Hacker News Reader

Comment by dsr_ | Hacker News Reader

" a customer recently complain about a bug, which we fixed in a few hours, but the next week they had to complain about the bug again because it was back."

Don't feel bad about the bug. Bugs happen. But the company should feel bad about the process that let it come back.

Can the process be fixed? That should be top priority.

View on HN

We have blameless postmortems after major incidents like "the app is completely down." The action items aren't always followed, even easy ones like "new PRs should not use X function, they should instead use Y function." Two days later a PR will be approved and merged that uses X function. So then I'll make a meeting a month later saying "here are all the action items from the last couple postmortems that I don't think we're following" and everyone will be in full agreement again, but still nothing changed.

So given that, I don't feel very comfortable pushing hard for any process changes. I already feel like I'm bordering on annoying.

Oh. OK, time for a new job with a company that can learn from mistakes.

(Alternatively. you can try to be the force that turns this ship around -- but I don't recommend it.)

Look for a different job with a better culture.

The action item isn't easy if everyone has to individually remember it going forward. An easy action item would be to add a lint rule to prevent the X function from getting checked in, even if the author never heard of this rule before.

Well, I guess your options are:

* Trying to figure out a way to improve processes at your current job. (There might be a way that isn't or doesn't feel like "pushing hard". OR, your current job might just be completely uninterested and this is never going to happen).

* Finding a new job. (The job market is as good for software engineers right now as it ever has been for anyone ever, pretty much)

* Deciding to live with it

Reply on news.ycombinator.com