[Nican]

I work at at a large corporation, and that is one balance that I am also constantly fighting and never seem to get it right. Having to provide a "Business justification"/OKRs for every technical feature has been soul draining experience, and while I can still make progress in making the product and drive the business forward, I have a hard time justifying spending the time in the little details that I would consider what makes a product really great.

I feel like the cycle turned one of making power point presentations of how the product has all the required features, but the overarching story and experience does not feel quite right. And I have been looking for advice on how to convey the importance to polish up the product.

[linspace]

We have been brainwashed into believing that engineers when left alone will obsess over technical details without business utility, which is something that can happen sometimes but that in my experience is rarely a problem. Quite frankly I think most SW products fail by being an obvious piece of crap, not because resources have been wasted on hard to monetize technical excellence, but the later are more talked about.

[dunkelheit]

You need someone on your team who figures out what is important for the users and prioritizes accordingly. The arrangement where the person who does this also codes a bit can work (especially when the team is small and the application domain is highly technical), but it doesn't happen automatically after you've banished all "pointy-haired bosses" from the project nor is anyone who is a good engineer automatically good at this thing also.

[bartread]

They're more talked about because a lot of us have worked places where we've invested months or years into developing products that... nobody bought or used. That gets pretty soul destroying too.

If that's not been your experience, lucky you, but I've witnessed and been involved first hand in my share of expensive failures that I don't particularly want to repeat.

[lozenge]

While some engineers can be like that, they can be a useful part of the team if enough others are more business needs driven.

[xoogler2004]

Truthfully? Prioritizing bottom up innovation has to oddly enough happen from the top down. Give middle and front line managers the responsibility and mandate to continually foster such a culture, and that’s what this is, culture. If you’re stuck in a company that doesn’t do this… and if you want to do amazing things, just be honest with yourself - is this the place for you?

[username90]

It is really hard to do though. Google tried to do it, but when you reward middle managers for innovation you get a lot of half baked projects soon to be shut down, like current Google. Or if you reward them for stability as Google is increasingly doing then innovation stops almost completely.

[enumjorge]

Didn’t Google pull it off in the beginning? If I remember correctly, some major successes like Google Earth came out of Google’s famous 20% policy. I’m not sure what changed since then. Maybe it’s not something that scales easily?

[bryanrasmussen]

It's true that there were some early notable 20% projects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20%25_Project#Notable_projects

[psyc]

Google Earth was acquired. Formerly Keyhole, IIRC.

[oblio]

Gmail was an acquisition, Google Maps was an acquisition, Android was an acquisition, Google Docs were an acquisition, I'm actually having a hard time thinking of a major Google project that's not an acquisition except for Google Search and Google Ads (and even there, I think they acquired DoubleClick early on and that boosted their ads business a lot).

[psyc]

All but gmail. That was created in house by Paul Buchheit.

[corobo]

No it isn't. But what are the options? Undiagnosed ADHD ruled out education which ruled out degrees which rules out most jobs, especially FAANG

Any place where smart people congregate have gatekeepers. Makes sense from their perspective, nobody wants to deal with other peoples problems, but we can't all just fall into early Googles haha

Anywhere desperate enough to hire based on skill doesn't have the capacity for fun projects

[xenihn]

what do you mean "especially FAANG"?

software engineering is the most forgiving middle-class industry when it comes to education credentials and pedigree, and FAANG is even more forgiving than the industry norm.

it's actually kind of amusing that the most desirable SWE jobs are the most lax when it comes to considering your background, while the least desirable SWE jobs are the most strict about requiring specific degrees

you can leetcode your way into most of the major tech companies that people actually want to work for without a degree.

is it unlikely? sure, but the important thing is that it's possible.

think of any other comfortable middle-class career, and how much gatekeeping there is. you can't do some equivalent of leetcode to become a doctor, or a lawyer, or a financial professional. you have to pay up and go to school, and it better be a good one. then maybe you'll get a job, but there's no guarantee

[maccard]

Smaller companies have far less stringent requirements and often don't require a degree.

