[prepend]

Engineers choose who to work for.

We go through these cycles where “I have no idea how they make money but they keep paying me” stops working. There’s only so long you can work for a company that doesn’t have a viable business strategy.

I don’t expect engineers to fix the business strategy, but I expect them to consider it when choosing to join a company or to stay.

[TheDong]

> I don’t expect engineers to fix the business strategy, but I expect them to consider it when choosing to join a company or to stay.

For many companies, you cannot be qualified to make this determination.

Let's say I interview at a farming tech startup. They tell me that there are X million farms in america, and Y million have told them they want the crop software they're building. How do I make that determination of whether this is a viable business strategy? I'm not a farmer, I do not know enough farmers operating large farms to gather that data myself, I have to trust the company to represent this truthfully.

This even applies to things like CircleCI, where the product is something an engineer can understand well. I know what tools I as an individual developer use, but CircleCI is targeting enterprises, which I decidedly am not. I have no clue how some enterprise shop works. Again, I have to trust how the business present itself.

[prepend]

> For many companies, you cannot be qualified to make this determination.

It’s hard but useful. If you know this, you will be more successful whether you’re in engineering or sales or whatever.

I research every business and organization I do business with. It’s not perfect, but it’s part of my decision making process.

In CircleCI’s case, this would be me looking at the financials (hard because they are private), talking to some friends who use them, and, since I know some tech, trying the product.

It’s not wise to trust every business as every business has people thinking and saying they are great. It’s wise for an individual to assess these for themself. Companies success isn’t entirely random.

[tomnipotent]

This research helps you form a more informed opinion, but it doesn't make you any more qualified at predicting the companies future success potential. The people running these companies are barely in such a position, nonetheless the average person who thinks they're privy to prescient insight.

[prepend]

I’m not sure what you mean by qualified.

The research makes you more able to make an accurate decision. It helps improve your outcome.

I don’t think being qualified is important here. I think the important piece is to make a good decision to join a firm, or leave a firm.

There’s no perfect information, but every potential employee has the ability to improve their chances by researching important decisions like this.

I think a good litmus test is if I can’t answer “how do they make money” or “how will they make money” or “how do they create value,” then I don’t want to work for them.

[jamesfinlayson]

I do agree, though I think on the CircleCI front at least, it's had some not positive press on Hacker News this year (big price rises and or cutting the free tier from memory, plus the launch of GitHub actions).

But yeah, for industries we don't understand... hope it's publicly listed and has some insightful annual reports is probably the only option.

[sifar]

Instead of just giving up that you are not qualified to do so, you can at least do a preliminary analysis.

1) Follow the money - where is it coming from ? why would it keep coming in, what is needed ? where does it go ?

2) Competitors - who are they and what are they doing.

For your hypothetical farming tech company, find out about other farm tech companies who have similar product/market segment and look at their offerings, valuations and revenue model. If one does not have this reference point and doesn't have the domain knowledge, then one should not consider said opportunity unless one wants to gamble.

[edgyquant]

Engineers should be domain experts. This isn’t the case now but I imagine as more people become engineers, and more stuff leans towards automation, this will end up being the case