Saving this now
We live in a late-stage-capitalist hellscape, where large companies are run by aspiring robber barons who have no serious convictions beyond desiring power. All those companies want is for obedient engineering drones to churn out bad code fast, so they can goose the (largely fictional) stock price. Meanwhile, end-users are left holding the bag: paying more for worse software, being hassled by advertisements, and dealing with bugs that are unprofitable to fix. The only thing an ethical software engineer can do is to try and find some temporary niche where they can defy their bosses and do real, good engineering work, or to retire to a hobby farm and write elegant open-source software in their free time.
This applies actually to all engineers
I read that as “cylindrical” lmao
Well that’s true too. As humans we should generally aim to be more cylindrical than spherical.
It’s a cynical way to view the C-staff of a company. I think it’s also inaccurate: from my limited experience, the people who run large tech companies really do want to deliver good software to users.
From my much broader experience, this is missing the required cynicism that C-staff want to deliver software they think is good based on the criteria cynical yes staff tell them constantly is good. I’ve never met an exec that didn’t want to deliver something good; most execs I’ve met don’t actually understand what good is or how to benefit people.
The way the tech world has unfolded in the last 25 years is bound to make most people cynical.
“Companies are structurally set up to collude on salaries, but they’re not set up to deliberately make their employees sad - they just don’t have that kind of fine-grained control over the culture!”
This is such an insane take. I’d argue that hiring freezes are more common dictates than corporations following the law.
Politics has no place in engineering disciplines. Imagine if we talked about building bridges like this. “Sorry your entire family died when the bridge failed. My boss has an ego and we have to use the shitty bolts he designed. I’m just doing my job”
Granted not all projects carry this degree of risk but we shouldn’t normalize sub standard practice. Long term risk is generated by bad code which can be and often is detrimental to the profitablity of a project. One of your jobs as a software developer is to be able to communicate this effectively with management. There are cost implications to churning out shitty code.
Bad form > poor product > unsatisfied users > loss in sales to competitors
I don’t get what your bridge example is supposed to show, nor what normalizing substandard practice has to do with politics or lack thereof.
Depending on where you look there’s plenty of shoddy construction work and cutting corners for cost, big projects are notorious for taking longer and costing more in the end. Construction had more time to develop and be regulated, and has more physical limitations compared to software development. Both, in the end, can be (theoretically) held accountable before court.
is to be able to communicate this effectively with management
Isn’t this politics? Why are you saying politics has no place in engineering principles?
Software engineers are much more replaceable than construction engineers/architects, both in-discipline and with less expertise.
I do my part in what I can influence and control, delivering good and sound products, but it’s obvious depending on individuality doesn’t work across our whole industry.
/edit: The linked article talks about how in-company politics are necessary to coordinate and deliver features. I don’t see that addressed here either? How would you deliver - taking the example from the article - Latex in Markdown on GitHub without politics?
Communication ≠ politics.
Communication in engineering should rely on empirical data not personal opinion or vibes.
The post above only has one sentence where they make a unsupported claim that being involved in politics was necessary to have completed the feature.
The bridge example is to show that personal opinion has no place in projects and that workers should not capitulate to their superiors when they determine unsafe situations are occuring. The “shoddy bolt my boss designed” would be a stand in for whatever crummy practice people are being political about in a software project. From a shitty tech stack to bad project management practices.
Ego and politics is the death of a project.
Except, how do you convince all the other engineers the tech stack is both shitty and that switching off is worth the switching costs? That your data is empirical and also not the “lies, damned lies and statistics” thing where you cherry pick data in your favor so you can look empirical when you are actually just going off your own vibes and ego? Even if your intentions are pure, others might not think so (whether because they have ulterior motives of their own or not).
Unfortunately, that is politics.
That’s just miss representing the data for political reasons. Again it’s just politics which has no place in engineering
I think as long as there are 2 people on earth who do not have perfect trust in each other, there will be politics.
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Speaking up against the manager is politics though.
As is almost all the case when people say they don’t want “politics” in things. Politics just means whatever they don’t like/find valuable.
Politics is about influencing other people. Engineering is about managing constraints. Sometimes these constraints come from other people. If you want to influence a constraint you don’t like, then you often have to influence other people (i.e. politics).
I don’t see anything strange with this.
I think you are pretty much agreeing with my message.
Yes, I’m just elaborating.
Politics is about influencing other people
No and you prove the parent post right. Politics is the matter of the city (or in this case, the matters of the company/office).
Influencing people is a side product of having to reach an agreement between parties, and if you successfully influence the right people, more shit gets done.
IMO, telling the manager of their mistake is not politics.
Colluding with others to make said manager lose standing in front of their superior, is politics.
Should we though?
