The real story with big tech workplaces is that everyone wants to be in charge, everyone wants to establish credibility, no one wants to do the coding. I see this all the time. "I'm a part time coder" to me gets categorized with non-coder.
Insightful and mostly correct, but this is a false dichotomy.
There are a lot of people who want to write code and do the real work, but end up in the nonsense you described-- they spend 50+ percent of their time extorting their weaker peers (for credit and image enhancement) and slugging their equals-- because, as you said, they need to win on the credibility market before the company will trust them with real work.
Corporate software engineers are a defeated tribe who work for managers. The nightmare of being seriously underpaid while writing boring software with a boss who thinks he can do your job in half the time, even though he hasn't written a line of code in 10 years (or ever) and has forgotten (or never knew) how hard it is... well, that's the norm for most software engineers.
You're talking about the MacLeod Sociopaths (people who hack credibility markets and rape the system) and possibly the Clueless (middle-managers in the classic depiction; but most startups are Clueless even down to the bottom, because Losers get culled in tough cultures). But there are also the Technocrats (socially positive subset of the so-called, and misnamed, Sociopaths) who bludgeon the credibility market because they have to, but have a genuine desire to do the hard work-- writing code, clarifying ideas, creating. We're not all prima donnas.
As a guy who has a genuine desire to work on actual software but is stuck in corporate hell while being underpaid, this rings too true for me. I spend more time gaming the bureaucratic system than I do actually coding.
The worst part is that in the country I am, software engineers don't get no respect. There's virtually no startup culture here. Companies like Google and Facebook don't hire software engineers here, as far as I know. Enterprise software is the only way to make any decent sort of living here, if you want to be programming.
Where are you? I would guess Japan, but they have a decent google job presence. It's a world market for good software talent, so you are high end and have flexibility where to live, there are plenty of ways out.
The worst part is that in the country I am, software engineers don't get no respect. There's virtually no startup culture here.
That's 90-plus percent of the U.S., too. The people you're talking to here are overwhelmingly concentrated in anomalous star cities (San Francisco, New York, Boston).
I grew up in Central PA. 100-200 years ago, Pennsylvania west of Harrisburg was Silicon Valley (that's why the South invaded) so a lot of smart, ambitious people come from western and central Pennsylvania (they don't stay, but that's another story) but there's certainly not the startup culture. Doctor, lawyer, professor, public servant (Harrisburg being the state capital) and small-business owner were the respectable careers. Computer programmers were seen as smart people who didn't have the social skills to get themselves out of grunt work. That's how computer programming is seen in most of the country. New York and Silicon Valley are different because good programmers can generate bidding wars for their talent whenever they want.
It's changing. In 2005, you had to choose between (a) living in a "star city" with hellish COL and suffering for 10+ years while you got established, or (b) having a second-tier career and being miles away from the exciting work. I don't think that dichotomy is as severe anymore. I'm in the job-search process (probably concluding in the next couple of days; I have offers but there are details to work out) and I've talked to people in TX, NC, and OR who are doing some really exciting stuff. Now that the Bay Area VC-istan scene's dominated by scene kids and social media, Real Technology (where 100% per year headcount growth is seen as irresponsible, because it requires lowering the hiring bar and becoming a trust-sparse, two-tier company that kills creativity) is moving out to places like Austin, Portland, and Madison where you can raise a family on a programmer's salary. I think that trend will continue.
Sure. If you have questions, please email me at michael.o.church at gmail.
I have a general policy of not disclosing employers or personal clients to the Internet but one of my front-runners is in TX. I'd be working in NYC 75+ percent of the time, but probably visiting.
I'd prefer to stay in NYC because my wife's job is here, and I have yet to visit Austin but I've heard it's great. I spent a year in Madison, which is probably like a smaller Austin with opposite weather (mild summers, harsh winters).
Insightful and mostly correct, but this is a false dichotomy.
There are a lot of people who want to write code and do the real work, but end up in the nonsense you described-- they spend 50+ percent of their time extorting their weaker peers (for credit and image enhancement) and slugging their equals-- because, as you said, they need to win on the credibility market before the company will trust them with real work.
Corporate software engineers are a defeated tribe who work for managers. The nightmare of being seriously underpaid while writing boring software with a boss who thinks he can do your job in half the time, even though he hasn't written a line of code in 10 years (or ever) and has forgotten (or never knew) how hard it is... well, that's the norm for most software engineers.
You're talking about the MacLeod Sociopaths (people who hack credibility markets and rape the system) and possibly the Clueless (middle-managers in the classic depiction; but most startups are Clueless even down to the bottom, because Losers get culled in tough cultures). But there are also the Technocrats (socially positive subset of the so-called, and misnamed, Sociopaths) who bludgeon the credibility market because they have to, but have a genuine desire to do the hard work-- writing code, clarifying ideas, creating. We're not all prima donnas.