If you are a technologist/generalist, aiming for small companies is a good strategy. If you're not in SV even better, you may end up in a real grass roots business and a really interesting problem domain that is ostensibly Not Software.
I personally, cannot stand the software for software industry. You, me, we have all built such arbitrary bullshit machines that link together in a web of unnecessary business. We lambast redundant jobs and useless management, but a moment of reflection for our industry and just how much software we have built for entirely self-serving purposes. So many man hours spent on the ephemeral whims of software. Sorry for the cynicism.
Less cynically, I feel the smaller the company, self-funded, the more likely a generalist will thrive and the business domain will be real-world and impactful. If it's venture funded and can pivot to advertising, it probably will. If you move away from tech hubs the wages are lower, but you might find a more fulfilling role.
It’s hard to break in to, but industrial automation can be incredibly satisfying. The code itself is quite simple compared to ‘real’ software engineering, but you’re solving actual real physical problems in the real world, with tangible (and often lucrative) physical results. It’s extremely cross-disciplinary so if you like getting on the tools that’s always an option, it’s like the ultimate ‘full stack’ development role.
I think it's because technologists are easier to manage.
Product engineers, on the other hand, are actually quite ambiguous to evaluate. Many methodologies have been introduced, starting from Barry Boehm, but over time they gradually stop fitting, and there are many points that are hard to assess. It's essentially a matter of organizational management theory. The ideal of organizational management theory is that diversity comes together to create synergy, but conversely, such diversity means that decision-making within the organization slows down.
Technologists, by contrast, are very easy to observe in terms of speed or code quality. In fact, most people choose a career of learning technology and making money rather than founding a startup, and from that perspective, since "career" tends to be emphasized as an employee's career rather than a founder's career, isn't that why technologists are emphasized?
What companies value as a capability is ultimately an evaluation that can be measured. And product engineering, when you think about it, presupposes discussions with decision makers.
'Is it necessary to implement this feature?'
'Do customers actually need this feature?'
'Isn't the business model wrong?'
Most decision makers are people high up in the hierarchy, and friction with them is unavoidable. In other words, it crosses existing role boundaries, which means more frequent conflicts in organizational dynamics.
Whether that is ultimately a gain or a loss for the organization is something nobody can konw
This post seems to take the stance that we need to cultivate failure so that we can learn. We don’t need to cultivate failure, there’s plenty of failure to be had. I mean people need to be allowed to make their own mistakes but that’s not the same thing.
There’s a difference between cultivating failure and cultivating willingness to fail in the pursuit of success. Many people are too scared of failing (or of being perceived to have failed) to actually try anything that’s not 100% safe.
Get out from under the VC playbook and start asking yourself and the people around you what should exist. What is the world missing? Use AI as your cofounder as prototype with basic tech - html, css, js, sqlite. Gain traction. See the truth about the audience by doing your own customer service. Then when you find something with true traction, talk about scaling it. You will learn far more and do better.
> What is the world missing? Use AI as your cofounder as prototype with basic tech - html, css, js, sqlite.
As long as you don’t ask AI. It keeps giving the same bland startup ideas and I imagine the governance / regulatory evidence gathering market is going to be pretty crowded with startups.
Answering what should exist and what the world is missing requires a vision for what you want the world to become. The question where to go should come after answering where we are, before that one should ask where we came from, what were things like before? Then, how did we get where we are from where we came from.
There are no correct answers. It should probably be more of a subjective journey than we like to imagine.
Ultimately you get to decide what you want people to become. Even if you do it in ignorance.
To quote a wise man. If the revolution doesnt have singing and dancing im not comming.
I was an engineer that build core tech. Saw the effort expand exponentially as they tried to be trendy with new tech. Went back to basics. Built https://www.dreamlist.com and https://santawho.com - never had so much fun as I do now and I can keep going without asking anyone for permission.
If you are a technologist/generalist, aiming for small companies is a good strategy. If you're not in SV even better, you may end up in a real grass roots business and a really interesting problem domain that is ostensibly Not Software.
