[phphphphp]

The thing you want, low stakes low effort programming, doesn’t really exist. The reason Google can survive building everything themselves — and thus giving you and many others endless code to write — is because they have exceptionally deep pockets and army’s of people.

Outside of Google-type companies, people write code to serve a direct business need which means the impressive software engineers are not the people who write good code but rather the software engineers who can use technology to benefit the business — which sometimes means writing code, but often does not.

If you go to a smaller company, even in a software engineering role, even as an individual contributor, expect to spend a lot less time having fun programming and a lot more time solving business problems.

You can absolutely coast in a low stakes environment at a smaller company, but don’t expect that being able to write Google-quality code will impress anyone. At a pragmatic company, people are more impressed by whatever benefits the bottom line. If you’re not a natural at the business side of things, it’ll be much more challenging to impress at a small company than it would be to impress at Google.

[schreiaj]

Having left a company that also rhymed with Frugal - this somewhat checks out. I do think smaller companies have more options for people to remain ICs somewhat longer. The catch is that ICs do somewhat more than write code.

A few months ago I was the engineer supporting a new ask from marketing, after listening to their requests and evaluating what tools we had I wrote exactly 0 lines of code and we launched on time and without issues in part because I figured out how to use the levers we'd build into existing systems to do what they needed. It's engineering work but not development work.

Outside FAANGs there's more focus on contributing to success than simply contributing LOC. (I left where I was in part because I felt I was penalized for finding efficient ways to do things rather than churning out LoC)

[mjr00]

Agreed with all this. The absolute best thing you can do as an engineer at a smaller company is not write code at all. Figure out how to solve problems using existing tools and processes. If you do have to write code, write the absolute simplest thing possible that solves the problem. That doesn't mean "low quality," because things like testing/CI/monitoring are still important. It just means you aren't building a system that needs to scale to 100 million concurrent users.

[quickthrower2]

Problem is you were hired to code, they will review your performance a large part on code, and if you want another engineering job they will want examples of when you coded X and test you on concepts in latest frameworks.

The role you are describing might be different to an engineer.

Sure a good engineer avoids unnecessary coding but having done that they have to be seen to do some necessary coding (or necessary work like architecture, security, devops etc.)

Most small companies think in job titles and roles as an anchor but you may wear other hats sure.

[DamnYuppie]

I have been a team lead, manager, Director of Engineering, VP of Engineering, and CTO at many small IT shops. Not once did I or my leadership care about lines of code. We cared about delivering features and solutions that drove revenue, in fact the few lines of code you could do it in the better!

[themerone]

I feel like I have a lot of fun programming to solve business problems.

The OP should not underestimate the value of having a voice in the room when business decisions are made. A lot of programmers have to implement systems specified by MBAs they never meet.

I hate meetings and prefer to spend all my time coding, but having a great working relationship with management allows me to steer my projects in a direction where I will enjoy building them.

You are dead right about code quality, nobody in the business world cares.

[eastbowl]

First post on HN after probably 10+ years of lurking. I'm not in the software space (corporate lawyer of 20+ years).

This post by phphphphp nails it so much in every area I've been exposed to, which is most areas of every company I've worked with (mostly as in-house counsel for 14 years), that I just had to chime in with support for the message.

Solving problems is the most valuable skill you can contribute. If you use it, you will be valued.