|
A lot of the ills of modern software development come from organizations looking at the practices of shops that write small CRUD apps and deciding that what they do must be the silver bullet. (There is no silver bullet.)
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2023 20:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 19:29 |
|
|
devops is thinking that a five man startup and google have the same software process and organizational problems
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2023 21:07
|
|
|
Honestly, a lot of people working in software have so poor an understanding of anything management-related that they could seriously believe that.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2023 21:50
|
|
|
I worked at a particularly poorly managed company, did some snooping on linkedin and found that only the CEO had an MBA or anything approaching a business degree. He had been installed after the founder (classic rich guy's son) failed to scale with the company. I think our engineering group was ~100 people. People like to poo poo on MBAs but having a couple of them sprinkled throughout the org helps tremendously with management culture.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2023 22:30
|
|
|
LLSix posted:This is a weird discussion for me to read because I've only ever heard DevOps used in 2 ways. DevOps was originally a cultural approach to software development that focused on automation and everything-as-code that was owned and maintained by the entire team, not just one particular organizational silo. Basically, forcing folks to move away from doing everything manually and to apply the same rigor around things like version control and testing to infrastructure and general code-like-but-not-code assets, and also to have developers comfortable with and aware of the application's operating environment. Then it morphed into "a special team or role that owns the automation and everything-as-code". Then it morphed into a synonym for Agile. Then it morphed into "IT". So basically, it's meaningless at this point. I still think about it and talk about it in terms of the first definition, but almost no one else does.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2023 23:10
|
|
|
DevOps is not me, thank god.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2023 23:28
|
|
|
I like DevOps because it recognizes that infrastructure and ops teams are generally pretty useless and you'll often end up having to slap things together yourself.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2023 02:17
|
|
|
I like infrastructure and ops teams because when things go down I can wash my hands of it and play video games while other people fix things.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2023 02:49
|
|
|
New Yorp New Yorp posted:DevOps was originally a cultural approach to software development that focused on automation and everything-as-code that was owned and maintained by the entire team, not just one particular organizational silo. Basically, forcing folks to move away from doing everything manually and to apply the same rigor around things like version control and testing to infrastructure and general code-like-but-not-code assets, and also to have developers comfortable with and aware of the application's operating environment. I think part of that transition was that the problem space of "application's operating environment" became much bigger an messier in that time. We went from devops meaning the entire team needs to know how the app installs and runs on the on-prem server or heroku, to the entire team needs to know terraform and all the cloud services under it and how to slice up VPCs and security groups, and how to ship logs and configure the full monitoring suite etc. That became too much overhead so we need dedicated teams that handle streamlining that work, and hey we have these Ops teams who can do that right? But unless they're capable, managed and rewarded well you get these issues: thotsky posted:I like DevOps because it recognizes that infrastructure and ops teams are generally pretty useless and you'll often end up having to slap things together yourself.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2023 11:49
|
|
|
I have worked places where the average response time from infra was one day. Like, not for solving a ticket, but for acknowledging it. That's just not compatible with how we work these days. Even decently run ops teams will have their own priorities and way of doing things so you end up gaining a lot by relying on them as little as possible.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2023 12:31
|
|
|
Yeah, definitely not criticising your take. It's a common problem. I have seen it work, but I think you're looking at putting maybe 5-10% of your headcount in those teams, have them compensated and managed well and have the right mindset all around.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2023 16:17
|
|
|
Destroyenator posted:I think part of that transition was that the problem space of "application's operating environment" became much bigger an messier in that time. We went from devops meaning the entire team needs to know how the app installs and runs on the on-prem server or heroku, to the entire team needs to know terraform and all the cloud services under it and how to slice up VPCs and security groups, and how to ship logs and configure the full monitoring suite etc.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2023 19:01
|
|
|
Does systems engineering also suffer from this ambiguity? I see it mostly as system administration but somehow elevated, but I've also personally had that title as a person just generally connecting technical boxes and bullshit (I got the hell out of that job as just kind of landed on my in a re-org).
