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I have attempted, in vain, to bring this kind of thinking into the companies and teams that I have worked with. They don’t want it. And in interviews, no one w

I have attempted, in vain, to bring this kind of thinking into the companies and teams that I have worked with. They don’t want it. And in interviews, no one wants a Software Artisan. The cynic in me says that it’s because people want the job security of the typical bullshit position and don’t want anyone upsetting that.

Swizec 2y ago
The problem with hiring artisans is that most companies need a Honda Civic not an Enzo Ferrari. If they hire an artisan it’s just going to be frustrating for everyone involved. The business will pay more than the value received and wonder wtf and the artisan will be bored out of their mind looking for fun projects to do.
- zrobotics 2y ago
  One thing where that analogy breaks down is that a Honda civic is more highly engineered and a more refined product than a Ferrari. The Ferrari makes all sorts of sacrifices for performance and styling, sacrifices such as manufacturability, cost, and reliability. We tend to forget or underestimate the sheer work that Honda engineers spend making a car that is fuel efficient, crashworthy, long-term reliable, and affordable. A civic certainly isn't as sexy as a Ferrari, but stepping back and thinking about the sheer amount of human effort that went into making such a good machine at such a reasonable (compared to a Ferrari) price is astounding. I would argue that software would be improved if it was approached in the same engineering fashion as a civic or corolla, what we have now is the engineering effort of a Ferrari with all the warts that entails but released to the mass-market. Ferrari can't invest the engineering effort to release as polished of a product as Honda or Toyota, but that's fine since it's a niche vehicle and the buyers accept the tradeoffs since nobody uses one as a daily commuter anyway. But a small team of software developers can release an under-designed product to market and that software is available nearly instantly worldwide with little limits. Making 1M physical items is far more difficult than having 1M users of a program.
- ahoka 2y ago
  This is a false dichotomy.
slowhadoken 2y ago
McDonalds isn’t looking for a chef.
- invalidlogin 2y ago
  Chef?
  - slowhadoken 2y ago
    I guess both work but chef makes more sense.
- jagged-chisel 2y ago
  Actually, you make a great point: these companies attempt to convince employees that they’re not McDonald’s, when that’s exactly what they are. And I shouldn’t be falling for it myself.
  - slowhadoken 2y ago
    I’ve avoided working directly for the tech industry. I was contacted by Google and Amazon without ever having reaching out to them but that was right before the mass layoffs. Beside high level proprietary projects I’d rather work for myself doing whatever I want.
tkiolp4 2y ago
Companies don’t need software artisans. They need replaceable people who can do the job until they run out of investor’s money.
- WJW 2y ago
  Not all companies float on PE money.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  > replaceable people Until that mindset changes, the disasters will keep coming. Achieving true "replaceable people" is a major task. I have seen it done (properly), and suspect most folks on this board would be aghast at the compromises that need to be made. I didn't like it. I managed a team of extremely experienced C++ engineers that were really hard to replace, so I did my best to keep them on board. As to "artisan"? I don't really care what I'm called. I like coding, and I like writing really good UX.
  - luckylion 2y ago
    Why do you think the mindset that everyone should be replaceable is wrong / leads to disasters? I agree completely that it's not trivial and comes with its own trade-offs and side-effects, but when you achieve a good chunk of it, it brings a lot of flexibility, stability and peace of mind for everyone involved. You can put more people on some task because it's not something only one person can do. You won't nose-dive when somebody leaves. And developers know that they can go on vacation and don't need to worry about what's going to happen to the rest of the team (I know that not everyone thinks like that, but in my experience enough people do).
    - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
      It's really a long topic, but the basic TL;DR, is that people are not interchangeable, unless you reduce the task to the lowest common denominator, and that means that we squander the talent of the most skilled, in order to cater to the least skilled. Basically, tell good coders to write bad code, because bad coders need to understand it. We get "meh" results. The issue is that everyone seems to be fine with "meh." That's a shame. The alternative is hire only good coders, and do what it takes to keep them around, and that's a really unpopular stance.
rqtwteye 2y ago
Artisans don't scale.
- zelphirkalt 2y ago
  What does scale?
  - danielbln 2y ago
    Pragmatism.

