7 ms·

I think almost all of tech is bloated and massive layoffs wouldn’t phase most companies (though it would be harmful to people’s lives so it seems cruel to do th

by ronnier 24d ago

I think almost all of tech is bloated and massive layoffs wouldn’t phase most companies (though it would be harmful to people’s lives so it seems cruel to do this). Fewer people per teams means less context switching and devs own more. They don’t have to look for work, it will be in front of their face. In so many of these big tech companies I’ve worked at I’ve seen too many not having enough work to do. They end up creating meetings and other wasteful things (doc writing) to occupy their time. Managers and directors seem to want big bloated teams, the larger their head count the more they can demand and push for a promo.

dominotw 24d ago
yea this was the case even before ai. fighting for scope is 80% of the job now. Ppl like OP dont really need to "Act like a sponge" and figure out "problems to work on" if there is natural demand for stuff they are building work will present itself. There is also crazy ladder climbing with all these titles and difference in payscale. So ppl like the author are trying to optimize what a role X is supposed to be doing. Everyone is just the same thing everywhere. Everywhere you go its the same ppl, same ladder , same tools same sucking up to boss blah blah. Cant wait to get out of this shit.
- bottle_roket 24d ago
  I’m in my 4th dev job of the last 12 years and every one of them has been wildly different in terms of structure, culture, tooling, work style, etc.
alansaber 24d ago
Isn't this just true for 90% of professional service industries?
HighGoldstein 24d ago
Inefficient allocation of work aside (where you end up with people doing nothing, despite I suspect a substantial amount of work in the backlog), I think the mindset of "just reduce devs so there's not so much context switching/they can own more" is short-sighted from a business perspective. Even in projects that could objectively be owned by 1-2 people but are allocated to a 5-10 person team instead, I've encountered cases where velocity gets absolutely obliterated by a sub-domain "owner" dev being on vacation. Now imagine this is not a fairly small sub-domain but half the project, and instead of a vacation your one-of-two dev gets hit by a bus.
teiferer 23d ago
> other wasteful things (doc writing) I wish people would create more and better docs. Pour as much time into a meticulously written doc details as they discuss indentation and variable naming style. But instead, just like with your attitude, it's considered second grade or even useless work, and as a result docs always suck if they even exist. They don't get that code is made for people to consume just as much as for the machine, and docs are just an extension of that. That's one reason LLMs are so popular, they actually tell you what you'd have found in the doc, had it existed. But LLMs are restricted to the what and don't cover the why. I some places that makes good docs even rarer. In others it makes them easier since the machine generates the "fluff" and the human just fills in the rationale.

by ronnier 24d ago

dominotw 24d ago

yea this was the case even before ai. fighting for scope is 80% of the job now. Ppl like OP dont really need to "Act like a sponge" and figure out "problems to work on" if there is natural demand for stuff they are building work will present itself. There is also crazy ladder climbing with all these titles and difference in payscale. So ppl like the author are trying to optimize what a role X is supposed to be doing. Everyone is just the same thing everywhere. Everywhere you go its the same ppl, same ladder , same tools same sucking up to boss blah blah. Cant wait to get out of this shit.

bottle_roket 24d ago
I’m in my 4th dev job of the last 12 years and every one of them has been wildly different in terms of structure, culture, tooling, work style, etc.

alansaber 24d ago

Isn't this just true for 90% of professional service industries?

HighGoldstein 24d ago

Inefficient allocation of work aside (where you end up with people doing nothing, despite I suspect a substantial amount of work in the backlog), I think the mindset of "just reduce devs so there's not so much context switching/they can own more" is short-sighted from a business perspective. Even in projects that could objectively be owned by 1-2 people but are allocated to a 5-10 person team instead, I've encountered cases where velocity gets absolutely obliterated by a sub-domain "owner" dev being on vacation. Now imagine this is not a fairly small sub-domain but half the project, and instead of a vacation your one-of-two dev gets hit by a bus.

teiferer 23d ago

> other wasteful things (doc writing) I wish people would create more and better docs. Pour as much time into a meticulously written doc details as they discuss indentation and variable naming style. But instead, just like with your attitude, it's considered second grade or even useless work, and as a result docs always suck if they even exist. They don't get that code is made for people to consume just as much as for the machine, and docs are just an extension of that. That's one reason LLMs are so popular, they actually tell you what you'd have found in the doc, had it existed. But LLMs are restricted to the what and don't cover the why. I some places that makes good docs even rarer. In others it makes them easier since the machine generates the "fluff" and the human just fills in the rationale.