Comment by hmokiguess
16 hours ago
> I know I work at GitHub so that might sound heretical, but I promise it’s not controversial for me to say it. Very few people internally believe that PRs and issues are ideal primitives for the future of engineering. And there are a lots of us inside the machine exploring what comes next.
From GitHub's Staff Research Engineer https://maggieappleton.com/zero-alignment/
Honestly the arrogance of their workers are truly astounding. It also tracks that someone with little software experience would become GitHub's staff research engineer. Truly a massive signal that we can't let these companies lead the direction of tech in our country.
> I sit at the intersection of design, anthropology, and web development
How do these people still have jobs post ZIRP?
They have jobs because they throw in fluffy buzzwords like "intersection" and other filler to allow their employers to tick boxes for:
- B-Corp
- DE&I
- Carbon Neutral
etc.
"The beatings will continue until intersectionality improves..."
Where is the arrogance? and I thought talk/slides where interesting.
And wdym even mean "lead the direction of tech". Its just people trying to build a product based on their views/vision.
Others are free to build their own competing visions? and everyones free to choose the platforms that they use.
I’m Maggie and I’m a staff research engineer at GitHub Next. At least that’s my title, but I’m actually a designer. Or I was, back when that was still a separate thing to engineering.
Ah. I didn't think we could debase the title of "engineer" any further, and yet here we are.
The state of HN truly has fallen if people are questioning Maggie Appleton's credentials. Besides, she's working on GitHub Next, not the core product. Sheesh.
What credentials related to software engineering? Please expand and do not post nebulous comments like these.
I'm aware of who this person is, been following their work since their egghead.io doodle days. What I would never do is put this person in a position involving software research when they were never professionally a software developer nor were they academically trained like one either.
I'm sorry but this is just a perfect encapsulation of why American corporations are brazenly bad and corrupt without actual competition.
This is honestly no different than RFK Jr being the Secretary of HHS. I'm sure if you spoke with him, he'd say he was highly competent at this job too.
By credentials you mean, and I mean no offence, that she is an established artist and has a great personal website?
She is internet famous, sure, but she still has to prove if her ideas on how to evolve GitHub are the right one.
Idk. If I learned that the head of design for Github worked as a linux contributor and C developer before taking on that role I would have a similar reaction.
You weren't kidding. They're an anthropologist who went into design a few years ago because "it's not terribly employable" and as of less than 1 year ago was a "Lead Design Engineer at Normally"? This is GitHub Staff eng steering the direction of the concept of PRs?
“Few years ago” is about a decade in design, to be fair.
I’m not sure what staff level means at GitHub, but at some other companies it’s just “senior++”, and people with 10yoe get that title quite often.
Github released that split PR beta, so sounds like they are still thinking about the future which is moving towards small manageable PRs which are part of a parent ticket. That's a solid way to dealing with AI codegen bloat.
The arrogance of anybody, let alone a designer, thinking they could build something better than the foundations of software (and the modern world itself) is crazy.
I love it, but you have to deliver or else I will mock you :P
Great! I'll take my money to someone else who can handle the current state of engineering instead of wasting it trying to predict the future.