[HN Gopher] Programmer's Resignation from 1985
___________________________________________________________________
Programmer's Resignation from 1985
Author : systems_glitch
Score : 260 points
Date : 2021-06-12 23:12 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pastes.glitchwrks.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (pastes.glitchwrks.com)
| DonHopkins wrote:
| >I will being working as a systems programmer for Lear Siegler
| Inc. Avionic Systems Corps.
|
| Did you get an ADM-3A?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-3A
|
| >The initials "ADM" were referred to as meaning "American Dream
| Machine" in some advertising.
| systems_glitch wrote:
| Heh, not with the system, it came with a rebadged Televideo
| TVI950. I do have an ADM-3A and ADM-5 though, largely for the
| UNIX/vi heritage.
| fnord77 wrote:
| I used one of these in college!
|
| I bet they all got thrown away :(
| systems_glitch wrote:
| If you went to UVA, I ended up with a bunch of them :P
| fm2606 wrote:
| >The use of the HJKL keys for moving the cursor in the vi
| editor and its descendants originated from the ADM-3A
|
| And now we know!
| systems_glitch wrote:
| And why ~ is home in *NIX, they're on the same keycap.
| darepublic wrote:
| The current project is always a dumpster fire but don't worry,
| rewrite in shiny new framework is just around the corner. What,
| analyze the issues with our current code? Don't waste our time
| bsd44 wrote:
| "I have not written any code in a little over 3 months. I have
| not learned anything new in the software field in the past year.
| I have been putting out the same old fires that were here two
| years ago."
|
| WOW that's just like 2021! Well the tech changed, but human
| behaviour stayed the same.
| kqr wrote:
| It's been that way at least since the mid-sixties. I recommend
| going back to the early written material. By learning which
| parts of what was hard then are still hard now, we get a sense
| of where to focus our efforts.
|
| (As far as I've been able to tell, only three real problems
| have been solved since 1968: we have faster computers, higher
| level languages, and version control.
|
| All the other software engineering problems are just as hard
| now as they were then: We're still struggling with skill drain
| to management, thinking knowledge workers are fungible, team
| organisation, verifying features with users before building
| them, choosing proper abstractions, testing for reliability and
| understanding, resource management, documentation, modeling the
| domain clearly, prototyping the right way, and so on.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Hardware acquisition has gone from something that took
| multiple year planning cycles to push button.
|
| I largely agree that we are still solving many of the old
| problems but by enumerating only three things that have
| improved you do us a bit of a disservice.
| kqr wrote:
| That's an important one I hadn't thought of! One reason is
| personal bias: I work in a place that still orders physical
| hardware for the most part.
|
| Another reason is that the early software engineering
| papers and articles I've read haven't brought up hardware
| acquisition as a problem. Maybe they just didn't know it
| was a problem, or software is flexible enough to make it
| okay with slower hardware cycles?
| ptx wrote:
| Someone here on HN recently mentioned Tymshare[1], which
| was essentially the 1964 equivalent of AWS. Apparently
| CompuServe also started as a similar cloud service company
| in 1969.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare
| ptx wrote:
| > we have faster computers, higher level languages
|
| There was already LISP, COBOL and (a few years later) Algol
| 68, so maybe the only real improvement is the faster
| computers, making the high-level languages more widely
| applicable?
| mhh__ wrote:
| Read some ancient Greek history texts that have been translated
| into English. The world is much faster now but absolutely
| nothing has changed with us.
|
| Favourite example (Thucydides, could be wrong) - "An old man
| complained to a crowd that the teenagers were spending too much
| time lazing around talking to the opposite sex than training to
| fight" (or something to that effect), ever heard that one
| before?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Or Aristotle.
|
| "[Young people] think they know everything, and are always
| quite sure about it."
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| My knock on my previous to jobs was leadership / management (lack
| of) delivering on what was discussed in the interview (nature of
| the work, team, culture, future, etc.) vs no updates (read:
| communication) as things evolve in different direction(s).
|
| Yes, difficult conversations. I understand things can and do
| change. But assuming I'm onboard with whatever (without even
| asking me) was for me an invitation to look elsewhere.
|
| It's as if they didn't understand the market favors the
| engineers. And that with rare exception there's more sea for
| well-qualified fish.
