6 ms·

The real kicker is that it wasn't even management saying this, it was "senior" developers on the team. I wonder if these roles tend to attract people who get t

by bsnnkv 2y ago

The real kicker is that it wasn't even management saying this, it was "senior" developers on the team. I wonder if these roles tend to attract people who get the most job enjoyment and satisfaction out of the (manual) investigation aspect; it might explain some of the reluctance to adopting or creating more sophisticated observability tooling.

zelphirkalt 2y ago
Senior doesn't always mean smarter or more experienced or anything really. It just all depends on the company and its culture. It can also mean "worked for longer" (which is not equal to more experienced, as you can famously have 10 times 1y experience, instead of 10y experience) and "more aligned with how management at the company acts".
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  I'd probably take 10x 1y experience. Where I'm at now, everyone has been with the company 10-40 years. They think the way they do things is the only way because they've never seen anything else. I have many stories similar to the parent. They are a decade behind in their monitoring tooling, if it even exists at all. It's so frustrating when you know there are better ways.
  - HPsquared 2y ago
    "10x1y" means someone did the same thing for 10 years with no change or personal development. The learning stopped after the first year which then repeated Groundhog Day style.
    - bongodongobob 2y ago
      Ah, I misunderstood.
      - lazystar 2y ago
        another term for the phenomena is the "expert beginner" trap.
      - Nevermark 2y ago
        I see a dual. Between 10x1 workers and 1x10 workers working at 10x1 companies. Either way, doing the same kinds of things, the same kind of ways, more than a few times, is an automation/tool/practice improvement opportunity lost. I have yet to complete a single project I couldn't do much better, differently, if I were to do something similar again. Not everything is high creative, but software is such a complex balancing act/value terrain. Every project should deliver some new wisdom, however modest.
- fuzztester 2y ago
  I have heard it as 20 versus 1, but it is the same thing. also called by some other names, including NIH syndrome, protecting your turf, we do it this way around here, our culture, etc.
zero_shift 2y ago
Why would people who are good at [scarce, valuable skill] and get paid [many bananas] to practice it want to even imagine a world where that skill is now redundant? ;-)
- filoleg 2y ago
  The real skill is “problem-solving”, not “doing lots of specific manual steps that could be automated and made easier.” Unfortunately, some people confuse the two and believe they are paid to do the latter, not the former, simply because others look at those steps and go “wtf, we could make that hell more pleasant and easier to deal with”. In the same vein, “creating perceived job security for yourself by willing to continuously deal with stupid bs that others rightfully aren’t interested in wasting time on.” Sadly, you are ultimately right though, as misguided self-interest often tends to win over well-meant proposals.
  - fc417fc802 2y ago
    If the goal is ensuring a future stream of bananas then can you really say the behavior is misguided?
Henchman21 2y ago
IME, “senior” often means “who is left after the brain-drain & layoffs are done” when you’re at a medium sized company that isn’t prominent.
- getnormality 2y ago
  I feel so seen.
the_sleaze_ 2y ago
_To play devils advocate_: It could've sounded like the "new guy" came in and decided he needed to rewrite everything; bring in new xyx; steer the ship. New guy could even have been stepping directly on the toes of those senior developers who had fought and won wars to get were they are now. In my -very- humble opinion, you should wait at least a year before making big swinging changes or recommendations, most importantly in any big company.
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  In my less humble opinion: the only honest and objective review you’ll get about a system is from a new hire for about a month. Measure the “what the fucks per hour” as a barometer of how bad your org is and how deep a hole it has dug itself into. After that honeymoon period, all but the most autistic people will learn the organisational politics, keep their head down, and “play the game” to be assigned trivial menial tasks in some unimportant corner of the system. At that point, only after two beers will they give their closest colleagues their true opinion. I’ve seen this play out over and over, organisation after organisation. The corollary is that you yourself are not immune to this effect and will grow accustomed to almost any amount of insanity. You too will find yourself saying sentences like “oh, it always has been like this” and “don’t try to change that” or “that’s the responsibility of another team” even though you know full well they’re barely even aware of what that thing is, let alone maintaining it in a responsible fashion. PS: This is my purpose in a nutshell as a consultant. I turn up and provide my unvarnished opinion, without being even aware of what I’m “not supposed to say” because “it upsets that psychotic manager”. I’ll be gone before I have any personal political consequences, but the report document will remain, pointing the finger at people that would normally try to bite it off.
  - disqard 2y ago
    This rings true in my experience across different orgs, teams, in the tech industry. FWIW, academia has off-the-charts levels of "wtf" that newcomers will point out, though it's even more ossified than corporate culture, and they don't hire consultants to come in and fix things :)
Jach 2y ago
There's also immense resistance to figuring out how to code something if an approach isn't at once obvious. Hence "magic". Sometimes a "spike doc" can convince people. My favorite second-hand instance of this was a MS employee insisting that a fast rendering terminal emulator was so hard as to require "an entire doctoral research project in performant terminal emulation".
scottlamb 2y ago
> I wonder if these roles tend to attract people who get the most job enjoyment and satisfaction out of the (manual) investigation aspect; it might explain some of the reluctance to adopting or creating more sophisticated observability tooling. That's weird. I love debugging, and so I'm always trying to learn new ways to do it better. I mean, how can it be any other way? How can someone love something and be that committed to sucking at it?
whstl 2y ago
I saw a case like this recently, and the fact is that the team responsible was completely burned out and was just doing anything to avoid people from giving them more work, but they also didn't trust anyone else to do it. One of the engineers just quit on the spot for a better paid position, the other was demoted and is currently under heavy depression last I heard from him.

