3 ms·

Here are some slides summarizing the shorter paper this is based on: https://web.archive.org/web/20170809055122id_/https://learning.acm.org/webinar_pdfs/WhatMa

by aen1 2y ago

Here are some slides summarizing the shorter paper this is based on: https://web.archive.org/web/20170809055122id_/https://learning.acm.org/webinar_pdfs/WhatMakesAGreatSoftwareEngineer_Slides.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20170809055122id_/https://learni... tl;dr They did a qualitative survey of what other people think makes a great software engineer at Microsoft. Their take aways: - The ability to learn is more important than any individual technical skill - Making good decisions is rarely discussed in the software engineering literature, but it is critical to being a great software engineer - Software engineering is a sociotechnical undertaking - Delivering the code is often insufficient; complex contextual technical considerations abound.

rukuu001 2y ago
Thats a very handy link, thanks. The whole 'sociotechnical' part is gaping black hole for most new devs I meet, because it's not taught, and I don't know that schools know how to teach it. Anyone have any internal processes (or resources) for helping newbs understand that side of the job?
- svilen_dobrev 2y ago
  check "recommended readings" on the right: https://www.svilendobrev.com/rabota/ https://www.svilendobrev.com/rabota/ starting from Organisational patterns, down. Skip anything there about design/ architecture/ math. But: have in mind Conway's law - software-produced <=> organisation's-culture. So you can't dismiss entirely either of the two extremes of the socio-techical (human-machine) systems. IMO, Winnie the Pooh has much more sociotechnical hints than CS university course.
  - rukuu001 2y ago
    Thank you very much, I'll check that out
    - svilen_dobrev 2y ago
      also check this about building/growing S3 at Amazon - quite some socio-technical points: https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2023/07/building-and-operating-a-pretty-big-storage-system.html https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2023/07/building-and-op...

by aen1 2y ago

rukuu001 2y ago

Thats a very handy link, thanks. The whole 'sociotechnical' part is gaping black hole for most new devs I meet, because it's not taught, and I don't know that schools know how to teach it. Anyone have any internal processes (or resources) for helping newbs understand that side of the job?

svilen_dobrev 2y ago
check "recommended readings" on the right: https://www.svilendobrev.com/rabota/ https://www.svilendobrev.com/rabota/ starting from Organisational patterns, down. Skip anything there about design/ architecture/ math. But: have in mind Conway's law - software-produced <=> organisation's-culture. So you can't dismiss entirely either of the two extremes of the socio-techical (human-machine) systems. IMO, Winnie the Pooh has much more sociotechnical hints than CS university course.
- rukuu001 2y ago
  Thank you very much, I'll check that out
  - svilen_dobrev 2y ago
    also check this about building/growing S3 at Amazon - quite some socio-technical points: https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2023/07/building-and-operating-a-pretty-big-storage-system.html https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2023/07/building-and-op...