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If you don't want to have any say in the work that you're doing, then sure don't judge based in impact. I'd rather have the responsibility and trust of letting

If you don't want to have any say in the work that you're doing, then sure don't judge based in impact. I'd rather have the responsibility and trust of letting me decide what to work on, rather than management tell me. The only way that works is that my judgement is good, I deliver impact, and I'm paid as such.

esafak 2y ago
You are optimizing for your resume and pay, not the product's needs. That's what people are criticizing; what constitutes impact, how it is measured, and whether that's what's needed to make the product better.
- _dark_matter_ 2y ago
  In fact I'd argue it's the _exact_ opposite. I've seen countless engineers architect big complicated systems that are completely unnecessary. If anyone was measuring, they'd realize the impact of that system was: no incremental users, no incremental revenue, increased operational overhead, higher headcount, and more burden in further development. Is that what the user needs? You tell me.
proc0 2y ago
There is implicit impact by engineering good systems and software. It's like hiring a plumber and telling them "you need to improve my house" rather than "you need to improve the plumbing in my house". When your objective as an engineer is so broad that you need to worry about customers and the product, then the engineering itself suffers... that said it might not suffer to the extent that it matters but that is the point here. Bad software keeps happening because businesses can afford it, as well as hardware improvements. It's a combination of consumers not knowing what they are missing and hardware advancements allowing for bad software to exist.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  > When your objective as an engineer is so broad that you need to worry about customers and the product, then the engineering itself suffers... that said it might not suffer to the extent that it matters but that is the point here If you aren’t writing software with the customer and business in mind, why are you doing it? That’s what you are getting paid for.
  - proc0 2y ago
    To clarify, I don't mean having no concern for the business or customer, but rather having that as a priority and the primary way to determine contribution. Engineers should care about the engineering first, which implicitly has value if done correctly. That said, AI is about to change all this... but ironically this justifies my position. If software can be so powerful such that you can have a general intelligence that can do almost any cognitive task... then it follows that all this time engineers can also engineer clever systems that can add a lot of value to the company if engineered correctly. There is no ceiling of how much performance and value can be squeezed out of a software system, but this never happens because businesses are not investing in actual engineering but rather in technical entrepreneurs that can bring something to market quickly enough.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      > To clarify, I don't mean having no concern for the business or customer, but rather having that as a priority and the primary way to determine contribution. Engineers should care about the engineering first, which implicitly has value if done correctly There is no “implicit value” of software to a company. The only value of a software to a company is whether it makes the company money or saves the company money. That’s it, there is no other reason for a company to pay anyone except to bring more value to the company than they cost to employ them. If software can be so powerful such that you can have a general intelligence that can do almost any cognitive task... then it follows that all this time engineers can also engineer clever systems that can add a lot of value to the company if engineered correctly. It’s just the opposite. If AI can do any of the coding that a software engineer can do and I am not saying that’s possible or ever will be, what’s becomes even more important are the people who know how to derive business value out of AI. > There is no ceiling of how much performance and value can be squeezed out of a software system That may be true. But what’s the cost benefit analysis? Should we all be programming in assembly? Should game developers write a custom bespoke game engines and optimize them for each platform?

esafak 2y ago

You are optimizing for your resume and pay, not the product's needs. That's what people are criticizing; what constitutes impact, how it is measured, and whether that's what's needed to make the product better.

_dark_matter_ 2y ago
In fact I'd argue it's the _exact_ opposite. I've seen countless engineers architect big complicated systems that are completely unnecessary. If anyone was measuring, they'd realize the impact of that system was: no incremental users, no incremental revenue, increased operational overhead, higher headcount, and more burden in further development. Is that what the user needs? You tell me.

proc0 2y ago

There is implicit impact by engineering good systems and software. It's like hiring a plumber and telling them "you need to improve my house" rather than "you need to improve the plumbing in my house". When your objective as an engineer is so broad that you need to worry about customers and the product, then the engineering itself suffers... that said it might not suffer to the extent that it matters but that is the point here. Bad software keeps happening because businesses can afford it, as well as hardware improvements. It's a combination of consumers not knowing what they are missing and hardware advancements allowing for bad software to exist.

scarface_74 2y ago
> When your objective as an engineer is so broad that you need to worry about customers and the product, then the engineering itself suffers... that said it might not suffer to the extent that it matters but that is the point here If you aren’t writing software with the customer and business in mind, why are you doing it? That’s what you are getting paid for.
- proc0 2y ago
  To clarify, I don't mean having no concern for the business or customer, but rather having that as a priority and the primary way to determine contribution. Engineers should care about the engineering first, which implicitly has value if done correctly. That said, AI is about to change all this... but ironically this justifies my position. If software can be so powerful such that you can have a general intelligence that can do almost any cognitive task... then it follows that all this time engineers can also engineer clever systems that can add a lot of value to the company if engineered correctly. There is no ceiling of how much performance and value can be squeezed out of a software system, but this never happens because businesses are not investing in actual engineering but rather in technical entrepreneurs that can bring something to market quickly enough.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    > To clarify, I don't mean having no concern for the business or customer, but rather having that as a priority and the primary way to determine contribution. Engineers should care about the engineering first, which implicitly has value if done correctly There is no “implicit value” of software to a company. The only value of a software to a company is whether it makes the company money or saves the company money. That’s it, there is no other reason for a company to pay anyone except to bring more value to the company than they cost to employ them. If software can be so powerful such that you can have a general intelligence that can do almost any cognitive task... then it follows that all this time engineers can also engineer clever systems that can add a lot of value to the company if engineered correctly. It’s just the opposite. If AI can do any of the coding that a software engineer can do and I am not saying that’s possible or ever will be, what’s becomes even more important are the people who know how to derive business value out of AI. > There is no ceiling of how much performance and value can be squeezed out of a software system That may be true. But what’s the cost benefit analysis? Should we all be programming in assembly? Should game developers write a custom bespoke game engines and optimize them for each platform?