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| I recently googled a few phrases about being disenchanted with
| programming and big companies.
|
| I found some great forum posts from 2003 which really seemed to
| capture and articulate my views.
|
| Check the posters name and it was.... 2003 me! Exactly the same
| issues about not getting anything done and architecture
| astronauts 18 years later!
|
| Big company IT. The more it changes the more it stays the same.
| postit wrote:
| Every 10 years my career repeats itself. I'm solving the same
| problems I was solving back in 2011
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| It goes back longer than that. What's confusing is leadership
| and management continues to believe they hold all the cards. As
| if there's no demand for the skills their people possess. They
| often say "We can't find good people" when they should be
| asking "Why are best people always leaving?" That lack of self-
| awareness is what drives the turnover rate.
| obedm wrote:
| i love the typical "we are willing to pay this good candidate
| 30%" more than our current engineers. Even tho he knows
| nothing".
|
| And then go on to not raise the experiences engineers
| salaries so that the new guy has the highest salary.
|
| And then they're surprised when the veterans just leave the
| company.
| darepublic wrote:
| I was that new guy early in my career. I was shocked to
| discover the senior who taught me git as making around 30
| percent less than me.
| traeregan wrote:
| What was an Application Engineer who has "not written any code
| for 3 months" doing for that amount of time then? Surfing Usenet?
| It seems like putting out fires would've involved at least some
| code.
| woutr_be wrote:
| Doesn't seem all that unlikely, I've personally gone weeks
| without writing code, usually leading up to a release where a
| lot of documentation and preparation has to be done.
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| What were they doing? Management.
|
| Maybe not officially, quote possibly as an ad hoc manager due
| to deficiencies in the offical management.
|
| I've been in that position before. If you have a good
| relationship with your coworkers, it's more efficient to
| diagnose problems yourself and then ask your coworkers to fix
| them (i.e. play the PM role). I don't enjoy being a manager,
| I'd rather write code. However, I'd rather put fires out
| quickly by working as a team instead of playing the martyr and
| trying to do it all myself, or singing the "it's not my job,
| I'm not a PM" song while the ship is sinking.
| ismayilzadan wrote:
| Never-ending infrastructure migrations can be a contributer
| too. "Lets migrate to these new unix hosts, our spaghetti code
| will run 5 times faster after that"
| mandelbrotwurst wrote:
| In addition to all of the things other commenters have
| mentioned, it may also have just been an exaggeration, and
| they're not counting things like fixing logical and
| configuration errors as writing code.
| ahelwer wrote:
| Yeah. Hacking together a deployment or CI script is basically
| an exercise in figuring out which API calls take what
| parameters, and I would not count it as programming for the
| purpose of retrospectively feeling like I wrote code.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| The more senior you are, the less code you write. Also, the
| bigger the organization, the less code you write.
| nly wrote:
| ... and the longer you stay in such a situation, the less
| sharp your programming skills become, and the less in touch
| you are with the way the industry is moving.
|
| It's not uncommon at all to interview people who have 10+
| years experience at <Big Co> who can't even answer basic
| questions about industry-wide technology you're using,
| because they didn't bother to stay in touch...they didn't
| need if for their last role and thought that that would last
| forever.
|
| On the flip side, I see people get excited about <internal
| NIH syndrome technology> and learn all the ins and outs, and
| don't bother to research and find out that other companies or
| FOSS has been doing the same thing but better for a decade.
| And then, when they leave the company, that internal tech
| becomes inaccessible and the knowledge somewhat useless.
| systems_glitch wrote:
| Probably getting stuck managing other engineers or teams of
| them.
| icedchai wrote:
| Meetings? Documentation? Support calls? These all can take tons
| of time.
| cratermoon wrote:
| You might be surprised how fast time can pass when you're in a
| holding pattern while management dithers over the quarterly
| priorities.
| biglost wrote:
| As a rule, you never, ever tell about your new job nor position,
| your boss could call your new future boss and you could lose the
| job.
| crummy wrote:
| Is this common? I've always told folks at my previous job where
| I was going, and have asked people where they are headed to
| when they leave.
| stadium wrote:
| I've done it both ways.
|
| Early in my career, I followed some coworkers to a new
| company. I was a couple months behind the others. The
| perception at the old company was that everyone was poached
| by one of these coworkers. They got a cease and desist letter
| from the old company lawyers. I told people then but wished I
| hadn't. Everything turned out fine for me in the end though.
