There is a dichotomy in tech between makers and takers. Some people try to be a maker or a few years and can't do it for a number of reasons. There is a common set of flawed thinking that causes them to decide that programming is dead. One, their world view is different because they might have more wealth and have decided that there is an infinite pool of makers to exploit. This is obviously flawed. Companies go for years without finding the right person. When they do find someone, the person they settle on is often a faker. Two, they think robots build the constituent components that go into systems. Those memory chips are made by actual people. Just because they are 300x cheaper does not mean that it is unimportant to know how they work. Three, the status quo is the end state of technology and now is the exploitation phase where we use tech instead of make tech. Fourth, they think everything is done for cash money instead of building capabilities.
This guy also seems to think programmers are so mentally deficient they are unable communicate with the 'open source community' and that this is in some way how programmers discover new technologies. He also thinks people did not contribute code in the 1990s. Where did all this software come from? Typical business view of open source. Originally b-schools actually lectured that open source was anti-business like a trade union. Now I guess they think it is sort of a crutch for too-dumb-to-breathe programmers?
There are tons of people like this guy in tech. Coded a year or two and found out the were a taker and not a maker. Still pretending to be a maker though. Their idealized programmer befits a corporation. Colors in the lines and writes "perfect code" which has no meaning other than has been annointed by CR's as to make it seem owned by the company rather than the individual. Their ideal programmer is someone who doesn't need to understand the details, works as a unit in a team, and gathers all of their knowledge by "getting help" from the company. It is absolutely blasphemy in the corporate world to suggest that anyone synthesize his or her own ideas. That's of course ridiculous but in a business setting, the takers absolutely must discount creative thought of employees 100% which literally the "product" up for grabs in tech companies. Obviously if people knew the value and how to exploit their own original ideas they wouldn't need the fucking company or takers.
As far as math and algorithms, those are more important than ever. The reason you don't see people working on those is that those people are hidden from public and private view, jealously guarded by the takers who think they control them. Natural sciences did not fucking change since the 90's. A surface to air missile or high frequency trading algorithm or advanced simulation is as costly and valuable as ever. It's the author perception of what is valuable that has changed. He's looking for code monkeys to exploit who will "get help" and write "clean code" whatever the hell that means.
There are academic studies of pair programming. If I remember, it does obviously decrease software defects, but almost everyone that wants pair programming ignores the fact that you are now paying twice as much for the same software. The software is not 2x better. Obviously a programmer's salary is so minuscule to the business managers don't even factor this into their thinking. Usually they want pair programming for political reasons, i.e. no single person can ask for a raise due to being the most knowledgeable.
What do you mean "in return." Sounds like they want something for nothing. Your equity and voting rights are already yours. You are negotiating to stop working as an employee? You could do that tomorrow for signing nothing.
Last time I listened to that it was a panicked pilot asking Miami Center for a new heading because they were sending us through a thunderstorm. Not really comforting.
I thought managers would give up on talking about "microservices" about 2 years ago I thought they would latch onto "blockchain" and "crypto." The are still talking about "microservices" but just mean that they want each team to have their own hardware and communicate over the network. Look, this stuff is three decades old at least. When someone says "microservices" I know they are a clueless idiot manager. They can't explain what they are talking about in terms of build, deployment, versioning, networking, processes, etc. They try to enforce mistakes that explode performance. They say "monolith bad." The can't really say anything beyond that because they are faking it.
Don't like monoliths? here's a "microservice architecture" for you, Java servlet API, circa 1997. Everyone can package their micro-service into a WAR file and deploy it to a service environment. That's right, Companies were doing this shit in the 90's. It probably amazes these same people to know there were servers and computer networks in the 1980's as well. Http was not even the first popular protocol of its kind.
What I hate are these managers who pretend they know what they are talking about saying, "microservices", but they are fucking faking it every step of the way.
Oh, and to answer OP's question, no microservices are absolute shit for startups. You want all your code in the same address space so there is zero communication overhead between different parts of the code. Hosting small services all over the fucking place was only due to small hardware in the past. Today, we can get 128 core machines with multi-terabytes of RAM if it is needed. It becomes a problem of how do we deploy code independently in small units. Well, any platform that can hot swap code does just that.
