I feel like the author has wrapped up some sensible expectations for any senior developer and then soiled the content with a clickbait title.
* something to do with using a sticker printed on a transparency instead of some computer vision project.
I feel like the author has wrapped up some sensible expectations for any senior developer and then soiled the content with a clickbait title.
* something to do with using a sticker printed on a transparency instead of some computer vision project.
Sales people know this. They might not even know algebra, but if you make their commission/bonus dependent on a KPI that depends on multiple variables with multiple weightings, they will turn into Einstein overnight to optimize their behavior in order to maximize their bonus. You get what you measure.
Coming back to read this thread and found this gem, perfect example of why I wade threw all the detritus as above. Thanks!
The one time I've seen LOC taken seriously was when I've been asked to produce a LOC report as part of a due-diligence audit of a codebase prior to acquisition - that's largely because the line of code count of the codebase is indicative of what code IP auditing/security auditing/localization might ultimately wind up costing the acquiring company so they're using it to figure out entries in the liability column, not even valuing the codebase based on LOC count.
If that's not discouragement from listening to employee suggestions, I don't know what is.
I had a sales guy once tell me, as we got a new hardware product ready for manufacturing, that we'd figure out how to split the profits once we started shipping. He felt entitled, even though he'd only been with us for six months. He conveniently ignored the fact that this product had been in development for nearly ten years during which time I invested millions into R&D, marketing and building an infrastructure to support the product internationally. I let him go a few weeks after that comment. Wrong attitude and a complete lack of context.
I actually prefer to hire people who have had some entrepreneurial experience. They make far better employees. They are independent, hard working, no-bullshit on-mission because they get it. Pay them well and unleash them for great results.
1. How much independence did the OP show creating the Amazon hookup? Was it his/her baby? Did they push forgot to happen? Or were they just rotated onto the project and it came with the next item off the backlog?
2. Was the OP the only one to add value that year? Was the value they added more than others or about the same.
Without these two it's hard to see if they should realise they are just an employee and have no leverage or if they did get shafted.
I think we all need to have more P&L responsibility in our jobs - software is about creative capital and should be highly leveraged.
Maybe we should all go back to the partnership model?
To me context is very important. Most of the frustrating moments I've had with employees has been with sales people. They come at things from a very different perspective when compared to engimeers. Most business owners I know have the same "chills-down-my-back" reaction when asked about sales staff.
Anyhow, I had a sales guy demand commission for closing sales at the office. The problem is I was spending tens of thousands of dollars per month in marketing and hundreds of thousands per trade show to make that phone ring. The job of a sales person is to go turn over stones and find business. What he was doing was taking orders. You don't pay someone a salary and commission (in a small company) to sit idle while fish jump into the boat. You pay them to fish. Anyhow, that guy was gone too.
The best sales person I had was this 20-something girl who did not know the first thing about selling. I hired her to help at a tradeshow. I noticed she was great with customers and bery comfortable with technical material. I hired her as a sales person and trained her over several weeks. She easily made twice the salary of the best sales person I had up to that point. Changed her life and gained an absolute gem of a team member.
Perhaps the real point here is that that's what you want to become: so good that you cannot be ignored. Business owners or management love to throw money lavishly at things and people who produce results. Not one time "got lucky" results but consistent dedication to the cause.
"push for it to happen" -> "push forgot to happen". It's like being whipped with a Markov chain.
My personal feeling is that anyone drawn to sales has a belief that they can magically make the world / other people / their mother do what they want simply by using the right words / form of persuasion. Its a belief in magic instead of science and it should not be a valuable skill in the 21C. Calling it a Reality Distortion Field is not improving the situation.
It was an intense time with me cutting holidays short and very long days. I wasn't expecting a "cut" of the profits but it was very much about being recognised for the hard work I put in and that it was a good piece of work.
I felt I had gone above and beyond for 3-4months. I wasn't bitter. I just realised that after the derisory pay-rise, that it was time to leave.
I still miss that place. It was full of good people (some are close friends) and I did some really cool stuff that made a massive difference to the operation of the company. Would I go back? Yes as a consultant/contractor but not as a permie. I know my worth.
After that I joined an immensely challenging start-up which unfortunately failed and am now consulting and looking to bootstrap an idea in the summer ;)
In general, though, I'd say business owners (and good managers) are hungry for good employees who "get it". And, if they are smart, they'll recognize these employees.
But you also don't want one-hit-wonders. What you are after are people dedicated to the long term mission. Anyone can bust ass for a few months, get a raise and then proceed to rest on their laurels.
Recognition for good people often comes in the way of raises and promotions over time. You might invest a few years at a company doing good work and contributing value yet not necessarily see much in the way of praise and adoration. And then, one day, you get a promotion. Because people are watching and paying attention. That's the way it works in some places.
I've spent much of my career doing close to nothing, with pay increasing each year. Many businesses seem to recognize it and reward it. I've never had an employer who measured contributions by LoC (though unless you've proven yourself of course there is some measure of productivity, such as stories completed, etc. Everyone knows what everyone else did).
As stated in the root of this thread, this article completely misses the point of the 10x engineer, to the point of almost parody. The 10x engineer is the one who builds the tiny core of an app that makes everything else easily possible. Or who moves the whole team from one derlict, no longer useful technology to another. And so on. It has never, ever, been "the guy who spits out 10x the lines of code".
I've worked at my fair share of companies, and not one of them based raises/bonuses (for engineers) on any kind of quantifiable metric or KPI. It basically always comes down to whether your boss likes you, or how much self-promotion you're doing, or what phase the moon is currently in, or some other wizardry. It's never a concrete metric that you can track your progress against throughout the year and know if you're going to succeed or not.
One of the questions I ask in every interview is: Is my compensation entirely dependent on my job performance, and if so, what metrics are used to evaluate my performance. For some reason, nobody seems to have a good answer for that seemingly simple question. Sometimes they'll say "yea it's performance based", but when you press for what they're measuring, you won't get any information. So I'll take the job, and a year later annual review time comes, and lo and behold, it's "Here's your [good|bad|neutral] (it doesn't matter) performance review and your 1.5% cost-of-living increase!" Very demoralizing. Show me a place with clear, transparent, quantifiable performance metrics, and I'll beat a path to your door.