|
| The next job change I had, I didn't tell anyone where I was
| going. I was a little scared from the last experience. Many
| people asked, and I politely told them I would share after
| I'm settled in. It was a cross country move and I didn't feel
| that there was any benefit to sharing where I was going ahead
| of time. The work environment I left was a little
| dysfunctional at times, and I didn't want to take any chances
| of someone sabotaging me or creating extra noise or rumors.
|
| Then in my last job change, I had built good working
| relationships and felt comfortable sharing, so I shared
| freely.
| systems_glitch wrote:
| Worked for a company doing tens or hundreds of millions in
| sales a year (automated metrology machinery). VP did stuff
| like this. It was illegal in the jurisdiction in which they
| operated, but it happened anyway.
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| don't know about 'phoning the company', but someone from the
| previous place might consult their linked-in profile and
| contact some acquaintance from the new place informally, with
| the aim to bad mouth their former peer. I stopped updating my
| linked-in profile, because this is quite possible, if you
| have worked in a toxic work environment (in terms of
| security: all what is in the realm of the possible, is also
| likely to happen in reality)
| bbarn wrote:
| As a hiring manager, if someone did this, I would just feel
| bad for the person who was on their way to me, that they
| had to work with people like that.
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| That's a very reasonable position, on the other side: as
| a hiring manager you probably wouldn't work with the new
| hire on a day-to-day basis, and you wouldn't be involved
| with his performance review.
| matwood wrote:
| Except this is blatant sour grapes. If people at the new
| company really believe the bad mouthing, then you already
| have issues with your new job.
| twirlock wrote:
| No, companies don't do this because it gives you good legal
| standing to sue the shit out of them ianal
| twirlock wrote:
| Yeah probably some random anecdote about anon's important
| vp friend trumps the stated policy of every corporation in
| existence.
| INTPenis wrote:
| That's actually the opposite to what people do here in Sweden.
| Because once that letter goes out to everyone the new contract
| is already signed and the current employment is already
| terminated.
|
| We usually have 1-3 months resignation period, so there is no
| resignation letter. The closest we have is a goodbye letter
| that goes out to all your co-workers. And this letter reminds
| me most of those.
|
| The actual resignation is done in person with your manager. Of
| course you could do it over e-mail but I'd be willing to bet
| 99.99 out of 100 times your manager would schedule a 1-on-1
| meeting with you if they received such a resignation.
| gryn wrote:
| I think that's common through all of Europe, but a petty
| manager that's out for blood can call you next manager and
| 'tell' him how bad of hire you are and that getting rid of
| you if for the best.
|
| if the new manager believes him you can be let go in your
| probation period, and end up with no job.
|
| I heard of this done once or twice through friends.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Bullshit. If some guy calls me claiming that my new hire is
| bad, that automatically rings all kinds of alarm bells.
| Only someone that is some kind of psycho would try such
| petty revenge.
| obedm wrote:
| Hah same thought here! I'd assume the person calling is
| bat crazy.
|
| I'd still be on my toes with the new hire just to be
| sure, but I wouldn't fire them.
|
| Everyone has a story. And the people seeking revenge
| aren't necessarily in the right.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Surely you'd put something in writing when you wish to
| resign?
|
| In Britain, I'd print out and sign something like this:
| Dear [Manager] I wish to offer my resignation with
| effect from 14 June 2021. I am obliged to give 3
| months notice. Therefore, my last day of service will be 14
| September 2021. Yours sincerely
|
| Anything else is optional, and can be discussed with the
| manager if you want to, or not.
| spfzero wrote:
| Though Ive seen many people do this, and for the ones I kept in
| touch with, there were no repercussions. Caveat that this is in
| a dense area of high tech jobs so it would be difficult for a
| manager to have enough contacts to effect damage. Plus, those
| managers were pretty busy.
| beforeolives wrote:
| Never ever? I wouldn't mention it in the resignation letter
| like in the OP but it's been very natural for managers and
| colleagues to ask where I'm going next and I've been happy to
| share. I also ask colleagues who are leaving where they're
| going next and I never saw it as a problem. Then again, I've
| worked with mostly reasonable people.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| Not at all, because then you can sue the shit out of them and
| very likely win.
