5 ms·

If your A+ senior developer spends 8 months working on a feature that ultimately doesn’t get shipped or a MVP that gets killed, then you wasted that A+ senior d

by tedggh 4mo ago

If your A+ senior developer spends 8 months working on a feature that ultimately doesn’t get shipped or a MVP that gets killed, then you wasted that A+ senior developer and their productivity was the same as the other two B+ engineers that also worked on the project. This is actually a very common issue and usually ignored when it comes to things like hiring or assigning resources to a project. AI won’t change that in a meaningful way, your team may just finish their tasks a lot faster but the bureaucratic layer above will likely remain the same, which will make any AI coding gains negligible. Companies would have to be rebuilt from the top down for AI and that’s very unlikely to happen.

sanderjd 4mo ago
I think engineers tend to over index on this kind of thing being "waste". You didn't waste that investment, you paid for the option to ship that feature or MVP and the research into the question of whether it made sense to ship it.
- dijksterhuis 4mo ago
  put simpler, you learned what not to build.
  - sanderjd 4mo ago
    It's definitely that, which is very valuable, but it's also the optionality value additionally. You had the option to launch the thing, which you wouldn't have had if you had never worked on it at all. It's notoriously difficult to properly value optionality, but it definitely has value, and often a lot of value.
    - dijksterhuis 4mo ago
      sorry, but this just sounds like a rationalisation for "we built the wrong thing". we should just be straightforward, say "we built the wrong thing" and then ask how we built the right-er thing.
      - mpyne 4mo ago
        > sorry, but this just sounds like a rationalisation for "we built the wrong thing". If it were so easy to decide what the right thing is to build before you build it then business would be easy. That's the whole reason options have value. Having 3 shippable products ready to go when you can only effectively ship 1 puts the whole team in a much better position than choosing 1, focusing everyone on it, and hoping you hit the lottery with product-market fit. So yes, an engineer may work on something that doesn't ship. That doesn't retroactively make their effort worthless, and that's not even counting the experience gained by the endeavor which may well pay off on the next round of products to ship.
        dijksterhuis 4mo ago
        > If it were so easy to decide what the right thing is to build before you build it then business would be easy. It's not easy. That's why it's important to be straightforward and just move on without all the navel gazing. > ... hoping you hit the lottery with product-market fit. There's this thing called "research" where you talk to real people, instead of guessing. > That doesn't retroactively make their effort worthless No-one said building the wrong thing was worthless. Life is one continuous mistake. --- we are saying mostly the same thing i'm pretty sure, especially in your other comment reply (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48498912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48498912). although i feel you're dressing it up a little too much for my liking. i prefer being a lot more plain and direct about it (and probably a bit arsey). ruthlessness is an asset when it comes to we built the wrong thing. ruthlessness gets us moving on faster.
        sanderjd 4mo ago
        I don't understand why you interpret "we should recognize that it's worth paying for optionality and sometimes we decide not to exercise the option and that's normal and fine" as naval gazing. I think it's the opposite, that feeling butt hurt about the projects you work on not shipping is what is naval gazing. To me all your "I prefer being plain and direct" just sounds like someone who hasn't thought much about why building the wrong thing is not worthless, and why those continuous mistakes in life are worthwhile, and isn't really interested in thinking about things at more than the surface level. It does seem like you aren't really disagreeing with us here. But you're just saying "don't make me think about why we agree about this!"
  - shimman 4mo ago
    Shouldn't companies figure this out before wasting tens of millions in budget + working hours? All I'm reading is that corporations are not taxed enough if they are okay with such opulent waste.
    - NortySpock 4mo ago
      Knowing what to build (and that it hasn't already been built or bought elsewhere in the company) requires bits of information / person-to-person networking / visibility into the state of the company that not all managers or VPs have. In fact, most people don't have that knowledge, because they're busy with existing or "local" problems , or because they didn't know to ask Davis the DBA or Kris the Kafka Cluster Manger or Alex from accounting if we have <resource> our team can plug into and use. "Oh, yeah, El has one under their desk they kick occasionally, ask them to hook you up!" If you solve this problem in a turnkey way Fortune 500 companies will write you very large checks to help them prevent such duplicate waste, and will in turn become the 15th system they need to integrate.... That XKCD joke about "how 14 standards becomes 15 standards" also applies to the class of "one system to integrate with and report from all other systems"
    - jimbokun 4mo ago
      Nobody can perfectly predict the future.
      - shimman 4mo ago
        So it's best to throw billions of dollars down the drain?
        jimbokun 4mo ago
        Best to shelve something and not ship it once you know it won’t work, than to continue to throw even more money down the whole after it.
        mpyne 4mo ago
        No, it's best to manage your software delivery organization to reduce the cost and time of experiments so that you can quickly and cheaply figure out what to build... and then build that. But there will still necessarily be things that you build that don't ship, and that's inherent to the problem domain.
- chrismarlow9 4mo ago
  That's cool but don't get heart broken when engineers leave after repeatedly being told the thing they worked on for months wont ship because someone at the top said so.
  - sanderjd 4mo ago
    Not really? If those are people I'm close with, I try to express this perspective to them in 1:1s that things that don't end up shipping are not a waste for the reasons I expressed here. And most of those people (because they are simpatico with me, which is why we're close) tend to see it the same way I do, and not leave because of this. And if they do leave for this reason, I conclude, well, they just weren't really aligned with me on this particular perspective. And that's a bummer, but not everyone is gonna see things the way I do.
geraneum 4mo ago
> spends 8 months working on a feature Are you sure those 8 months is not being spent on just “coding”? There’s design, product team input and iteration, etc. Where did you see that an A+ engineer goes into a cubicle and come X months after with an MVP in isolation?

