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Comment by eithed | Hacker News Reader

I worked for 7 years in a place where my technical insight slowly turned into questioning my decisions and expertise (this was after being 3 years in tech lead and 2 years in staff engineer role). Sometimes the solution is just to walk away

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Yeah that's a painful process, as I know from experience. What do you think is the reason for the gradual shift?

While I can't say that I observe that kind of radical shift for myself, one of the reasons I still can see something similar is AI development.

Basically manager asks me something and asks AI something.

I'm not always using so-called "common wisdom". I might decide to use library of framework that AI won't suggest. I might use technology that AI considers too old.

For example I suggested to write small Windows helper program with C, because it needs access to WinAPI; I know C very well; and we need to support old Windows versions back to Vista at least, preferably back to Windows XP. However AI suggest using Rust, because Rust is, well, today's hotness. It doesn't really care that I know very little of Rust, it doesn't really care that I would need to jump through certain hoops to build Rust on old Windows (if it's ever possible).

So in the end I suggest to use something that I can build and I have confidence in. AI suggests something that most internet texts written by passionate developers talk about.

But manager probably have doubts in me, because I'm not world-level trillion-dollar-worth celebrity, I'm just some grumpy old developer, so he might question my expertise using AI.

Maybe he's even right, who knows.

It seems like a quote clear cut case?

You mention the tradeoffs between rust. Including the high level of uncertainty and increased lead time as you need to learn the language.

The manager, now having that information, can insist on using rust, and you get er great opportunity to learn rust. Now being totally off the hook, even if the project fails, as you mentioned the risks.

I think when you are new with good ideas, you are judged against average. If you are above average, you are listened to.

As years pass, you are judged against the standard you set, and if you do not keep raising this standard, you start being seen as average, even if you are performing the same when you joined.

I've seen this play out many, many times.

When an incompetent person is hired, even if issues are acknowledged, if they somehow stay, the expectations from them will be set to their level. The feedback will stop as if you complain about same issues or same person's work every time, people will start seeing this as a you problem. Everyone quietly avoids this, so the person stays.

When a competent person is hired, it plays out the same. After 3/5/10 years, you are getting the same recognition and rewards as the incompetent person as long as you both maintain your competency.

However, I've seen (very few) people who consistently raised their own standards and improved their impact and they've climbed quickly.

I've seen people lowering their own standards and they were quickly flagged as under-performers, even if their reduced impact was still above average.

I agree with this summary to a degree. Additional problem arises when you simply cannot raise the standard as you lack political influence to do so. As it is said in the article - sometimes companies are comfortable with status quo, irregardless of the problems, whether they are technical or not. Another issue stems when product, rather than looking at tech as a partner in pursuit of common goal starts to see it as an underling.

“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown."

- Luke 4:24

It's why people often trust consultants over the people inside the organization. It's why people often want to elect new leaders even if the current leaders are doing a decent job.

The baby almost always gets thrown out with the bath water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_throw_the_baby_out_with_...

I find this hilarious given that I've experienced it from both viewpoints - 1. consultant implemented their half baked solution that continued to bite us for my tenure and imo was completely unmaintainable; how were they able to convince leadership about their ideas - sometimes it's just snake oil 2. In new place am preaching certain things to people that do listen and seem to want to do it - it makes me a bit uncomfortable and to a degree scary in how easily you can find acolytes. They do validate my suggestions, ask questions and most importantly - think, so I am hopeful that I won't turn out to be a false prophet

I've also played both roles myself at times. I've been the wise consultant. And I've been the Cassandra that nobody would listen to. My wisdom was never as good as presumed when I was the consultant. And my wisdom was far better than was assumed when I as the Cassandra.

The prevalent pattern I can see is making things mundane. Capabilities that you are enabling are no longer something that only you could do, was you expertise there at all? Things running smoothly is something that is granted. Doing your job well becomes unexceptional

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