| m463 wrote:
| You're probably right, but I suspect this letter was probably
| printed and wasn't emailed to the group, which is more common
| nowadays.
|
| I actually got hung up on the typo more than naming the new
| company.
|
| I do think this letter had an unusual and somewhat refreshing
| honesty.
| ddingus wrote:
| My take too.
|
| No blame or shame in there, just an expression of desire to
| do software. Fair enough.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| Speaking as a such a boss, the idea of doing 'bad things' to
| somebody in the name of team retention seems rather
| counterproductive!
|
| If somebody's made up their mind to leave, the best you can do
| is ensure it's as amicable as possible, then a thorough exit
| interview to understand where you went wrong and try to fix
| those issues to course correct & retain others.
| HelloNurse wrote:
| That is the best mature, professional people can do.
|
| Spiteful incompetents, on the other hand, don't think that
| there are issues they should fix (the _employee_ isn 't a
| good fit); are afraid of exit interviews; and can be
| unprofessional enough to burn bridges and damage the company
| in order to damage the quitting employee.
| pm90 wrote:
| Well, they're gonna find out eventually. But I guess it might
| be easier to withdraw an offer than fire someone who's started.
| frederikvs wrote:
| It all depends on the situation and context.
|
| When I left my previous employer, I told them exactly where I
| was going. The mentality at the previous employer had been
| changing (post-takeover), and the new company was founded by,
| and mostly consisted of people who came from the old employer
| and disliked the new direction. Everybody at the new employer
| knew what the old employer was like. If the old boss would have
| made such a call as you describe, the new boss would have seen
| right through that.
|
| In the case of the resignation in the link, I suspect the
| programmer left on amicable terms, which is also a situation
| where you could tell the old employer where you're going.
|
| As a rule, you never say "never ever" :-)
| monster_group wrote:
| Unless your boss is a total jerk, they wouldn't do that. Also,
| you are not as important as you think you are. Everybody is
| replaceable and people leave all the time. Your boss is
| unlikely to take the trouble to call some random person just to
| badmouth you. He's got better things to do. Having said all
| that, I still think you shouldn't tell where you are going. The
| reason - it serves no purpose to your old employer and they
| don't need to know. Your employer never gives you any
| information during your employment that you don't need to do
| your job and you are not obligated to give them any either
| (especially when you are leaving).
| sigstoat wrote:
| > your boss could call your new future boss and you could lose
| the job
|
| and say what?
|
| "hey yeah that guy who worked for us until leaving of his own
| accord is total garbage, you don't want to hire him"?
|
| they'd sound like an idiot doing that.
| ferreus wrote:
| I once tried moving from parent company to child company. And
| such a phone call made the move impossible.
|
| Also, I've heard similar stories from people trying to move
| within the company to new department. Your old manager might
| be higher in the hierarchy and just might be an asshole.
| fian wrote:
| In the past senior people at major companies that were
| competitors entered into agreements not to poach staff from
| each other.
|
| I have seen this happen to a colleague who tried to leave for
| a competitor. His manager at his current job found out,
| contacted their counterpart at the competitor and got the job
| offer rescinded. Needless to say, my colleague was extremely
| pissed off and ended up exiting to a non-competitor as soon
| as possible.
|
| Also I used to work at a consultancy. The unwritten rule was
| that clients would not try to hire any of the consultants
| directly, especially if they had been seconded in to the
| client for an extended period. If a consultant applied for an
| advertised position, it wouldn't be blocked but would be
| frowned on and cause tension for the client with the
| consultancy (usually an increase in rates).
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Also I used to work at a consultancy. The
| unwritten rule was that clients would not try to
| hire any of the consultants directly
|
| Here (East Coast, US) this is almost always a _written_
| rule in the consultancy contract, because otherwise it is a
| very common case.
|
| Usually I think it's like, "if you hire one of our
| consultants you owe us $xx,xxx" or something.
|
| While I am just about always pro-worker, I accept this as a
| necessity.
|
| Otherwise consultants get "poached" non-stop, because
| they've basically already "auditioned" for the client and
| the client gets an extended amount of time to figure out
| which ones would be great to poach. Makes it just about
| impossible to run a consultancy otherwise.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| Your first example is illegal in most places. The second is
| perfectly normal practice - it's in most contracts and
| stands to reason - if you're introduced to a client by your
| employer and you jump ship to work for them, it represents
| a breach of trust.