by tedggh 4mo ago

sanderjd 4mo ago

I think engineers tend to over index on this kind of thing being "waste". You didn't waste that investment, you paid for the option to ship that feature or MVP and the research into the question of whether it made sense to ship it.

dijksterhuis 4mo ago
put simpler, you learned what not to build.
- sanderjd 4mo ago
  It's definitely that, which is very valuable, but it's also the optionality value additionally. You had the option to launch the thing, which you wouldn't have had if you had never worked on it at all. It's notoriously difficult to properly value optionality, but it definitely has value, and often a lot of value.
  - dijksterhuis 4mo ago
    sorry, but this just sounds like a rationalisation for "we built the wrong thing". we should just be straightforward, say "we built the wrong thing" and then ask how we built the right-er thing.
    - mpyne 4mo ago
      > sorry, but this just sounds like a rationalisation for "we built the wrong thing". If it were so easy to decide what the right thing is to build before you build it then business would be easy. That's the whole reason options have value. Having 3 shippable products ready to go when you can only effectively ship 1 puts the whole team in a much better position than choosing 1, focusing everyone on it, and hoping you hit the lottery with product-market fit. So yes, an engineer may work on something that doesn't ship. That doesn't retroactively make their effort worthless, and that's not even counting the experience gained by the endeavor which may well pay off on the next round of products to ship.
      - dijksterhuis 4mo ago
        > If it were so easy to decide what the right thing is to build before you build it then business would be easy. It's not easy. That's why it's important to be straightforward and just move on without all the navel gazing. > ... hoping you hit the lottery with product-market fit. There's this thing called "research" where you talk to real people, instead of guessing. > That doesn't retroactively make their effort worthless No-one said building the wrong thing was worthless. Life is one continuous mistake. --- we are saying mostly the same thing i'm pretty sure, especially in your other comment reply (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48498912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48498912). although i feel you're dressing it up a little too much for my liking. i prefer being a lot more plain and direct about it (and probably a bit arsey). ruthlessness is an asset when it comes to we built the wrong thing. ruthlessness gets us moving on faster.
        sanderjd 4mo ago
        I don't understand why you interpret "we should recognize that it's worth paying for optionality and sometimes we decide not to exercise the option and that's normal and fine" as naval gazing. I think it's the opposite, that feeling butt hurt about the projects you work on not shipping is what is naval gazing. To me all your "I prefer being plain and direct" just sounds like someone who hasn't thought much about why building the wrong thing is not worthless, and why those continuous mistakes in life are worthwhile, and isn't really interested in thinking about things at more than the surface level. It does seem like you aren't really disagreeing with us here. But you're just saying "don't make me think about why we agree about this!"
- shimman 4mo ago
  Shouldn't companies figure this out before wasting tens of millions in budget + working hours? All I'm reading is that corporations are not taxed enough if they are okay with such opulent waste.
  - NortySpock 4mo ago
    Knowing what to build (and that it hasn't already been built or bought elsewhere in the company) requires bits of information / person-to-person networking / visibility into the state of the company that not all managers or VPs have. In fact, most people don't have that knowledge, because they're busy with existing or "local" problems , or because they didn't know to ask Davis the DBA or Kris the Kafka Cluster Manger or Alex from accounting if we have <resource> our team can plug into and use. "Oh, yeah, El has one under their desk they kick occasionally, ask them to hook you up!" If you solve this problem in a turnkey way Fortune 500 companies will write you very large checks to help them prevent such duplicate waste, and will in turn become the 15th system they need to integrate.... That XKCD joke about "how 14 standards becomes 15 standards" also applies to the class of "one system to integrate with and report from all other systems"
  - jimbokun 4mo ago
    Nobody can perfectly predict the future.
    - shimman 4mo ago
      So it's best to throw billions of dollars down the drain?
      - jimbokun 4mo ago
        Best to shelve something and not ship it once you know it won’t work, than to continue to throw even more money down the whole after it.
      - mpyne 4mo ago
        No, it's best to manage your software delivery organization to reduce the cost and time of experiments so that you can quickly and cheaply figure out what to build... and then build that. But there will still necessarily be things that you build that don't ship, and that's inherent to the problem domain.
chrismarlow9 4mo ago
That's cool but don't get heart broken when engineers leave after repeatedly being told the thing they worked on for months wont ship because someone at the top said so.
- sanderjd 4mo ago
  Not really? If those are people I'm close with, I try to express this perspective to them in 1:1s that things that don't end up shipping are not a waste for the reasons I expressed here. And most of those people (because they are simpatico with me, which is why we're close) tend to see it the same way I do, and not leave because of this. And if they do leave for this reason, I conclude, well, they just weren't really aligned with me on this particular perspective. And that's a bummer, but not everyone is gonna see things the way I do.

geraneum 4mo ago

> spends 8 months working on a feature Are you sure those 8 months is not being spent on just “coding”? There’s design, product team input and iteration, etc. Where did you see that an A+ engineer goes into a cubicle and come X months after with an MVP in isolation?