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2023 19:17
|
|
|
Rocko Bonaparte posted:Does systems engineering also suffer from this ambiguity? I see it mostly as system administration but somehow elevated, but I've also personally had that title as a person just generally connecting technical boxes and bullshit (I got the hell out of that job as just kind of landed on my in a re-org). Systems engineering is about as squishy of a word/domain as devops, so the short answer is "it depends". There's a lot of systems engineering that is wholly separate from software engineering & IT so it's a really broad field. It can range from project management and gantt charts to in the weeds engineering work and everything in between. Like I used to work at a systems engineering & software dev consultancy and it was actually pretty surprising to me (a software guy) how much work the SE guys did that didn't involve software at all.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2023 19:28
|
|
|
Rocko Bonaparte posted:Does systems engineering also suffer from this ambiguity? I see it mostly as system administration but somehow elevated, but I've also personally had that title as a person just generally connecting technical boxes and bullshit (I got the hell out of that job as just kind of landed on my in a re-org). Depending on where you are I think systems engineers have a better rep because the title started way before software and has been applied to poo poo like building rockets or buildings or things where people don't brag about making it all work at the last minute. It should mean "is the system well engineered, do all the pieces come together to get the actual job done for the customer"
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2023 20:49
|
|
|
I'm interviewing with a company right now for a front-end engineer job, and things seem to be going well but they're dragging their feet. I did an interview Tuesday with one of the engineers on the team I'll be working with, and he told me he would send me a take-home assignment after the interview. Fast forward to Thursday, no take-home. I sent am email to the recruiter asking if they could please send the assignment, and he says "it'll be out shortly". Now it's Friday and I still haven't received the assignment. This is for a position at a major company that you've heard of. They said they're supposed to finish hiring next week. Am I missing something? This seems like a red flag. E: it' s not IBM btw, av unrelated America Inc. fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Jan 29, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2023 00:14
|
|
|
America Inc. posted:I'm interviewing with a company right now for a front-end engineer job, and things seem to be going well but they're dragging their feet. I did an interview Tuesday with one of the engineers on the team I'll be working with, and he told me he would send me a take-home assignment after the interview. My follow up time is on week, not one day.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2023 00:34
|
|
|
America Inc. posted:Am I missing something? This seems like a red flag. no that is not a red flag, that's just you being impatient. justifiably impatient, but in most cases the bigger the company the slower the process
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2023 00:41
|
|
|
It’s unfortunately pretty standard that most companies treat potential candidates like poo poo in terms of communication and timelines. It’s probably even worse right now with all the layoffs and hiring freezes. Unfortunately there’s not much you can do other than sit tight and reach out once a week or so.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2023 01:15
|
|
|
leper khan posted:My follow up time is on week, not one day. Makes sense. To be fair I had also asked if they could delay the interview a week so it's a little hypocritical of me to be so impatient. The worst was when another company took 3 weeks to get back to me in December (maybe because of the holidays). A little more transparency in the process would be helpful.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2023 03:03
|
|
|
One job took 2-3 months to get back to me - because the CEO wanted to meet every new hire during a freeze and this satellite office was trying to talk them out of flying a developer out to NY to talk to the CEO of an F500. You never know what dumb bureaucracy the other end is trying to cut through.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2023 03:58
|
|
|
If recruiting responded right away but didn't just do the thing they could have done while sending the message, something is almost certainly going on with the position. The whole tech industry is in the midst of layoffs and either there's a budget discussion or something going on with an offer in negotiation with a different candidate.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2023 15:52
|
|
|
theres also just despair my rule of thumb is that the worse the email latency peeps have the more unhappy they are (putative causation the other way ofc), unless their job is emailing peeps then bets are off. the recruiters job is emailing peeps but the hiring managers job isn't. so even if the position is rock solid, if there were separate layoffs making everyone anxious or if theres some other development making everyone feel like crap that can be a cause in surprisingly high email latencies
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2023 15:58
|
|
|
America Inc. posted:Makes sense. To be fair I had also asked if they could delay the interview a week so it's a little hypocritical of me to be so impatient. One time we tried to make an offer to a new candidate and it got delayed by three months because upper management decided to stick their nose in and re-arrange the org chart first. Naturally when we finally had an offer ready the candidate told us to go kick rocks. The larger the company the more cooks there are in the kitchen.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2023 19:28
|
|
|
It gets particularly bad because it's harder for a candidate to rate higher than "probably good", and everyone knows that once the new person is hired things are going to slow down while the new person gets up to speed, even if they're a huge improvement over the long term. So, if there's other fires going on, its easy for folks to stop pushing to move on hiring. It's not the right thing to do but it happens.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2023 19:51
|
|
|
On the flip side, my current team is at half capacity and has had at least one open spot for over a year. I talked to my boss yesterday and apparently they've made several offers but haven't been able to match the salary offers the candidates got elsewhere.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2023 20:02
|
|
|
a dingus posted:“Almost every software development organization has at least one developer who takes tactical programming to the extreme: a tactical tornado. The tactical tornado is a prolific programmer who pumps out code far faster than others but works in a totally tactical fashion. When it comes to implementing a quick feature, nobody gets it done faster than the tactical tornado. In some organizations, management treats tactical tornadoes as heroes. However, tactical tornadoes leave behind a wake of destruction. They are rarely considered heroes by the engineers who must work with their code in the future. Typically, other engineers must clean up the messes left behind by the tactical tornado, which makes it appear that those engineers (who are the real heroes) are making slower progress than the tactical tornado.” ― John Ousterhout, A Philosophy of Software Design prom candy posted:It's way more fun to be one of those guys than to deal with one of those guys totally that person at my company, no regrets at all
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2023 03:58
|
|
|
LLSix posted:On the flip side, my current team is at half capacity and has had at least one open spot for over a year. I talked to my boss yesterday and apparently they've made several offers but haven't been able to match the salary offers the candidates got elsewhere. Does your company even put a salary range on their listings? A lot of companies waste a huge amount of everybody's time by refusing to do that, or by putting a range that's so large it's actively useless.