| greenyoda wrote:
| > Your first example is illegal in most places.
|
| But that didn't stop it from happening in some of the
| largest companies in Silicon Valley:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
| Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
| bitL wrote:
| No, it's more like:
|
| "Hey Mike, I understand you are hiring Joe, though because of
| our good relationship, I'd like to tell you why exactly is
| Joe leaving. Well, we didn't want to cause an uproar in the
| company, but Joe caused this one issue that cost us $100M and
| his behavior was exceedingly erratic." Now mix in some
| typical subconscious behavior of Joe that anyone could notice
| in 10 minutes and build some story on top of it so that the
| new manager has it always in front of his eyes. That's how
| intelligent character assassination works these days. Many
| managers got to the position of power by using these "dark
| techniques" so they know how to do it properly without
| raising a suspicion.
|
| Don't tell anyone where are you going. Don't put it on your
| LinkedIn until you are established there.
| cfn wrote:
| What I heard is that companies are not even giving detailed
| references for fear of being sued. They just send some
| boilerplate. I have always said where I would be going next and
| nothing bad came out of it.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| This was actual policy at the company I worked for. Name,
| rank and serial number only (dates of employment and
| position).
|
| It was frustrating. I often wanted to say good things. After
| leaving that company, one of the first things I did, was give
| a bunch of good LinkedIn testimonials.
|
| I generally avoided badmouthing people. For one thing, there
| were only a couple of folks that left my team under actual
| unpleasant circumstances, and I feel that everyone deserves a
| second chance. Often, the most valuable employee, is one that
| has learned hard lessons.
|
| I have also found, personally, that seeing the worst of my
| fellow [wo]man puts me into a rather miserable personal
| space, so I try to avoid that.
|
| Also, when contacted, it was usually long after I had last
| dealt with them, so I felt that what I had to say would be
| well out of date. If I didn't have anything good to say, I'd
| be very vague. That could speak for itself, but that's the
| worst I would do.
| matwood wrote:
| > Name, rank and serial number only (dates of employment
| and position).
|
| This is very common. Many companies will also add if
| eligible for rehire. The last one is a safe way to convey
| if the employee was fired for something illegal.
| systems_glitch wrote:
| I recovered this document from an 8" floppy diskette on a S-100
| system running CP/M. Interesting that, the more things change in
| programming, the more they stay the same!
| Jach wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, old stuff in the field is still quite
| relevant. One of my favorite reads in the last few years was
| _The Psychology of Computer Programming_ , 1971. Very
| interesting to read about some problem or difficulty they faced
| then, and that we still face now, or that we have somewhat
| alleviated with certain technologies.
| jgrahamc wrote:
| How did you do the recovery?
| systems_glitch wrote:
| First I repaired the S-100 system, then used a PC with 8"
| drive and ImageDisk to archive all of the diskettes before
| exploring their contents. To get individual files (rather
| than disk images) off of the system, I wrote a KERMIT-80
| customization which allowed me to do batch file transfers
| from the S-100 machine to my Linux workstation.
| h2odragon wrote:
| May I suggest adding a note to the page with (at least) that
| context?
| systems_glitch wrote:
| It'll get its own writeup with the rest of the details about
| the system. Just found it today and thought I'd quickly
| share.
| lmas wrote:
| Please share your writeup once you're done!
| literallyaduck wrote:
| The grass was probably not greener and eventually reached an
| equilibrium at the new company. This letter reminds me of my
| recent departure. I wasn't really coding much anymore, the
| company had been ignoring suggestions since I started years ago.
| We fought the same fires and nothing was learned on company time.
| I had to devote my own time to growth. Sadly we don't know the
| rest of the programmer's story. I'd like to know if they finally
| found the dream job.
| systems_glitch wrote:
| There will be a full writeup on this system later on, but the
| diskette that contained this letter of resignation was part of
| what remained of the author's 8" diskette library, and
| contained a lot of 8080/Z80 code he'd written. He's deceased
| now, the fellow who passed the system on to me never knew him
| either, but digging through that much of someone's code and
| notes (a banker's box of documentation), I at least sort of
| feel like I end up in the programmer's shoes a bit.
|
| Unfortunately, it seems this machine had a fault in its floppy
| drive controller some time in late 1985 or early 1986 (files
| stopped being updated). The fault caused any writes at all to
| disk to clobber whatever was under the write heads. So, this is
| about the end of the information I've got w.r.t. personal
| correspondence, etc.
