Software Engineer Like Qualities | Hacker News Reader

Software Engineer Like Qualities

pkdyn.mozello.site

34 pointsptskd19 comments

To me, this list describes a unicorn. Not surprising since the list was generated from job descriptions. These are desired software dev qualities, not actual observed ones.

It’s hard to recruit for these capabilities but you can see them over time in someone who’s on board.

And indeed, no person is optimal on all those dimensions, and people change over time. But just as in engineering, it’s a trade off (I need a material that is strong, light, machinable and within budget) so you prioritize the feature set you require.

Also you likely have a team, so you don’t need a unicorn but instead consider these the characteristics of the team. This is also like engineering: this part is not load bearing so I can optimize for lifetime/flexibility/cost and have the load bearing part be strong but heavy.

>You don't take "no" or "that'll never work" for an answer.

Wow, I think that's a very bad quality. It of course depends on the context and the person saying it, but generally speaking, when someone on my team looks into a potential approach and comes back saying it's not feasible, I will cross that one off and move to the next idea. Time is too short to not learn from other people's experience.

I once saw a Trader Joe's employee cut melon for the free food sample station (pre pandemic)...

She was cutting each melon in the same exact fashion, using the same set of minimal knife strokes. I walked up and asked her about it, and she explained the technique. I still think about that.

My list would be, in order of precedence:

* Objective

* Analytical

* Humble

* Focused

People who qualify according to that list are perceived as more intelligent irrespective of actual intelligence confirming selective biases from others.

Selective bias.. ugh.. why are you beating yourself up. All else equal, objective, analytical, and focused approach to a problem is going to generate better results.

Unless the problem involves people, in which case a healthy dose of the right emotions and some subjectivity can help the process along.

And behind every technical problem there is always a people problem.

People are data points awaiting anticipated reciprocity. Knowing that is the difference between empathy and sympathy.

yikes

I don't think its a matter of humility being valued for its own sake, but that behavior describable by the antonyms of humility are commonly perceived as correlating with poor judgement and a tendency to substitute their goals for those of the project.

hmm, without the humility they would just be an OAF.

though I'm not sure that people who are humble are perceived as more intelligent.

You cannot measure qualities like that. So it becomes subjective based on by whom they are measured.

According to Kahneman you can: ask standardised questions about experiences in a person's past that are indicative of these qualities, rate on a numeric scale, and aggregate. This is a much more stable measure than just ad hocing it.

Then hope they arent lying and hope your interview panel didnt adjust their credulity based upon whether they liked the candidate's skin color.

I never said it was perfect! Only better than the alternative, which is also affected by the problems you mention.

Even assuming the candidate isn't lying, this approach relies on great episodic memory, introspection and eloquence; qualities almost entirely unrelated to those you're actually looking for.

Sure. Any evaluation that involves interviewing a candidate is going to rely at least on "great introspection and eloquence". Apparently enough people have great episodic memory too.

Note that we're talking about Kahneman here. He actually went out and did this in real-world setting and measured the effect. It works. It's not just speculation.

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