> In fact, a reliable engineer ought to be comfortable working on products people hate, because engineers work for the company, not for users.
I prefer to take pride in my work. This sounds like hiding ones neck to collect a paycheck.
I prefer to have hard discussions about pivoting or making changes so that we can improve the product, or company, for our users. Anything less is simply "not doing the job", or at least making a serious consession, in my opinion.
Saying that "engineers work for the company" is a very reductionist take, taking away personal conscience, judgement and moral compass, leaving only "get in, do work, collect reward, go home" cycle. This what robots do. This is what algorithms do. Humans shall and are much more than that.
When I was the tech lead of a Linux distribution, I fought my teeth to make that thing work for the target audience who will be using it, and developers who wanna work and develop on this thing. It was not volunteer work either. It was my paying, day job.
I spent a couple of years of my career working on a multiplayer / social game. We definitely got some angry feedback on that, but overwhelmingly the users loved it. Our game hovered around a 92% approval rating. I even got fan art! I think I’ll always look on that period as an absolute highlight of my career. I shifted industries to renewable energy driven by a personal mission to work on a greater cause. It’s B2B so I’m back in the familiar place of having users who I imagine would rather be doing something else than using our product. If my work means they get to spend less time at their computers then I’m happy.
I don’t know. I agree with the point that indifference is worse than hate but I would not take a lot of this article’s advice.
I’ve spent my career finding and working on things people love. I’d join a less stable company to know I’m actually putting products out that are worth spending time on.
This article comes across as coping to me, “it’s okay to ship junk, just comfort your tears by rolling in your pile of money.”
The nature of feedback is that the most vocal express their dislike of a product more loudly and are noticed. The people who like the product won't often take time to express it. So it would certainly help you to take the criticism with some salt.
Don't attach your pride to how well a product you work on is received. You can still take pride in improving a poorly received product, or even in just trying.
In a perfect society, companies would find that the more negative externality they create, the more difficult a time they'll have finding people willing to do it for them. One case in point is when a civil-oriented software company starts taking on military contracts and putting their people to work towards death and destruction. In a perfect society, the reaction we would get is the employees going "wait a second; I liked this company when I joined, but I never signed up for this." … and even in our less-than-perfect society, we do get some of this; what we need is more of this, not less.
Most software is just there to get the job done. I’m building compliance tools that most users would very much like to never use as they’re just adding overheard over what they consider real work. You can still strive to make the software in a way that makes the unpleasant task of having to use it as painless as possible.
IDK why these vacuous corpo tropes appear on the front page of HN every now and then. Sounds like exactly what a quasi-technical, management-leaning staff engineer would say.
Sure, in the end we work for these faceless, meat-grinding machines. But more or less, we all have some semblance of autonomy, and I absolutely can choose not to work on a product that people hate. I can switch teams before switching companies.
To some extent, I also just do what leadership asks, keep my mouth shut, and collect paychecks. But whenever that happens, I don’t gaslight myself by writing a post on why it's supposed to be this way.
To me, this seems like someone who is married to their paycheck and would do whatever necessary to protect that.
It is extremely possible to work on a product people don’t hate, and still maintain a realistic perspective on your engineering abilities or impact or whatever.
If you’re toiling on a product that’s actively making the world worse, quit now. There are better gigs out there.
> In fact, a reliable engineer ought to be comfortable working on products people hate, because engineers work for the company, not for users.
I prefer to take pride in my work. This sounds like hiding ones neck to collect a paycheck.
I prefer to have hard discussions about pivoting or making changes so that we can improve the product, or company, for our users. Anything less is simply "not doing the job", or at least making a serious consession, in my opinion.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
Came here to say that.
Saying that "engineers work for the company" is a very reductionist take, taking away personal conscience, judgement and moral compass, leaving only "get in, do work, collect reward, go home" cycle. This what robots do. This is what algorithms do. Humans shall and are much more than that.
When I was the tech lead of a Linux distribution, I fought my teeth to make that thing work for the target audience who will be using it, and developers who wanna work and develop on this thing. It was not volunteer work either. It was my paying, day job.
I spent a couple of years of my career working on a multiplayer / social game. We definitely got some angry feedback on that, but overwhelmingly the users loved it. Our game hovered around a 92% approval rating. I even got fan art! I think I’ll always look on that period as an absolute highlight of my career. I shifted industries to renewable energy driven by a personal mission to work on a greater cause. It’s B2B so I’m back in the familiar place of having users who I imagine would rather be doing something else than using our product. If my work means they get to spend less time at their computers then I’m happy.
I don’t know. I agree with the point that indifference is worse than hate but I would not take a lot of this article’s advice.
I’ve spent my career finding and working on things people love. I’d join a less stable company to know I’m actually putting products out that are worth spending time on.
This article comes across as coping to me, “it’s okay to ship junk, just comfort your tears by rolling in your pile of money.”
The nature of feedback is that the most vocal express their dislike of a product more loudly and are noticed. The people who like the product won't often take time to express it. So it would certainly help you to take the criticism with some salt.
Don't attach your pride to how well a product you work on is received. You can still take pride in improving a poorly received product, or even in just trying.
In a perfect society, companies would find that the more negative externality they create, the more difficult a time they'll have finding people willing to do it for them. One case in point is when a civil-oriented software company starts taking on military contracts and putting their people to work towards death and destruction. In a perfect society, the reaction we would get is the employees going "wait a second; I liked this company when I joined, but I never signed up for this." … and even in our less-than-perfect society, we do get some of this; what we need is more of this, not less.
Most software is just there to get the job done. I’m building compliance tools that most users would very much like to never use as they’re just adding overheard over what they consider real work. You can still strive to make the software in a way that makes the unpleasant task of having to use it as painless as possible.
Are people really using Github CoPilot on their own volition or is it just "my employer only lets me use this tool"?
Companies don't want to delight their users! They simply want to take their money!
The most successful businesses are often the most harmful forces in society. There's a lesson there.
And another lesson: we define business success by how much money they make, not by how beneficial they are to society.
Sounds like how governments are installed, by force
Author mentions working on product people hate, GitHub Copilot. Honestly it ain’t too bad. Definitely better than a lot of “enterprise” software.
IDK why these vacuous corpo tropes appear on the front page of HN every now and then. Sounds like exactly what a quasi-technical, management-leaning staff engineer would say.
Sure, in the end we work for these faceless, meat-grinding machines. But more or less, we all have some semblance of autonomy, and I absolutely can choose not to work on a product that people hate. I can switch teams before switching companies.
To some extent, I also just do what leadership asks, keep my mouth shut, and collect paychecks. But whenever that happens, I don’t gaslight myself by writing a post on why it's supposed to be this way.
To me, this seems like someone who is married to their paycheck and would do whatever necessary to protect that.
People talk a lot, but their wallet really speaks. I don't build for people's mouths. I build for their wallets. I'm happy with outcome.
Building for wallets only is fine, until a competitor builds a better alternative which can lure both mouths and wallets.
No business is immune. Always have to adapt.
Pure cope.
It is extremely possible to work on a product people don’t hate, and still maintain a realistic perspective on your engineering abilities or impact or whatever.
If you’re toiling on a product that’s actively making the world worse, quit now. There are better gigs out there.
Do you want to know what God thinks about money? Look around and see who he gives it to.
Seans quest continues gaslighting himself one blog post at a time. As usual on his pieces away from pure technology I have the opposite opinion.