> Any place where smart people congregate have gatekeepers.

Requiring a degree, especially at lower levels, isn't necessarily gatekeeping. I've been on the hiring side at 3 companies and every job listing we've made has had dozens of applicants for one role. Given the choice between two juniors who are otherwise equal(read: no experience), one with a (CS/engineering) degree and one without, why would I ever hire the latter?

[wccrawford]

When I find 2 juniors with no experience, I don't look at their education. I look at what they can do. They wouldn't be applying for the job if they couldn't code, so they had to have done some coding.

If neither can code, neither are getting hired anyhow. I never have to hire a body for that seat. I'm only interested in people who can do the job.

In the incredibly unlikely event that I've got 2 decent coders with no job experience to choose from, and I really can't tell whose code I like better, then I might look at their education.

But to be honest, in that situation, I'm likely to pick the self-taught coder over the one with the degree. All the best coders I know were self-taught, and there's a ton of self-teaching necessary to get up to speed on a new codebase, and also to learn new skills as we change technologies over time. I want someone who needs less hand-holding to learn.

I actually have a degree because I thought I needed one to get a job. (And an initial job-search seem to confirm that.) Later, I got my first job over someone that looked much better on paper because I had better actual skills. My next (aka current) job didn't care about my degree, either. I've been in the industry for about 17 years now, IIRC.

IMO, degrees are a crap-shoot. Some companies might require or prefer them, and others will do the opposite. Everyone should focus on what works best for them instead of catch-all advice like "Go to college".

[caskstrength]

> Given the choice between two juniors who are otherwise equal(read: no experience), one with a (CS/engineering) degree and one without, why would I ever hire the latter?

They are never really "otherwise equal" though. If they are, your interview process sucks.

[kreetx]

I think what the parent means is that the "want" to hire any of them is equal, both having their unique strengths and weaknesses in different areas.

You seem to imply that when an interview process doesn't suck then all hiring choices are a clear cut win for one of the candidates.

[caskstrength]

> I think what the parent means is that the "want" to hire any of them is equal, both having their unique strengths and weaknesses in different areas.

A hiring manager should know which skills the team currently needs.

> You seem to imply that when an interview process doesn't suck then all hiring choices are a clear cut win for one of the candidates.

Yes, this is exactly what I implied in my previous comment. Do one more round of interviews (asking different kind of questions), if you _really_ can't decide.

[praptak]

Not sure about other FAANG but Google requires a degree "or equivalent practical experience".

[psyc]

I find 95+% of companies of any size include the equivalent experience line as standard. I did not go to college, and I’ve worked at MS, FB, and had interview rounds at all the non-Netflix FAANGs.

[bquest2]

Oddly enough, I find the bottom up management style leads to OKR obsession (at scale). When too many smart people get in the room, they all start to have bright ideas and management is stuck trying to decipher which ones to actually implement.

The engineer who can come up with the biggest number, wins.

[atulatul]

Business justifications and soul draining experiences?

We follow SAFe agile and do our innovation work in IP sprint at the end of PI. Of course half of the IP sprint is dedicated to planning for the next PI. :-)

[auggierose]

I don't even want to know what all these acronyms mean.

[seanhunter]

You'll be AOK as long as the TCQ doesn't give you a TKO and the AETN doesn't overheat. If either of those happens you have to RTB for resupply.

[apatters]

Kudos on the ONI reference :)

[Cthulhu_]

wtf

[regularfry]

It's the agile consultant's way of saying "I plan to be spontaneous tomorrow."

[spaetzleesser]

The diagram here should give you a good idea of Safe Agile: https://www.scaledagileframework.com/

I will leave it up to you to form an opinion….

[karlding]

SAFe: Scaled Agile Framework

IP: Innovation and Planning

PI: Program Increment

[allo37]

I worked at a place that did this! Those week-long planning events were soul draining in their own special way...

[tiborsaas]

That's mind blowing how frustrating it can be. I had to come up with way to justify my product manager that implementing a loading spinner animation is essential. I failed.