Swizec 2y ago

The problem with hiring artisans is that most companies need a Honda Civic not an Enzo Ferrari. If they hire an artisan it’s just going to be frustrating for everyone involved. The business will pay more than the value received and wonder wtf and the artisan will be bored out of their mind looking for fun projects to do.

zrobotics 2y ago
One thing where that analogy breaks down is that a Honda civic is more highly engineered and a more refined product than a Ferrari. The Ferrari makes all sorts of sacrifices for performance and styling, sacrifices such as manufacturability, cost, and reliability. We tend to forget or underestimate the sheer work that Honda engineers spend making a car that is fuel efficient, crashworthy, long-term reliable, and affordable. A civic certainly isn't as sexy as a Ferrari, but stepping back and thinking about the sheer amount of human effort that went into making such a good machine at such a reasonable (compared to a Ferrari) price is astounding. I would argue that software would be improved if it was approached in the same engineering fashion as a civic or corolla, what we have now is the engineering effort of a Ferrari with all the warts that entails but released to the mass-market. Ferrari can't invest the engineering effort to release as polished of a product as Honda or Toyota, but that's fine since it's a niche vehicle and the buyers accept the tradeoffs since nobody uses one as a daily commuter anyway. But a small team of software developers can release an under-designed product to market and that software is available nearly instantly worldwide with little limits. Making 1M physical items is far more difficult than having 1M users of a program.
ahoka 2y ago
This is a false dichotomy.

slowhadoken 2y ago

McDonalds isn’t looking for a chef.

invalidlogin 2y ago
Chef?
- slowhadoken 2y ago
  I guess both work but chef makes more sense.
jagged-chisel 2y ago
Actually, you make a great point: these companies attempt to convince employees that they’re not McDonald’s, when that’s exactly what they are. And I shouldn’t be falling for it myself.
- slowhadoken 2y ago
  I’ve avoided working directly for the tech industry. I was contacted by Google and Amazon without ever having reaching out to them but that was right before the mass layoffs. Beside high level proprietary projects I’d rather work for myself doing whatever I want.

tkiolp4 2y ago

Companies don’t need software artisans. They need replaceable people who can do the job until they run out of investor’s money.

WJW 2y ago
Not all companies float on PE money.
ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
> replaceable people Until that mindset changes, the disasters will keep coming. Achieving true "replaceable people" is a major task. I have seen it done (properly), and suspect most folks on this board would be aghast at the compromises that need to be made. I didn't like it. I managed a team of extremely experienced C++ engineers that were really hard to replace, so I did my best to keep them on board. As to "artisan"? I don't really care what I'm called. I like coding, and I like writing really good UX.
- luckylion 2y ago
  Why do you think the mindset that everyone should be replaceable is wrong / leads to disasters? I agree completely that it's not trivial and comes with its own trade-offs and side-effects, but when you achieve a good chunk of it, it brings a lot of flexibility, stability and peace of mind for everyone involved. You can put more people on some task because it's not something only one person can do. You won't nose-dive when somebody leaves. And developers know that they can go on vacation and don't need to worry about what's going to happen to the rest of the team (I know that not everyone thinks like that, but in my experience enough people do).
  - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
    It's really a long topic, but the basic TL;DR, is that people are not interchangeable, unless you reduce the task to the lowest common denominator, and that means that we squander the talent of the most skilled, in order to cater to the least skilled. Basically, tell good coders to write bad code, because bad coders need to understand it. We get "meh" results. The issue is that everyone seems to be fine with "meh." That's a shame. The alternative is hire only good coders, and do what it takes to keep them around, and that's a really unpopular stance.

rqtwteye 2y ago

Artisans don't scale.

zelphirkalt 2y ago
What does scale?
- danielbln 2y ago
  Pragmatism.