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A couple of things irk me about this article, but that could simply be due to the incredible vagueness. >"He paused another moment and then said, “I know that’

A couple of things irk me about this article, but that could simply be due to the incredible vagueness. >"He paused another moment and then said, “I know that’s not your plan because it can’t be done. What is your real plan?” He told us he wanted to see a new version the very next day. The request didn’t seem to make much sense. In fact, to this day I’m not sure what the product will be used for—but we dropped everything else we were working on and scrambled to get the demo done in time." So the author worked (presumably quite hard) on something, received dismissive feedback that didn't make any sense, didn't question any of it, scrambled to re-implement on an uninformed guess for the next day then (surprise) got slapped around again. That honestly sounds more like a loyalty/submissiveness test of some sort than anything else. Ideally, that meeting was a great opportunity to challenge the man and earn some respect from him or possibly lose some for him depending on how it plays out. >"He wasn’t thinking about the feature; he was thinking about the customer experience." What is wrong in the culture / education of engineering that people have to be taught this after they start working?

protomyth 13y ago
"What is wrong in the culture / education of engineering that people have to be taught this after they start working?" I wonder how many universities make their engineers or developers actually build something for an outside or even internal customer. Strangely, vocational folks deal with customers quite a bit in learning and learn to think in those terms. Nothing like having to redo the doors on a cabinet or rerun some plumping to make you think first.
- vlahmot 13y ago
  I took an experimental class last semester where we teamed up with a design student to build a website for a local non-profit/small company. The technical aspects of the class were less than satisfying but taking a product through the entire life cycle (even though it was a small project) was a great learning experience. I'm pretty sure they made it a full on elective class next semester.
- grecy 13y ago
  > I wonder how many universities make their engineers or developers actually build something for an outside or even internal customer. For my final year full-year Software Engineering project with 16 team members we built and delivered a software product for an external customer - a big name Software company you've heard of. It was an awesome project, working so closely and directly with the external end customer.
  - seunosewa 13y ago
    Which university was that?
    - grecy 13y ago
      Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne Australia. As a bonus, the Bach. of Software Engineering is accredited by the Australian Institute of Engineers.
- jasondemeuse 13y ago
  > I wonder how many universities make their engineers or developers actually build something for an outside or even internal customer. Don't most? At my alma mater, students in either Telecommunications or Comp Sci majors were required to do a capstone project their final semester for an outside client/customer. They made a big deal about the demo day for it and it was always a cool event. Considering my school was a large public school that isn't known specifically for its computer science/IT, it seems strange that more schools don't do this. It seems like most CS friends from other schools had the same experience as well. It's really too bad if some people don't get a chance to do this. There are countless things during that project that were good learning experiences, but they would have been awful if it had happened when I actually had a real job. I can definitely say that project determined a lot of my future plans.
  - protomyth 13y ago
    "Don't most?" It doesn't seem like it, and I would bet it has something to do with local population size and budget.
  - thomasvarney723 13y ago
    What are your plans that were determined by that project and how do they differ from your prior plans?
- maxerickson 13y ago
  My school was notorious for being heavy on theory and most of the engineering curriculums included 'product projects', more than a decade ago. (No idea what they do now, but I would guess they would have shifted further in that direction)
- robotresearcher 13y ago
  "I wonder how many universities make their engineers or developers actually build something for an outside or even internal customer." Why would a university do any such thing? University is the place and time to learn things that no business has the time or skills to teach you. Serving customers is exactly what you should learn at work.
port98 13y ago
> What is wrong in the culture / education of engineering that people have to be taught this after they start working? Whatever "customer experience" means is specific to an industry/company, not a universally agreed upon term. For Amazon, which is largely B2C, UX is critical. For other industries, delivery time may be more important. There are such things as tradeoffs, and in some cases, it makes sense to prioritize things other than an awesome UX.
- incision 13y ago
  Expecting to define or predict customer experience as some sort of regression model seems to miss the point nearly as completely as possible. As I see it, it's as simple as taking the time to think as the customer.
SilasX 13y ago
Not much I can add, except, "Where was this Jeff Bezos when a customer wanted to quickly flip around in an e-book on the Kindle?"
eevilspock 13y ago
> What is wrong in the culture / education of engineering ...or, does the typical engineer's needs and tastes differ so much from the typical customer's that most engineers simple cannot not see the latter? For example, many of my friends in tech could not and still cannot see why so many consumers prefer iOS to Android given how much more customizable or "tinker-able" the latter is. The ones that get it the best are the ones that play tech support to many non-techie family members. Engineers brains just work and see the world differently than most people.
- incision 13y ago
  >"The ones that get it the best are the ones that play tech support to many non-techie family members." Right. As I've related on HN before, I believe a pivotal point very early on in my career was seeing technology through the lens of my aging mother. It completely opened up my perspective about tech in service of people. I take your observation and my experience as evidence that this empathy and understanding can certainly be learned - it's a question of how to teach students and convince them that it matters. >"Engineers brains just work and see the world differently than most people." Sure, I get what you're saying, but I wonder how much of the negative side of that is self-fulfilling in teaching and ultimately being an engineer. I'd like to think we can be excellent hammers without treating everything as a nail.

