3 ms·

> A good senior engineer is for the most part able to not write bad code from day one This seems unlikely. Self contained, I'd go further and say you're not a

by godelski 11mo ago

> A good senior engineer is for the most part able to not write bad code from day one This seems unlikely. Self contained, I'd go further and say you're not a senior if your code isn't good you shouldn't be a senior. But what is good code is in context of the codebase. It takes time to get the context of a reasonably sized codebase and no one is doing that in a single day or single week, even the wizards. I don't agree with everything the OP writes but I think they're correct in that many companies don't value institutional knowledge. To me that is lunacy. I'm not sure how any programmer could think a reasonably complex codebase could be learned quickly. The larger and more complex your codebase the more valuable institutional knowledge is. Adding new actors just accelerates complexity and redundancy. Pushing people to be quick only worsens this. The best thing to do with new employees is get them deep into the code. Have them write/update docs, do cleanup, or other tasks that force them to understand the code and how everything interacts

Ygg2 11mo ago
> I'd go further and say you're not a senior if your code isn't good you shouldn't be a senior. You say that until you are tasked with doing impossible - three lines, all perpendicular, five green, two anti-green, seven in ten or more dimensions, any color; while customer only uses purple lines. Last guy that worked on it committed seppuku. Rest of team is in mental ward. Your only team member is guy that programmed his entire life in PHP, and doesn't know backend's language. Just teach him. Documentation, is spread between Jira, wiki, Markdown, ftp server and some napkins. CI stands for continuous Indians. You send code to India, where a team will assemble it. It may take anywhere between a few minutes or few hours. But it beats GitHub actions. Make sure to inspect artifacts, the Indian team has a habit to add some of their ""bug fixes"" covertly. But you gotta finish it by Thursday. Good luck.
- Aeolun 11mo ago
  There is a magic word that adults sometimes use. It is a word you have to learn to master if you want to be any good at your job. No.
  - Ygg2 11mo ago
    Saying no is a privilege. It's easy to say if you have other options. It's extremely hard to say if others depend on you saying yes.
- godelski 11mo ago
  Words aren't absolute. No reasonable interpretation of my comment suggests I'm saying you should do the impossible. If someone asks you to do the impossible you have to say no. Better yet, you should figure out what they actually do want. They can't get the impossible, that's not on the table. The worst thing an engineer can do is not learn how to say no. I'll even say, if you don't know how to say no then you're not qualified to be a senior
  - Ygg2 11mo ago
    Your assumption that seniors will be able to output good code in any situation is what is the issue. As a senior I've been tasked with impossible tasks, with insane deadlines, in ""enterprise"" code bases. Sure, saying NO is an option, but being the NO guy is surefire way to getting fired. And nothing looks better on resume than repeated firings.
    - godelski 11mo ago
      Again, you need to reasonably interpret what I'm saying. Picking out an edge case and acting as if it is some mic drop is disingenuous. We can't communicate if you hyper fixate on one tree when our discussion is about the forest. Language isn't precise enough to do that without getting extremely verbose. So either I can write a novel in response (I'm not going to) to explain what I said above or you can work with me here. If you're really not getting it I'm sure an LLM could help you out if you also fed it the responses. > As a senior I've been tasked with impossible tasks Sure. Even juniors get this. But an impossible task is an impossible task. > Sure, saying NO is an option Saying no is always an option. When given an impossible task it's the only option. There's many ways to say no. Not delivering is one of them > being the NO guy is surefire way to getting fired. You do not get fired for saying no, you get fired for how you say no. You get fired because the project fails. You get fired because you push back against an egotistical manager who doesn't understand the problem and none of the other engineers back you up. It's all about how you say no. You don't have to use the word to do so. Instead lead them down the right path and make them understand. You don't lecture them. Managers are like cats, you have to make them think it's their idea. So you have to ask clarifying questions and when doing so you can introduce explanations that let them know that it's not possible. The goal is to put all the puzzle pieces on the table, put the right ones next to each other and let them put the final pieces together. If they don't then they don't feel like they did anything. You are not a mindless automata directed by your manager. That's not the role of a senior. Your job is to get things done. A senior knows that "the customer" (in this case your manner) doesn't know what they want and doesn't know how to say what they do. The job is to figure that out as best as possible

Ygg2 11mo ago

> I'd go further and say you're not a senior if your code isn't good you shouldn't be a senior. You say that until you are tasked with doing impossible - three lines, all perpendicular, five green, two anti-green, seven in ten or more dimensions, any color; while customer only uses purple lines. Last guy that worked on it committed seppuku. Rest of team is in mental ward. Your only team member is guy that programmed his entire life in PHP, and doesn't know backend's language. Just teach him. Documentation, is spread between Jira, wiki, Markdown, ftp server and some napkins. CI stands for continuous Indians. You send code to India, where a team will assemble it. It may take anywhere between a few minutes or few hours. But it beats GitHub actions. Make sure to inspect artifacts, the Indian team has a habit to add some of their ""bug fixes"" covertly. But you gotta finish it by Thursday. Good luck.

Aeolun 11mo ago
There is a magic word that adults sometimes use. It is a word you have to learn to master if you want to be any good at your job. No.
- Ygg2 11mo ago
  Saying no is a privilege. It's easy to say if you have other options. It's extremely hard to say if others depend on you saying yes.
godelski 11mo ago
Words aren't absolute. No reasonable interpretation of my comment suggests I'm saying you should do the impossible. If someone asks you to do the impossible you have to say no. Better yet, you should figure out what they actually do want. They can't get the impossible, that's not on the table. The worst thing an engineer can do is not learn how to say no. I'll even say, if you don't know how to say no then you're not qualified to be a senior
- Ygg2 11mo ago
  Your assumption that seniors will be able to output good code in any situation is what is the issue. As a senior I've been tasked with impossible tasks, with insane deadlines, in ""enterprise"" code bases. Sure, saying NO is an option, but being the NO guy is surefire way to getting fired. And nothing looks better on resume than repeated firings.
  - godelski 11mo ago
    Again, you need to reasonably interpret what I'm saying. Picking out an edge case and acting as if it is some mic drop is disingenuous. We can't communicate if you hyper fixate on one tree when our discussion is about the forest. Language isn't precise enough to do that without getting extremely verbose. So either I can write a novel in response (I'm not going to) to explain what I said above or you can work with me here. If you're really not getting it I'm sure an LLM could help you out if you also fed it the responses. > As a senior I've been tasked with impossible tasks Sure. Even juniors get this. But an impossible task is an impossible task. > Sure, saying NO is an option Saying no is always an option. When given an impossible task it's the only option. There's many ways to say no. Not delivering is one of them > being the NO guy is surefire way to getting fired. You do not get fired for saying no, you get fired for how you say no. You get fired because the project fails. You get fired because you push back against an egotistical manager who doesn't understand the problem and none of the other engineers back you up. It's all about how you say no. You don't have to use the word to do so. Instead lead them down the right path and make them understand. You don't lecture them. Managers are like cats, you have to make them think it's their idea. So you have to ask clarifying questions and when doing so you can introduce explanations that let them know that it's not possible. The goal is to put all the puzzle pieces on the table, put the right ones next to each other and let them put the final pieces together. If they don't then they don't feel like they did anything. You are not a mindless automata directed by your manager. That's not the role of a senior. Your job is to get things done. A senior knows that "the customer" (in this case your manner) doesn't know what they want and doesn't know how to say what they do. The job is to figure that out as best as possible