiring devs fresh from university so there was a ton of group think due to a lack of new ideas This is a very interesting description of group think between less experienced developers. I've never thought of it this way, but it seems to have some truth in it.