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2023 11:02
|
|
|
Roadie posted:Does your company even put a salary range on their listings? A lot of companies waste a huge amount of everybody's time by refusing to do that, or by putting a range that's so large it's actively useless. Apparently not 
|
|
#
?
Jan 29, 2023 18:35
|
|
|
bob dobbs is dead posted:the recruiters job is emailing peeps but the hiring managers job isn't. so even if the position is rock solid, if there were separate layoffs making everyone anxious or if theres some other development making everyone feel like crap that can be a cause in surprisingly high email latencies
|
|
#
?
Jan 30, 2023 16:28
|
|
|
Shout out to the Alpha Chad who threw out some  's in the work chat this morning to share his compensation and leveling details right before his account was deactivated by HR.
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2023 20:29
|
|
|
drat what a hero. Was he laid off? If that happens to me that's exactly what I'm doing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2023 21:03
|
|
|
a dingus posted:drat what a hero. Was he laid off? If that happens to me that's exactly what I'm doing. You bet
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2023 21:06
|
|
|
Love Stole the Day posted:Shout out to the Alpha Chad who threw out some the perfect killswitch
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2023 17:26
|
|
|
Does anyone feel like big tech products mostly haven't gotten crazy better in years despite the crazy hiring? Most obvious examples to me are Netflix, Twitter, and Uber. I don't think I've noticed a difference in them at all. Netflix I still just click the movie I want. Twitter is a timeline and 140 characters. Uber still gives me a ride if I want one except it's more expensive now. Am I an idiot or is something weird here? Many of us build these products so it feels like we're always working and improving stuff but when I take a step back and try to think about what's actually been done, it feels like almost nothing has really been built. There are the obvious few exceptions like generative AI and I guess some companies like Google and Amazon probably introduced a bunch of new cloud tools with silly names over the half decade. But as a random participant in society I feel like one wouldn't notice anything different. oliveoil fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Feb 8, 2023 |
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2023 15:24
|
|
|
Some products are pretty much feature complete, and to add more features would just bloat the software without a good reason. I assume there's general pressure to "keep up with competition" but personally I think having a product continue to be stable and just do what it says on the tin is cool and good. When you say "crazy hiring", are you referring to expanding engineering depts? Maybe they're kinda the same size and personnel are just rotating through?
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2023 15:47
|
|
|
The development process for most products looks something like this:
The first part of this process usually doesn't change much. Most of the scale that a company experiences comes from moving into new markets, making service delivery more efficient, or finding more ways to monetize what they're providing.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2023 16:00
|
|
|
Re: features, that's the 10% of the engineering you see. The other 90% is infrastructure & operations.epswing posted:When you say "crazy hiring", are you referring to expanding engineering depts? Maybe they're kinda the same size and personnel are just rotating through?
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2023 16:07
|
|
|
There are also internal political reasons to hire. If you're a manager and you want to grow in your career increasing headcount is a good way to do that. So you make the case that your team desperately needs more people in order to deliver and then you can now put that you manage a team of 100 instead of a team of 20 on your resume. This happens everywhere, not just in tech.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2023 16:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 19:29 |
|
|
minato posted:Re: features, that's the 10% of the engineering you see. The other 90% is infrastructure & operations.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2023 17:52
|
|