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Comment by austin-cheney | Hacker News Reader

What would you suggest instead?

Rather than expressing frustration at the less experienced developers you are working with... as a hiring manager I would prefer to hear something more constructive, like that you are able to understand the common pitfalls a team of less experienced developers are likely to run into and proactively lead/wrangle/herd them towards success.

Stop the madness. If you are the manager then it is up to you to set the pace, tone, and direction of the team. If you are in charge then take charge. Don’t pawn that off on some powerless senior developer and cry about optimism, because you are setting that senior developer up as a center of animosity for junior developers who need to redirect attention away from their own failures.

If you want a strong team that optimistically works well together then set supremely high standards with risk of failure. When risk of failure to deliver becomes probable spread the tragedy across all team members. This is when your senior developers will step up to guide the juniors. Failure to do so results in whiners who throw each other under the bus.

Since you asked, based solely on your earlier comment, I would suggest being more open, humble, and respectful. I recognize the downsides of relying on frameworks, but I can also see good reasons for using them. I wouldn't refer to colleagues using frameworks the way you did.

Why wouldn’t you call it as you see it? When you have lost your job and are no longer seeking that employment you can afford to become a bit more honest. Fearing that someone likely under qualified for their job might be offended by the mere mention of such sounds like a first world problem.

They're just telling you how you're coming across in these comments. You sound a tad resentful and like someone who maybe has a bit of chip on his shoulder with respect to more junior Java engineers. If that's how you want to come across (because you feel that's your authentic self, or feel you're telling it like it is), then no change is needed. If you feel that doesn't reflect who you truly are and you would like to come across differently, you may wish to course correct with how you present your Java dev years.

I'm not trying to criticize you. You don't sound like a bad person or anything. But you do sound a bit resentful and dismissive of more junior engineers and their desire to use Java frameworks.

I am extremely resentful. I wasted 15 years in a line of work stuffed with mostly unqualified entitled people that whine about unnecessary conveniences instead of maturing to any true potential. The blame can be directed in any direction, but it’s water under the bridge and I have moved on.

Look, software has a very real people problem. Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead) thought as much when he wrote Office Space. If you to see how widely this is viewed by other senior developers read the comments in this other recent thread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38958789

I actually don't disagree with anything you're saying. I've gone through my own periods of frustration similar to what you describe. I was never a Java engineer, but I followed the evolution of your field (going back to the advent of Java in the 90s) because some of my work was adjacent, so I am generally aware of what you're talking about. When I wrote the comment yesterday, I was thinking "this person is asking for feedback but I'm not sure if he's really hearing it." When I re-read my comment today, I wonder if it's sort of slyly hostile or argumentative, and think perhaps I should not have posted it. I'm sorry if I attacked you unwittingly due to my own insecurities or frustrations. As I said yesterday, you really don't sound like a bad or mean spirited person, but I do believe that the way you were writing your posts yesterday might cause some people to interpret you that way. I think that was what I was hoping to convey.

Yes, the subject of declining quality of tech workers is an interesting one. I first noticed it around 2014, but I think the root of it may go back into the late 2000s. It seems like a lot of people in that era started hearing that they should major in CS because it's a high paying field, and they took that advice regardless of whether they really had any inherent interest in computing or the magic of computers. This resulted in more and more people coming into the industry who seemed like they didn't quite fit, although as a manager you want to welcome everyone on your team and get them to be their most productive, so obviously you don't want to discourage anyone. I think it may be related to what you're talking about.

On the other hand, I would say that with each new generation that comes up, they are confronting a new world with increasingly high level tools, and I don't think we should disparage these folks. It isn't like I grew up on Charles Babbage's Difference Engine; I just took the field as it was at the time I happened to be a teenager.

Like in your situation, you probably started with Java when frameworks like Spring did not exist yet or were not widely used. But as those things evolved and got better, it's what the newer people would have been taught or done in previous jobs, so I don't really buy that that in and of itself makes them lesser engineers. They may just be doing the most reasonable thing with the tools that were popular at the time that they learned. Is it possible you are conflating some specific not-so-great engineers with whom you worked, with the broader trend in that period (and today) toward increasingly high level constructs as the underlying silicon gets faster and more powerful? Not sure, just offering it to you as an idea.

I'm really sorry that you wasted 15 years! I've wasted a lot of my time on the earth as well, and I think most people feel that way about some period in their life. But it sounds like you came into some ideas and insights that you wouldn't have otherwise had, even if the experience itself was frustrating. Maybe that's just the reality of life?

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