Nothing. You have no bargaining power since you already work there and depend on your job for your livelihood. If you want more than your 0-2.5% raise then just go find another job.
This is 100% effective advice. You may not like it or want to leave a job you like, but is the only sure fire way to get paid your worth. Business “systems”[1] are desighed to keep you from getting paid market. These systems are so rigid that they would actually rather hire some else to replace you at great expense, than make an exception for the individual. The way to “hack” the system is to get a new job - the new place has no choice but to pay market rate if they want to hire you.
[1] examples
“Sorry, 5% is the max raise per year.”
“I’m sorry, you should feel good getting 6%, most everyone got less but we really value you.”
“Make the project successful and you’ll be rewarded.” (Hint, somebody will be rewarded for the late nights and weekends, but it won’t be you.)
In addition to the shit that is not politically correct to say, Amazon relies heavily on interns for production code and ops. Bezos has this view that the unskilled can get him 80% of what he wants and then a few top people can smooth out the rest. In reality the few top people never even come in contact with the kid that is trying to keep amazon.com running overnight. Successive waves of interns and SDE 1's fuck up the same shit over and over. Bezos is stupidly applying this same strategy at his space company.
This is complete nonsense, at least in my org. Interns are given projects that are as far from production code as possible. I'm sure there are managers out there who have done this but it does not extrapolate to the entire company and it's ridiculous to think that it's a company wide practice to make interns responsible for anything that would affect customers.
An Amazon manager, full of shit, once tried to tell a joke at a social gathering. He claimed that he and friends removed the engine from someone's car over lunch as a prank. This is the education level that some of them have. He literally didn't think people would know he was full of shit.
It would be technically possible to remove a car engine during lunch. However, that's not so much a prank as malicious damage. You'd also have to be a very skilled mechanic, familiar with that specific car, to do it that fast.
Honest question: education level or mental developmental level?
Mental health is enough of an epidemic that $company_with_exponential_scale is most definitely going to pick up a fair chunk of people with various issues, cognitive included.
Chances are this is even part of why the bar is a bit lower.
(Said as someone with mild high-functioning autism)
My point is Amazon has hired some managers that have really lowered the bar due to the environment they are from and people they are used to dealing with. Imagine someone from a place where you could tell a preposterous lie and 50% of people would believe you.
7x26 mill. I want metal parts. I guess gantry style router makes sense if you want to make cabinets or signs or something. I did not want to deal with sawdust and don't want to make anything out of plywood that I couldn't with a saw.
two devs and five months sounds like a waste of maybe $100k. Yes I would not touch perf if no one is complaining about it. On the other hand product "owners" routinely drive companies into bankruptcy.
This guy also seems to think programmers are so mentally deficient they are unable communicate with the 'open source community' and that this is in some way how programmers discover new technologies. He also thinks people did not contribute code in the 1990s. Where did all this software come from? Typical business view of open source. Originally b-schools actually lectured that open source was anti-business like a trade union. Now I guess they think it is sort of a crutch for too-dumb-to-breathe programmers?
There are tons of people like this guy in tech. Coded a year or two and found out the were a taker and not a maker. Still pretending to be a maker though. Their idealized programmer befits a corporation. Colors in the lines and writes "perfect code" which has no meaning other than has been annointed by CR's as to make it seem owned by the company rather than the individual. Their ideal programmer is someone who doesn't need to understand the details, works as a unit in a team, and gathers all of their knowledge by "getting help" from the company. It is absolutely blasphemy in the corporate world to suggest that anyone synthesize his or her own ideas. That's of course ridiculous but in a business setting, the takers absolutely must discount creative thought of employees 100% which literally the "product" up for grabs in tech companies. Obviously if people knew the value and how to exploit their own original ideas they wouldn't need the fucking company or takers.
As far as math and algorithms, those are more important than ever. The reason you don't see people working on those is that those people are hidden from public and private view, jealously guarded by the takers who think they control them. Natural sciences did not fucking change since the 90's. A surface to air missile or high frequency trading algorithm or advanced simulation is as costly and valuable as ever. It's the author perception of what is valuable that has changed. He's looking for code monkeys to exploit who will "get help" and write "clean code" whatever the hell that means.