You conveniently ignored the part that modern work is not only about coding, it is a lot about collaborating, politics, reviewing and writing bunch of non-sense paperwork, policies, manuals etc.
I wouldn't mind to work long hours if that would mean purely coding.
But no, employers prefer to throw bunch of non-coding tasks at engineers and introduce politics, the more higher up the chain you go and the more impact you want to make.
If you let me code and get stuff done, I will happy do it.
However if you require me to create dumb paperwork, track JIRA tickets, create reports about reports, demand using the latest TPS REPORT cover on all my deliverables - you will get 9-to-5 PERIOD
> I wouldn't mind to work long hours if that would mean purely coding. But no, employers prefer to throw bunch of non-coding tasks at engineers
You can’t have it both ways. If you want to just code, call yourself a coder or programmer.
An “engineer” is of a profession devoted to “the application of science and mathematics by which the properties of matter and the sources of energy in nature are made useful to people.”
Making your work useful to people involves communication and research beyond coding. Maybe it ain’t jira tickets but it also ain’t “purely coding.”
It is not even engineering.
A lot of software devs have become slaves on the alter of Agile software development. A senseless machine that only cares about the number of your JIRA tickets, and making sure your agile shibboleths like standups, retros, sprints and etc are conducted.
You can look at gogle - the company that has never produced any useful product beyond a few of search/ads, youtube, gmail, and maybe google docs. Thats it. Nothing more.
and gogle is considered very efficient in its engineering processes, that entire industry copies it.
meanwhile the most disruptive innovation comes from small teams that dont care about formalized rituals and jsut focused on execution and coding, they dont need PM, TPM, and Agile Coach, and Engineering manager to deliver value
Ya I think you make a fair point that a lot of non coding work these days probably doesn’t actually improve the product/make it work better for the end user.
I see that as simply bad management, and there is indeed a ton of it. Keep in mind that agile began as a reaction to “waterfall” and was intended to reduce bureaucratic overhead and planning. But the reaction became worse than what it was reacting to.
I think throwing out all process will just lead us back to bad process. Better to have a good process - some sort of planning and system for improvement is good and necessary IMO. Especially if you’re building an organization or iteratively improving product. v1 can arguably be done seat of the pants but what about subsequent versions.
John Carmack's experience of engineering isn't a bunch of meetings, customer-alignment sessions, or anything else though. Apocryphal stories of him measuring everytime he was interrupted are the antithesis of that: they imply he wasn't available to staff, wasn't coordinating with anyone - he was in fact, just coding.
How many people have jobs where "just coding" is actually adequate to do the job? The early years of game development are perhaps the only time this was relevant, and even then it only applies if you work for yourself and not salary.
When 16 hours a day of coding will pop out a game engine a little faster, which gets it to market faster, which gets money into your bank account faster - sure, go nuts. The monetary value of your output is potentially highly disproportionate to the hours input and you the only stakeholder is you.
Of course, if you're spending a stupid number of hours a day coding and disregarding leading your art department, or guiding your other developers, or negotiating with your publishers for funding or deadlines...then you're probably not actually doing your job.
Yeah I used to be a huge contributor of discretionary effort, back when the job was fun. My current agile job is such a chore though that I can't wait to finish for the day.
Im not an enthusiast and really balance work life balance but I get more done when working 9 hours instead of 8. That shouldn’t be a controversial take.
Whether thats worth it or if employers can reasonably expect it is another matter. But absolutely more work gets done. This is a topic where the reddit and hackernoon takes are comically extreme sometimes.
Yep and I am going to get more done in 5 days than 4. Maybe this doesn't play out over a large group but I just find it hard to apply those articles about the 4 day work week actually being more productive to my personal experience.
> those articles about the 4 day work week actually being more productive to my personal experience.
They are conflating diminishing returns with less total work and it leads to ridiculous propositions. If you can get more work done in 4 days it means the 5th day of work is a negative output.
This is a fundamentally false binary. There are absolutely loads of people who are both of those things, usually due to their enthusiasm for their day job being matched by their enthusiasm for other things.
Am I expected to expend my enthusiasm for programming on my employer?
I find it insulting that I must be a "nine to fiver" if I advocate for labor. My passion isn't building what my boss wants, it's building what _I_ want.
This implies that accepting a job that pays more, even if it doesn't align with your incentives, is being a "nine to fiver", which I disagree with.
Innate to our economic system is the tension between labor and employer. Us as laborers want a higher share of the profit from our labor. Employers seek the opposite, and "fulfillment" provides them the means to extract it.
Consider the wages of game developers, which have stagnated compared to less "fulfilling" SWE work, because employers are able to supplant higher pay with work that people are passionate about. If being a "nine to fiver" prevents me from falling into that trap, so be it.
> Ideally your incentives get aligned such that you're not spending your enthusiasm on your employer, but on yourself via your employer.
If the "via" here is "by giving me money to do what I want", then I agree. GP is arguing that fulfillment from work is necessary to be an enthusiast, thus the assumption that your response is related.
Even in the purely financial scenario though, aren't the incentives still in conflict? If both you and your employer's incentive is "earn as much money as possible", then you are both vying for the same pool of profit.
> You should be invested in the success of the people who you work for, financially (or whatever you value).
Bullshit. They are trying to make millions for themselves, not me.
I'm trying to make millions for myself through my SaaS that I work on nights/weekends.
If they want to give me founding ownership of their company then I'll reconsider, but otherwise I'm just going to do the work assigned. I'm not going to be enthusiastic or care if it succeeds. I'll just do the work to the best of my ability, and then save the rest of my energy for my business, not theirs.
> They are trying to make millions for themselves, not me.
Why not both?
> If they want to give me founding ownership of their company then I'll reconsider
Now you're getting it, though the "founding" part seems unnecessary. If the money is what drives you, then get a cut. But once you do, your incentives will be aligned and if money really was the issue, then you should be motivated to work whatever hours are needed.
If money wasn't the issue, then incentives weren't aligned correctly.
If you're salaried and you too often work more than nine to five, then you are necessarily devaluing your work. I don't see how devaluing yourself aligns your incentives with the company's incentives, whose incentives are to clearly get as much work done for as little money as possible.
the current meta game is: you work over-time to deliver more and exceed expectations, then you get promotion and +money
if you don't expect promotion, then there is no incentive to over-work and overdeliver.
This is how modern tech companies get ahead of legacy corps: hire young high energy and high capability folks, and let me compete with each other for tiny pool of promotion money. As a result everyone will overwork, but you have to pay only to a few who gets promoted.