by bsnnkv 2y ago

zelphirkalt 2y ago

Senior doesn't always mean smarter or more experienced or anything really. It just all depends on the company and its culture. It can also mean "worked for longer" (which is not equal to more experienced, as you can famously have 10 times 1y experience, instead of 10y experience) and "more aligned with how management at the company acts".

bongodongobob 2y ago
I'd probably take 10x 1y experience. Where I'm at now, everyone has been with the company 10-40 years. They think the way they do things is the only way because they've never seen anything else. I have many stories similar to the parent. They are a decade behind in their monitoring tooling, if it even exists at all. It's so frustrating when you know there are better ways.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  "10x1y" means someone did the same thing for 10 years with no change or personal development. The learning stopped after the first year which then repeated Groundhog Day style.
  - bongodongobob 2y ago
    Ah, I misunderstood.
    - lazystar 2y ago
      another term for the phenomena is the "expert beginner" trap.
    - Nevermark 2y ago
      I see a dual. Between 10x1 workers and 1x10 workers working at 10x1 companies. Either way, doing the same kinds of things, the same kind of ways, more than a few times, is an automation/tool/practice improvement opportunity lost. I have yet to complete a single project I couldn't do much better, differently, if I were to do something similar again. Not everything is high creative, but software is such a complex balancing act/value terrain. Every project should deliver some new wisdom, however modest.
fuzztester 2y ago
I have heard it as 20 versus 1, but it is the same thing. also called by some other names, including NIH syndrome, protecting your turf, we do it this way around here, our culture, etc.

zero_shift 2y ago

Why would people who are good at [scarce, valuable skill] and get paid [many bananas] to practice it want to even imagine a world where that skill is now redundant? ;-)

filoleg 2y ago
The real skill is “problem-solving”, not “doing lots of specific manual steps that could be automated and made easier.” Unfortunately, some people confuse the two and believe they are paid to do the latter, not the former, simply because others look at those steps and go “wtf, we could make that hell more pleasant and easier to deal with”. In the same vein, “creating perceived job security for yourself by willing to continuously deal with stupid bs that others rightfully aren’t interested in wasting time on.” Sadly, you are ultimately right though, as misguided self-interest often tends to win over well-meant proposals.
- fc417fc802 2y ago
  If the goal is ensuring a future stream of bananas then can you really say the behavior is misguided?

Henchman21 2y ago

IME, “senior” often means “who is left after the brain-drain & layoffs are done” when you’re at a medium sized company that isn’t prominent.

getnormality 2y ago
I feel so seen.

the_sleaze_ 2y ago

_To play devils advocate_: It could've sounded like the "new guy" came in and decided he needed to rewrite everything; bring in new xyx; steer the ship. New guy could even have been stepping directly on the toes of those senior developers who had fought and won wars to get were they are now. In my -very- humble opinion, you should wait at least a year before making big swinging changes or recommendations, most importantly in any big company.

jiggawatts 2y ago
In my less humble opinion: the only honest and objective review you’ll get about a system is from a new hire for about a month. Measure the “what the fucks per hour” as a barometer of how bad your org is and how deep a hole it has dug itself into. After that honeymoon period, all but the most autistic people will learn the organisational politics, keep their head down, and “play the game” to be assigned trivial menial tasks in some unimportant corner of the system. At that point, only after two beers will they give their closest colleagues their true opinion. I’ve seen this play out over and over, organisation after organisation. The corollary is that you yourself are not immune to this effect and will grow accustomed to almost any amount of insanity. You too will find yourself saying sentences like “oh, it always has been like this” and “don’t try to change that” or “that’s the responsibility of another team” even though you know full well they’re barely even aware of what that thing is, let alone maintaining it in a responsible fashion. PS: This is my purpose in a nutshell as a consultant. I turn up and provide my unvarnished opinion, without being even aware of what I’m “not supposed to say” because “it upsets that psychotic manager”. I’ll be gone before I have any personal political consequences, but the report document will remain, pointing the finger at people that would normally try to bite it off.
- disqard 2y ago
  This rings true in my experience across different orgs, teams, in the tech industry. FWIW, academia has off-the-charts levels of "wtf" that newcomers will point out, though it's even more ossified than corporate culture, and they don't hire consultants to come in and fix things :)

Jach 2y ago

There's also immense resistance to figuring out how to code something if an approach isn't at once obvious. Hence "magic". Sometimes a "spike doc" can convince people. My favorite second-hand instance of this was a MS employee insisting that a fast rendering terminal emulator was so hard as to require "an entire doctoral research project in performant terminal emulation".

scottlamb 2y ago

> I wonder if these roles tend to attract people who get the most job enjoyment and satisfaction out of the (manual) investigation aspect; it might explain some of the reluctance to adopting or creating more sophisticated observability tooling. That's weird. I love debugging, and so I'm always trying to learn new ways to do it better. I mean, how can it be any other way? How can someone love something and be that committed to sucking at it?

whstl 2y ago

I saw a case like this recently, and the fact is that the team responsible was completely burned out and was just doing anything to avoid people from giving them more work, but they also didn't trust anyone else to do it. One of the engineers just quit on the spot for a better paid position, the other was demoted and is currently under heavy depression last I heard from him.