People like to make this point, but traditional engineering has the opposite problem: insanely overwrought processes and box-checking that exists for no reason and slows everything down to a snail's pace. Yes there are safety-critical parts, but they surrounded by a ton of bullshit.
It's also absurd to think that there is no company which does genuine software "engineering". If you break ads at Google/Meta, streaming at Netflix, etc there are massive consequences. They are heavily incentivized to properly engineer their systems.
The main thing that governs whether time is spent to well-engineer something is if there is incentive to do it. In traditional engineering that incentive is the law (Getting council approval, not getting sued, etc). In software engineering that incentive is revenue.
That's quite the take. Throughout human history there were lots of instances of vibe-engineering and vibe-architecting, in the physical world.
Since the failings of not doing proper engineering is far more evident, the reasons for the "insanely overwrought processes and box-checking that exists for no reason and slows everything down to a snail's pace" go back to the earliest written law, AKA the Code of Hammurabi, circa 1754 BC! These rules are part of the core of our functional civilization.
Examples:
- Law 229 (Death of Owner): If a house collapses and kills the owner, the builder is put to death.
- Law 230 (Death of Owner’s Son): If the collapse kills the owner's son, the builder's son is put to death.
- Law 232 (Property Damage): The builder must replace any destroyed property and rebuild the collapsed house at their own expense.
- Law 233 (Structural Defects): If a wall "shifts" or is not built properly before completion, the builder must strengthen or repair it using their own silver/means.
No point in discussing with someone who is arguing in bad faith. I already agreed that some parts of the engineering process are safety critical. If you think there is no bullshit in the process you don't have enough knowledge about the requirements imposed by e.g. building regulations.
Material is not just about quality, but rarity or uniqueness. For example, japanese denim can get very expensive in part because it's very low volume. For dress pants, it might be a particularly interesting fabric.
A lot of more expensive pants also have interesting designs or proportions that are very unique or hard to find elsewhere. There is a lot of cool stuff you can get for under $500 USD though, that is still pretty expensive.
Because it's not his job. He should elevate someone else into that IC role instead of holding it for himself. The way he describes it, there is no one else in the company who can do the IC work he is doing, which is long-term bad.
Coding IC work takes a lot of focus and context that someone who is operating at the company-level should not really be in sole possession of.
To me, the whole point of these positions is to take the hit on random bullshit, planning, people management, etc and give your ICs space to do the kind of work he is taking on.
That doesn't mean you have no technical context or involvement in the development process, but it does mean you should probably be at least one step removed from it.
I wouldn't really call it "demand". It's more like one-shotting humans with a product which maximally stimulates them through what is basically a psychological hack.
We were not built with the capacity to handle the sheer amount of stimulation the modern world has. You have to put in a lot of effort to not succumb to natural desires that would have been adaptive behaviours until recent history.
Succumbing to constant distraction, even if a natural desire, would never have been a successful evolutionary strategy for an individual organism. Spending large amounts of time absorbing and repeating bullshit has proven to be a pretty successful group survival strategy throughout human history, though.
Lets call it a next great man-made filter. Weak personalities will take a hit and have a lesser life compared to their potential, the ones more mentally resilient or with good parents (or both) gain a clear advantage in basically all aspects of life. Waiting around for state regulations to cover our asses has always been a bad move, and its same now. They will come but too little too late, one has to fight for oneself and closest ones in true capitalist spirit, and this is indeed distilled capitalism at work. Its jungle out there, and servants of the biggest predators form like 50% of this very forum (go ahead and downvote some meaningless number in DB, but take a good look in the mirror and ask yourself how good human being you truly are).
I can't bring myself to feel much sympathy for the ones that fully realize this, and yet go full speed to their addictions, even push it to their kids since good parenting always take a lot more continuous effort. We keep discussing this mind cancer for a decade here, its not something shocking on any level for anybody who gives a fraction of a f*k about their quality of life or mental health. The rest has bread and games for the poor, version 2025.
The thing I'm most curious about from this article is how/why the author was demoted from E9 to E7. A demotion in itself is pretty unusual, but being bumped down 2 levels seems super weird.
E: ok watched an interview the author gave and the answer was very boring. He requested a demotion because he moved from management back to IC.
I heard similar complaints from friends that came to visit. But they were using the English version of the apps, which, when I tested, were indeed harder to use, but never a miss for me when I helped them. OTOH, I always find my destinations within the first three options when I search in Korean. So maybe it's subpar internationlization.
> They lack a lot of polish. [...] some interactions are janky
I see. I guess I wouldn't know. It's not janky for me, and I think that I am so used to it that when I need to use Google Maps, or any other, I feel a bit frustrated by the unfamiliar interface that I start wishing I could be using Kakao or Naver Maps instead.