protomyth 13y ago

"What is wrong in the culture / education of engineering that people have to be taught this after they start working?" I wonder how many universities make their engineers or developers actually build something for an outside or even internal customer. Strangely, vocational folks deal with customers quite a bit in learning and learn to think in those terms. Nothing like having to redo the doors on a cabinet or rerun some plumping to make you think first.

vlahmot 13y ago
I took an experimental class last semester where we teamed up with a design student to build a website for a local non-profit/small company. The technical aspects of the class were less than satisfying but taking a product through the entire life cycle (even though it was a small project) was a great learning experience. I'm pretty sure they made it a full on elective class next semester.
grecy 13y ago
> I wonder how many universities make their engineers or developers actually build something for an outside or even internal customer. For my final year full-year Software Engineering project with 16 team members we built and delivered a software product for an external customer - a big name Software company you've heard of. It was an awesome project, working so closely and directly with the external end customer.
- seunosewa 13y ago
  Which university was that?
  - grecy 13y ago
    Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne Australia. As a bonus, the Bach. of Software Engineering is accredited by the Australian Institute of Engineers.
jasondemeuse 13y ago
> I wonder how many universities make their engineers or developers actually build something for an outside or even internal customer. Don't most? At my alma mater, students in either Telecommunications or Comp Sci majors were required to do a capstone project their final semester for an outside client/customer. They made a big deal about the demo day for it and it was always a cool event. Considering my school was a large public school that isn't known specifically for its computer science/IT, it seems strange that more schools don't do this. It seems like most CS friends from other schools had the same experience as well. It's really too bad if some people don't get a chance to do this. There are countless things during that project that were good learning experiences, but they would have been awful if it had happened when I actually had a real job. I can definitely say that project determined a lot of my future plans.
- protomyth 13y ago
  "Don't most?" It doesn't seem like it, and I would bet it has something to do with local population size and budget.
- thomasvarney723 13y ago
  What are your plans that were determined by that project and how do they differ from your prior plans?
maxerickson 13y ago
My school was notorious for being heavy on theory and most of the engineering curriculums included 'product projects', more than a decade ago. (No idea what they do now, but I would guess they would have shifted further in that direction)
robotresearcher 13y ago
"I wonder how many universities make their engineers or developers actually build something for an outside or even internal customer." Why would a university do any such thing? University is the place and time to learn things that no business has the time or skills to teach you. Serving customers is exactly what you should learn at work.

port98 13y ago

> What is wrong in the culture / education of engineering that people have to be taught this after they start working? Whatever "customer experience" means is specific to an industry/company, not a universally agreed upon term. For Amazon, which is largely B2C, UX is critical. For other industries, delivery time may be more important. There are such things as tradeoffs, and in some cases, it makes sense to prioritize things other than an awesome UX.

incision 13y ago
Expecting to define or predict customer experience as some sort of regression model seems to miss the point nearly as completely as possible. As I see it, it's as simple as taking the time to think as the customer.

SilasX 13y ago

Not much I can add, except, "Where was this Jeff Bezos when a customer wanted to quickly flip around in an e-book on the Kindle?"

eevilspock 13y ago

> What is wrong in the culture / education of engineering ...or, does the typical engineer's needs and tastes differ so much from the typical customer's that most engineers simple cannot not see the latter? For example, many of my friends in tech could not and still cannot see why so many consumers prefer iOS to Android given how much more customizable or "tinker-able" the latter is. The ones that get it the best are the ones that play tech support to many non-techie family members. Engineers brains just work and see the world differently than most people.

incision 13y ago
>"The ones that get it the best are the ones that play tech support to many non-techie family members." Right. As I've related on HN before, I believe a pivotal point very early on in my career was seeing technology through the lens of my aging mother. It completely opened up my perspective about tech in service of people. I take your observation and my experience as evidence that this empathy and understanding can certainly be learned - it's a question of how to teach students and convince them that it matters. >"Engineers brains just work and see the world differently than most people." Sure, I get what you're saying, but I wonder how much of the negative side of that is self-fulfilling in teaching and ultimately being an engineer. I'd like to think we can be excellent hammers without treating everything as a nail.