
A culture that attracts quality candidates - playing_colours
http://radianttiger.com/2015/04/20/a-culture-that-attracts-quality-candidates/
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Fr0styMatt8
Here's what I want as a software engineer. I want to be respected for my
opinion.

If I say that a customer change is a complicated task, I think it's great if
my manager engages me and takes me to task on why I think that is -- as long
as this is done from a position of respect and not from a position of
disbelief.

When I say "We are likely going to have to implement X, because the customer
won't give us an answer on it and just like the last feature, they said it was
fine not to have right up until the last minute when it suddenly wasn't", I
DON'T want the response to be "So, if we don't have to do X, it should only
take a few days, right?".

In case it's not obvious, what I'm dealing with right now in my job is
management that expects me to be up front with them but can never seem to
believe what I say when I am. It's like they take the most blindly optimistic
interpretation of what you say, even though that's not what you said, then
hold you accountable for what you didn't say when the shit hits the fan.

If I went to my doctor and he said "You need to take this medication or it's
90% likely you'll get sick", most people would think I was an idiot if I
decided to decline the doctor's advice, then complained that the doctor didn't
know what he was talking about because I got sick.

So yeah, as a software engineer I want to be respected as an expert in my
domain in the same way that people generally don't think it's okay to second-
guess their lawyers/doctors/basically any other profession it seems than
software engineering.

/Vent is now over :)

~~~
dognotdog
I guess it's time to stop calling engineering estimates an "opinion!"

But yeah, I see the same thing all the time. We say "this isn't going to work
unless we do X,Y,Z," which of course aren't done, and then of course things
don't work out, and it's our fault. I blame it on a lack of intuitive
understanding (and pressure to cut costs, resulting in a RDF).

Most people would understand that a bridge won't hold if you left out all the
rebar from the structure, even if it wasn't visible from the outside. With
software, though, people's eyes just go blank at some point, and they simply
ignore everything and piece together what they want to hear. "X dollars in Y
days, got it."

~~~
Fr0styMatt8
You phrased that way better than I did. That's exactly the kind of thing I was
talking about.

------
Bahamut
I'm surprised so many companies fail at this - companies should invest in
their employees, unless they want their company to become a revolving door, in
which case, I'll be sure to stay far away.

If you're not trying to develop employees and create a culture of making
everyone better at their craft, you're not a manager I want anything to do
with because you're likely to be a strong cause of failure.

~~~
x0x0
I know generally what I'm looking for in a company, but unless I personally
know someone who works there and I'm tight enough with them to get real
information, I'm stuck with whatever they tell me plus hopefully glassdoor, at
best. And many companies actively lie on glassdoor: I know of two personally.

During the interview process, the company is selling themselves just as much
as you are selling yourself.

------
Animats
This is an "agile" operation. A few years of "agile", and they'll be burned-
out husks. Then you fire them and hire the next round of naive kids.

Another article cited today on HN, from the Paris Review, says it better:

 _" When you begin programming, one of the attractions is the certainty that
you will never run out of things to learn. But after a few years of working in
a corporate cubicle under exploitive managers, after one deadline too many,
after family and age and a tiring body, learning the ins and outs of the
latest library can feel like another desperate sprint on a nonstop
treadmill."_

~~~
onthesideofthe
With the Paris Review printing such things no wonder there is rampant ageism
in the tech industry.

~~~
formulaT
Political correctness is a dangerous tightrope.

You try to uncover X'ism in tech by pointing out ways in which common industry
practice Y disadvantage people in group X. But to do this, you had to claim
that people in group X would perform worse when practice Y was in effect.
Oops! You're an X'ist yourself!

E.g. X = age, Y = working to deadlines/long hours, X = women, Y = speaking up
in meetings, etc.

~~~
onthesideofthe
Agile and learning continuously is not something that only programmers out of
college can do. You can still do it while having a family, even.

------
PaulHoule
The thing about this kind of thinking is that it not only attracts good
candidates but you also get the most out of whatever people you have (or will
get)