I used both English and Hangul to search. Searching for general things like food was good, but if I was trying to find a specific address it was very difficult. Sometimes it would just return completely wrong garbage. One time I was trying to meet up with someone and only realized halfway that the destination was wrong because Naver decided to take me somewhere else despite me copying the exact address in Hangul.
Maybe more about my unfamiliarity with the Korean address format than anything else tbh.
Some things about Naver I kind of miss from Apple/Google maps, but international software in general feels much more user friendly and better UX than Korean software.
Yes, and also:
Is it good for a factory for when the average worker has three jobs and only gets six hours of sleep? Sounds like a recipe for recalls...
In fairness, homes in Detroit can be quite affordable. There are quite a few 2,000 sq. ft. homes listed for <$150,000 that may be 80 years old but are updated with a modern interior look. These would be affordable to a 22-year old factory worker making $80,000 ($40/hr) with no college debt, even if they didn't perfectly optimize their budget.
Good school districts are likely to be less affordable though, but cost of raising children is a whole other can of worms.
I think the parent's point is more that there are so few of those workers that you need seniority for any job security in the first place. The 22-year-olds are the first people getting fired in a scheme like this, and there's not exactly a burgeoning demand for their replacement.
The UAW-Ford contract doesn't allow that, the 1-2 year employees would be fired before the 22 year old employees with 4 years of seniority. We're specifically talking about union jobs (UAW), so the company isn't generally targeting specific workers to fire.
The union has a lot of control over which employees leave during layoffs, and often it's actually the workers with less seniority in the union who are let go. Generally unions negotiate for a "last hired, first fired" situation (youngest employees go first) and often more senior employees have "bumping rights" - if their entire specialization is eliminated, they can move laterally by displacing junior workers. It's also fairly difficult for Ford to individually target the most expensive workers because the UAW does a good job of making sure there's real cause for termination.
UAW's agreement with Ford contains the usual "last hired, first fired" provision on page 80 here[0] in Article VIII §16(c). "Bumping" is part of the agreement on page 79, VIII §13(b).
Perhaps I misunderstood you and you meant that it's hard for workers to get to the "4 year" mark in the first place because Ford can just churn the 1-3 year workers over and over again. The UAW contract also contains a "Preferential Placement Arrangements" clause which gives laid-off workers priority for re-hire whenever Ford is hiring again. Workers can lose their seniority - but there's a bit of a ratchet effect, they have to stay unemployed by Ford for a length of time equal to how long they were employed. So if they've worked there for 2 years, get fired, and are next in line to be rehired 18 months later, they'll enter back in with 3.5 years of seniority from their original date of hire.
Ford had no WARN layoffs[1] between 2012-2018 and only 3 in the past 6 years (affecting 4200 workers in total), so generally it seems that workers are able to achieve top-end wages and full seniority before being laid off.
Yep. It's a difficult needle to thread. Seniority IS important and there really needs to be a way to keep that knowledge. On the other hand, people retire, at some point... If you layoff the last batch of people (no matter how good they were at their job) and replace them with even newer people (in the case of my layoff with my "Team B" in the second most longest job I've had (8 years)). The incoming team at least had more training than our group did which was 2 weeks, they got 3 months. We were meant to be expendable but proved ourself during the pandemic with a massive influx ofwork-from-home installs, while people had quit and burned out from it all.
I still support Unions, even if in the US they're compromised, primarily (IMO) due to Taft-Hartley and the political restrictions placed upon them (mostly about cross-shop/cross-trade organizing, general strikes (sympathy strikes), etc...)
The best part was union leadership informing us the "good news" that there won't be 2 different pay-grades. And at least in the interim we did get a bump to "tier 1" for that time of negotiations while we were there before we were let go.
My point was that we shouldn't pretend "over $40 an hour" for senior staff is generous. A young person would still be better served financially learning a trade than working on the line at Ford.
We need a different metric of wealth generation than home ownership. It used to be very safe, but now it's an anchor as much as it is a lifeline. Home ownership can't pay off forever; eventually either mortgage rates, supply/demand, or construction costs will force homes to either lose value or become too expensive. Those with a house or mortgage are subject to the whims of the market.
Home ownership is tax-advantaged because the government wanted to create a real estate market. Well, it's here, but it's not that great anymore, and most people don't get to take advantage of it. So Congress needs to make paying rent tax-deductible.
It's also absurd to think that there is no company which does genuine software "engineering". If you break ads at Google/Meta, streaming at Netflix, etc there are massive consequences. They are heavily incentivized to properly engineer their systems.
The main thing that governs whether time is spent to well-engineer something is if there is incentive to do it. In traditional engineering that incentive is the law (Getting council approval, not getting sued, etc). In software engineering that incentive is revenue.
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