I personally, cannot stand the software for software industry. You, me, we have all built such arbitrary bullshit machines that link together in a web of unnecessary business. We lambast redundant jobs and useless management, but a moment of reflection for our industry and just how much software we have built for entirely self-serving purposes. So many man hours spent on the ephemeral whims of software. Sorry for the cynicism.
Less cynically, I feel the smaller the company, self-funded, the more likely a generalist will thrive and the business domain will be real-world and impactful. If it's venture funded and can pivot to advertising, it probably will. If you move away from tech hubs the wages are lower, but you might find a more fulfilling role.
It’s hard to break in to, but industrial automation can be incredibly satisfying. The code itself is quite simple compared to ‘real’ software engineering, but you’re solving actual real physical problems in the real world, with tangible (and often lucrative) physical results. It’s extremely cross-disciplinary so if you like getting on the tools that’s always an option, it’s like the ultimate ‘full stack’ development role.
What’s the path to break into industrial automation for experienced software developers?
I think it's because technologists are easier to manage.
Product engineers, on the other hand, are actually quite ambiguous to evaluate. Many methodologies have been introduced, starting from Barry Boehm, but over time they gradually stop fitting, and there are many points that are hard to assess. It's essentially a matter of organizational management theory. The ideal of organizational management theory is that diversity comes together to create synergy, but conversely, such diversity means that decision-making within the organization slows down.
Technologists, by contrast, are very easy to observe in terms of speed or code quality. In fact, most people choose a career of learning technology and making money rather than founding a startup, and from that perspective, since "career" tends to be emphasized as an employee's career rather than a founder's career, isn't that why technologists are emphasized?
What companies value as a capability is ultimately an evaluation that can be measured. And product engineering, when you think about it, presupposes discussions with decision makers.
'Is it necessary to implement this feature?'
'Do customers actually need this feature?'
'Isn't the business model wrong?'
Most decision makers are people high up in the hierarchy, and friction with them is unavoidable. In other words, it crosses existing role boundaries, which means more frequent conflicts in organizational dynamics.
Whether that is ultimately a gain or a loss for the organization is something nobody can konw
This post seems to take the stance that we need to cultivate failure so that we can learn. We don’t need to cultivate failure, there’s plenty of failure to be had. I mean people need to be allowed to make their own mistakes but that’s not the same thing.
There’s a difference between cultivating failure and cultivating willingness to fail in the pursuit of success. Many people are too scared of failing (or of being perceived to have failed) to actually try anything that’s not 100% safe.
Get out from under the VC playbook and start asking yourself and the people around you what should exist. What is the world missing? Use AI as your cofounder as prototype with basic tech - html, css, js, sqlite. Gain traction. See the truth about the audience by doing your own customer service. Then when you find something with true traction, talk about scaling it. You will learn far more and do better.
> What is the world missing? Use AI as your cofounder as prototype with basic tech - html, css, js, sqlite.
As long as you don’t ask AI. It keeps giving the same bland startup ideas and I imagine the governance / regulatory evidence gathering market is going to be pretty crowded with startups.
Answering what should exist and what the world is missing requires a vision for what you want the world to become. The question where to go should come after answering where we are, before that one should ask where we came from, what were things like before? Then, how did we get where we are from where we came from.
There are no correct answers. It should probably be more of a subjective journey than we like to imagine.
Ultimately you get to decide what you want people to become. Even if you do it in ignorance.
To quote a wise man. If the revolution doesnt have singing and dancing im not comming.
[dead]
I was an engineer that build core tech. Saw the effort expand exponentially as they tried to be trendy with new tech. Went back to basics. Built https://www.dreamlist.com and https://santawho.com - never had so much fun as I do now and I can keep going without asking anyone for permission.
just use rust for everything and then you won't even need to rewrite it when it takes off.
3 weeks severance?!
Dynamic pricing. Gross. Thanks a lot.