Comment by lapcat
1 month ago
> yeah, what the company should have done, is only hire experts!
I did not say that, and you know it: "What the company should have done is hire you and one new grad (rather than five)".
> I won't work for an MBA bean counter. I want to work for a company that's willing to invest in people.
Um, IMO someone who hired a team of 5 new grads sounds like an MBA bean counter and not someone that's willing to invest in people. It sounds like they brought in an experienced programmer (you) only because the preexisting pathological team was (predictably) failing.
> BTW, that project would have died with just a team of two because I did eventually leave that company. So that suggestion would have killed that project. System resilience matters too.
And you could not be replaced because.. why? People leave, other people are hired. Life goes on. The new grads may leave too.
> Um, IMO someone who hired a team of 5 new grads sounds like an MBA bean counter and not someone that's willing to invest in people. It sounds like they brought in an experienced programmer (you) only because the preexisting pathological team was (predictably) failing.
Nah, this was a pet project of my skip level, and I joined after he asked my boss for solutions to the delay. The manager who owned the project had all of his experienced eng working on direct contracts.
This company had a lot of contracts in where the number of engineering hours allocated are specified. This was an internal project, without a hard cap on number of hours, and they were assigned because it would have been malpractice otherwise. This was very much a team built out of the resources available, rather than intentionally selecting only new grads.
I couldn't be replaced because it being an internal project, it would have been killed once it had no active development. And I suspect internal politics would have prevented it getting restarted after the first delay/failure. Turns out stuff is way more complicated than the easy assumptions people like to make.
> sounds like they brought in an experienced programmer (you) only because the preexisting pathological team was (predictably) failing.
It's easier to predict failure than success. That's that same zero or negative sum game though. Usually a cheap way to feel superior instead of doing the harder things. My previous edit already addresses that though. Failure wasn't actually a given like you want to predict.
edit:
> I did not say that, and you know it: "What the company should have done is hire you and one new grad (rather than five)".
Right, of course I know you didn't say that, nor do I think you'd actually advocate for it. But taking something to the extreme to see where it fails is a useful rhetorical tool. The point being, that only hiring experts is obviously bad, for the same reason that only hiring new grads is bad.
I think we agree that there is a balance to be struck?
I think 5 noobs to 1 expert is fine, just like 5 to zero is bad, just like 1 to 1 is bad. The point being, there's no magic line where one is right, the other wrong. This team had no problem once the missing puzzle piece was added. And it was able to be successful in ways that 1 and 1 wouldn't have been. There is no reasonable way to say "what you should have done" when describing a puzzle where you can't see most of the pieces.
> they were assigned because it would have been malpractice otherwise.
I don't know understand this means.
> This was very much a team built out of the resources available, rather than intentionally selecting only new grads.
Yet your other comment says, "this particular company paid way below market rate with the promise of interesting work. It without a doubt incentivizes hiring new grads where you roll the dice and hope the good ones will stay because they enjoy the job. It's very hard for them to attract experts at the salary that they're offering." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43453700
> it being an internal project, it would have been killed once it had no active development.
I'm having a hard time understanding why this project needed to exist at all.
> But taking something to the extreme to see where it fails is a useful rhetorical tool.
I disagree, and it only created unnecessary argument in this case. You ended up having to retract and clarify anyway:
> I think 5 noobs to 1 expert is fine, just like 5 to zero is bad
But the team was 5 to zero.
> just like 1 to 1 is bad.
Why?
> I don't know understand this means.
It means, this team was very much a team built out of the resources available, because the existing experts in the company who could have been mentoring new grads were already working full time doing something with a direct contractual obligation to the company. I would have been negligent to pull them from an existing inprogress contract to mentor newbies, and the contracts had a hard limit on number of hours, (not years of experience), so placing a new grad on one of these contracts, replacing an experienced engineer would have degraded the success of the contract.
> Yet your other comment says, "this particular company paid way below market rate with the promise of interesting work. It without a doubt incentivizes hiring new grads where you roll the dice and hope the good ones will stay because they enjoy the job. It's very hard for them to attract experts at the salary that they're offering." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43453700
Right, they're not conflicting statements. The company would hire a pool of engineers that can do engineering, then a different part of the company would sign contracts to complete work, than a middle part would place the engineers in the company onto contracts.
> I'm having a hard time understanding why this project needed to exist at all.
Well, because it was a really cool project that the company did end up marketing and selling to it's various clients. It was also a perfect project to put a bunch of new grads who otherwise wouldn't have been doing any work at all given the projects had contracts that stated they couldn't accept more engineers.
> I disagree, and it only created unnecessary argument in this case. You ended up having to retract and clarify anyway:
I didn't retract anything? Are arguments bad? I actually enjoy being able to arguing interesting points and topics. If you're willing to be wrong, you can learn things. As an example I didn't think my previous examples were so controversial. Nor did I remember that contract based engineering work isn't a common thing the most people already have intuition for.
> [just like 5 to zero is bad...] But the team was 5 to zero.
The team you called pathological? Yeah, it was bad. Missing deadlines is bad. I don't understand where you're confused.
> [just like 1 to 1 is bad...] Why?
I already answered. Because of politics a project that small would have died with a team with just a single new grad. It also would have been boring as fuck. So if I left, I'm sure the new grad would have also left. Which means the company who hired us both, would then have to hire two new people. This was years ago, but I assume some of those original new grads are still there. In part because that team was actually fun to work with. They were good people, and the team was just fun to be around. A team of just 2 is boring... I know because I've also been on that team with me doing all of the work, and it was soul crushing, and contributed to why I left.
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