| paxcoder wrote:
| When I was fired from my 3rd programming job, God gave me
| confidence in Him that it would work out for my good (Romans
| 8:28). To be honest, I was kind of glad too as my job was
| getting tiresome even though I was working for only a couple of
| months at it and did multiple different things since I starded.
| It wasn't hard to thank God before the my superiors when after
| they told me the news (Job 1:21). But I prayed to God he'd give
| me a better, stress-free job that would suit me. And He
| definitely lead me to greener pastures, first of all to Him,
| and then to a stress-free, enjoyable job. Praised be God!
| (Psalms 23:2) And if He should take it away, praised be God
| again! May He be praised forever.
| gifnamething wrote:
| On the other hand, a job that is 'good enough' can make you too
| scared to make the jump to leave. Then you get paid less, learn
| less and it becomes harder to make the jump if the job stops
| being 'good enough'
| adreamingsoul wrote:
| "The grass is greener where you water it."
| DonHopkins wrote:
| "The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic Tank"
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/432288.The_Grass_Is_Alwa.
| ..
| LaundroMat wrote:
| Manure also seems to help.
| cellularmitosis wrote:
| You can attract more flies with honey than vinegar, but a big
| steaming pile of BS works best.
| mark-r wrote:
| I wonder in general what are the odds of finding a better job?
| Are they 50/50 or do they skew one way or the other?
| xwolfi wrote:
| You can always reduce to more material aspects, like money.
| Sometimes a large salary increment can make you accept much
| more shit.
|
| I have incredible frustrations at my current job but the 2x
| increment I got compared to my amazingly fun job I had in a
| small company before makes me brush them off much more easily
| :D
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Depends on how bad your current job is. The better the
| current job, the harder it is to find something still better.
|
| There can be a halo effect - the better your current jobs, to
| some degree the better offers you get - but I still think
| that on net, you should be more reluctant to leave a decent
| situation. If your current job is in the top 10% of jobs,
| then the odds are 9 to 1 that switching will get you
| something worse.
| jll29 wrote:
| > If your current job is in the top 10% of jobs, then the
| odds are 9 to 1 that switching will get you something
| worse.
|
| This is a wise insight. It therefore would be good if
| developers had created a Glassdoor-like site where people
| can enter technical details about their jobs (languages
| used, appreciation of refactoring, software tools, pair
| programming, technical documentation, use of version
| control, A/B testing, unit tests, UML, ...) in order to
| permit people to get a sense of what they're getting into.
| Asking about this at interviews is not productive, as
| hiring managers may bend the truth a bit to get talent on
| board.
| mlac wrote:
| I've seen a similar idea with employees, but a bit more
| forgiving. I can't find the article, but it was about when
| it makes sense to replace someone vs keep them. The idea
| was to keep them if they get 70% of their work correct / do
| 70% of the job well and go to the market for a new hire if
| they don't hit that.
|
| It seems low, but with the inefficiency caused by turnover
| I guess 70% is where they settled.
| namenotrequired wrote:
| The more inclined you are to leave it, the worse it is (all
| else equal), and therefore the bigger the chance the next one
| is better.
|
| (By your own judgment.)
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Seems very difficult to gauge quantitatively. I've changed
| jobs at year 2, 12, and 19. Each time, what I was interested
| in to make my next job better had changed based on my age as
| well as my accrued experience at the different jobs. And
| there's the fact that for someone like myself, I'm guilty of
| moving the goalpost. I honestly have a great job right now.
| Bit as I get used to that, then new things bug me.
| matwood wrote:
| Great point. My first programming job in college was for a
| little boutique software company in town. My boss would
| walk into my office at noon, describe some software, and
| ask if I could have a PoC by 4 so he could drive over to
| the client and hopefully get a check to build. Now,
| something like that would drive me nuts, but at the time I
| didn't know better and it was exciting.
|
| The one consistent thing in my career is I don't tolerate
| jobs that have too little work to do. I've had 2 jobs at
| various points in my career where was I told to just hang
| out for extended periods of time, and in neither case did I
| make it a year working there.
| busterarm wrote:
| I've often found that the thing that made me take a new job
| was the change that I wanted and failed to make in the old.
