[nnq]

> hardware engineer

Software's different because you can hire-fast & fire-fast. Unless you have broken processes and incompetent people surrounding the new hire, you can easily determine if they're good enough. Hack, it's even worth it to hire 2 devs for everyone you need and fire the worst performing one in a few months (flip a coin if they're pretty equal and can't afford them both).

Easier to get fired, easier to get hired. Churn and less from your employer giving a f about your career development. Every industry has its patterns.

Actually, imo the worst thing you can do as a software tech-lead is to structure your processes and projects so that hire-fast-fire-fast is no longer viable, do things so that your software is more like hardware - this is a sure way to inevitably kill the company/department you work for while "doing good work"...

[square_usual]

> Hack, it's even worth it to hire 2 devs for everyone you need and fire the worst performing one in a few months (flip a coin if they're pretty equal and can't afford them both).

That is awful. Don't mess with other people's lives just because you can't make a decision.

[Tomis02]

> it's even worth it to hire 2 devs for everyone you need and fire the worst performing one in a few months (flip a coin if they're pretty equal and can't afford them both).

You're a bit of a piece of shit, aren't you? Playing with people's lives like you're a god.

[scarface74]

And no one says that about Netflix:

https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664

[Tomis02]

If they don't then they certainly should, it sounds like a toxic workplace.

What annoyed me about that slide was the comparison to a pro sports team, which shows how the "ultra-elite" Netflix lacks the critical thinking to see that this comparison doesn't hold.

For one, performance in a pro sports team is quantifiable. So-and-so player scored so many points vs so many tries, whereas the average is so and so. It's relatively easy to plot a normal distribution.

Not quite so easy for software developers. Companies like to say they can measure performance but we all know they can't. Not easy to compare someone who got lucky and worked on greenfield projects with someone who drew the short straw to maintain some legacy code. If the latter struggles, does this say anything about the former? Can you predict the performance had the roles been reversed? No.

So it always falls back to a mix of "how much does your manager likes you" and "how well you can argue you performed". Or if you're at Google then you can add "how well you chose and optimized metrics", regardless of whether you're measuring the right thing.