In an org with thousands of software engineers, shouldn’t most of them be writing code?
Feels like everyone wants to be the exception, and just assumes “someone else” should do actual hands-on work
Feels like everyone wants to be the exception, and just assumes “someone else” should do actual hands-on work
The job of software engineers is to design and implement solutions to business problems with technology. The job of a software engineer is not merely "write code." Writing code will almost certainly be the smallest percentage of a skilled engineer's time. They need to be spending their time thinking and designing.
We're talking about solving extreme scaling problems at extreme scales here, not churning out crud apps at a local freelance studio.
Senior/Staff's Perspective: "I was hired to solve business problems, sometimes I write code"
;-)
I've never suggested someone should be fired if they can't produce code snippets. But it's fair to expect people who don't actively code (when they're not managers or have a non-coding title) to have a reason they're not coding. And there are many perfectly great reasons, especially for very senior engineers. But if someone isn't coding and they're not actually doing anything else of particular value... well, they're not valuable engineers.
Code is not the single-and-only decider of an engineer's contributions, but I reject the notion that it can't be a starting filter to evaluate someone's contributions, and the assessment to proceed from there.
But while engineers obviously have to spend time thinking and designing, it’s the code that does the actual work and embodies the value of the engineer’s plans. I simply fail to see how a software org could exist where only a small minority of engineers are coding. Makes no sense to me, sorry.
In an org of that size, there's much work just in stopping other people writing really bad code.
> Feels like everyone wants to be the exception
Right. You can easily write 10x the number of lines than an average engineer and create negative value for the product.