| In fact, often enough I misjudged the new org in the
| interview and they had the same problems but I ended up
| being the force for the change that I wanted to see.
|
| For some odd reason, it always seems like getting that
| inertia is easier at the next job than the current one.
| jojohohanon wrote:
| This.
|
| I loved my first job. Every thing about it. But looking
| back in hindsight, it was a vanity project of the ceo, and
| was never going to recoup the manpower investment.
| Requirements and goal posts were ever-shifting. I was too
| naive to even perceive role status and did little or
| nothing concrete to forward my career except turn out
| (quality) code.
|
| I loved it.
|
| I would be frustrated to distraction if I were in that
| position now.
| MathYouF wrote:
| The grass is greener if you stop working for companies
| dominated by non-technical leadership.
|
| Unfortunately the types who move from one corporate behemoth to
| another rarely see the light and continue indulging in the
| fantasy that one day they'll find a large old company run by
| non-technical leadership with respect for engineering, other
| good developers to collaborate with who haven't left, and
| processes focused on progress.
|
| The rest of us learned the lesson and stopped working as
| engineers for such companies.
| spfzero wrote:
| This is the conclusion i came to as well, but you said it
| better.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Do you have any tips to share about finding places run by
| technical minded leadership, before actually getting yourself
| hired?
|
| I feel my bullshit-job detector when interviewing at
| potential workplaces isn't as good as it could be...
| oytis wrote:
| I'm not good at it either and landed at a good place by
| sheer luck. But once I know what a good culture looks like,
| next time I have to look for a new job I would try to do an
| extensive reverse interview to learn what their approach to
| architecture, planning, development and testing is.
| Basically I'd like to make sure that these all are driven
| by developers, that people care about quality, not just
| metrics, and that there is a long-term vision of what the
| team wants to deliver.
| busterarm wrote:
| - I am not coding anymore. - I am putting out the same fires
| I have been for the last 5 years. - I no longer learn
| anything on company time. (New technologies does not equate
| with improvement) - I have to devote my own time to growth.
|
| My company's leadership is _entirely_ technical. In fact,
| engineering leads the whole organization, pretty much. We're
| still a feature factory.
|
| Working for technical people is not a panacea to bad
| leadership. It just means they're better at bullshitting
| engineers to their face.
| juiyout wrote:
| > they're better at bullshitting engineers to their face.
|
| Why did you call me out?
| throwaway78123 wrote:
| > It just means they're better at bullshitting engineers to
| their face.
|
| They're also better at detecting bullshitting from
| engineers.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Oh, how much needed that is now days too. Engineers are
| becoming insufferable (I'm first on the list).
| elb2020 wrote:
| I've read somewhere that BMW and Audi have internal
| regulations in place, which dictate that at least _half_ of
| the top level leadership group should always consist of
| people with engineering backgrounds.
|
| I have not been able to confirm if it's true or not.
|
| But it sounds as a healthy regulation to have in place for a
| technical company, since gravity seems to work in the
| opposite direction. Non-technical leaders will, in my
| experience, have a tendency towards hiring other non-
| technical leaders, and towards trying to mould the company
| operations into something which can be run without the need
| for technical knowledge.
| kqr wrote:
| And Toyota has (had?) the requirement that all employees,
| no matter how privileged, should regularly spend time on
| the factory floor doing the core business of the company:
| assembling cars.
|
| I think that sort of idea makes a lot of sense to avoid
| losing touch.
| mnadkvlb wrote:
| and their cars interior is by far the worst for price
| range. Infotainment is so bad that sometimes the touch
| response happens like 4-5 seconds later on a four year
| old corolla hybrid. Worst interior in a car i experienced
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Anecdata aside, they are one of (if not THE) most
| reliable car brands
| mnadkvlb wrote:
| i agree with reliability.
|
| Just the rest of stuff is so bad, i mean for a car worth
| 25-30k i expect a touchscreen that is not absolute lemon
| from the start. Or just give me an api over network/bus
| that someone can create an app for it and i can just run
| a tablet which would be a total of say (300 bucks for a
| decent tablet, 100 bucks for the app ).
|
| Not a fan of teslas at all, but i hope they put the
| direction of industry to have a decent infotainment as
| default. Korean/German cars seem to have a bit better
| infotainment.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-06-13 23:02 UTC)