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Comment by yrgulation | Hacker News Reader

Barking at the wrong tree. In my view, most experienced software engineers can self organise and self manage. Not saying everyone can or that everyone should do remote work but many that enjoy and prefer remote work can.

“This Viewpoint is intended for remote software engineers who are facing new challenges to thinking about routine, responsibility, and goal setting.”

This viewpoint should be intended for non technical managers as they are the ones who tend to clutter project delivery with time management tools and meetings. This applies to onsite work as well. I feel like there is a lot of effort put in educating devs on doing the right thing while management is educated in the opposite direction.

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I think its pretty clear there are problems on both sides. Managers need to learn the correct approach to facilitate acclimating their team to remote work but each individual also could improve how they work so that remote settings are more optimal. Nothing is so black and white.

Most software engineers are not experienced software engineers.

Most software engineers become experienced software engineers (enough to self-manage) very quickly in the right environment, I've found.

That's probably survivor's bias and not true at scale. "Right environment" is shaky - we should strive towards defining what makes an environment the "right" one and how can we increase the number of engineers that successfully acclimate to their new way of working.

I disagree (my anecdotal estimate would be around 1/3 do quickly, and 1/3 do "slowly" i.e. within 3-5 years), but those who do can still accelerate the process by reading documents like this, no? People who can self-teach still benefit from learning materials.

Most software environments are not the right environment.

Excellent point. Small details about your working environment, or lack of a routine, can hugely throw off your workday, and thus your productivity. You should generally pay attention to the lighting, noise level, and comfort of a work space. If you find yourself distracted by anything, you might consider changing your environment. Habitual repetition by way of thinking about your environment or making explicit choices can lead to the establishment of longer-term habits.

Someone should write an article with that advice in it...

100%, but the fix, then, is the environment. Not the developer.

Hmm, is that true? Just from a numbers perspective, it seems like there would be far more experienced software engineers than brand new ones.

There would be far more experienced software engineers than brand new ones if the field was stable, but it has been growing exponentially for years.

The answer to the original question depends on the rate of growth, how you define more experienced, etc. So it's not obviously true or false.

> it has been growing exponentially for years

Hardly. At best it can be described by a second-order differential equation. An experienced engineer would avoid the inappropriate term 'exponential' to describe the phenomenon. The rest is true.

You're missing one point though: experienced in team does not equate to experience in skills or being managed.

According to Robert Martin 50% of developers at any given time have less than 5 years of experience. [1]

[1] https://youtu.be/ecIWPzGEbFc?t=3055

From personal experience there is 1 "senior" person (>5 years ) that has to support ~6 freshers.

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