Any other engineers find it boring and frustrating to chase impact?
I am an engineer, what I enjoy is solving technically challenging problems. I don't really want to spend my time bothering with non-code solutions to your business problem, and I don't care how much money my code makes you. Just have a tech lead give me a challenging tech problem to solve or build for(WITH the necessary requirements) and I'll get it done. Simple. Personally I'm saddened to see how chasing impact has taken over all good tech companies, and how you basically HAVE to create value and take ownership in other ways if you want to be SDE-3 or higher. I would rather be a more technically competent, deliverer SDE (think someone who's extremely good at being an SDE-1). Climbing the SDE ladder is boring.
To be fair, companies are paying you to earn money, not solve tech
You have to find things to simplify and innovate in that impact only
Engineering is about solutions not tech. A problem can be solved using product, design, business or tech. Your job as a "coder" might be to just deal with technical problems but your job as an "engineer" is to figure out the quickest, cheapest and most impactful solutions which more often than not are not technical. Your job also includes saying NO to solutions proposed by others which might be very pleasing to tech, like a 6 month long project to build out the most robust async orchestrator but the impact of it might be minimal to none and hence are a waste no matter how hard it gets you.
I'm a software development engineer, not a product or business engineer. My role shouldn't have so much overlap with business and impact. IMO tech companies should have tech lead/other roles involved in these decisions and let SDEs just focus on writing software. Which is kind of what happens, but SDEs are increasingly expected to be business minded and chase impact, which I feel is out of scope.
@NoCodeNoLife You are thinking from a newbie perspective in tech world. Your job is to do everything to create a successful, impactful product. Also, many times, if you don’t understand the business and user requirement of the product, you will end up doing mistakes, or will end up creating something other than the expected product.
That is one reason why senior folks are paid more than the young ones- for the business and product understanding.
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Is attitude se gand fatt jayegi. You are the labor, do as the employer say. If they ask for impact, you deliver impact.
Bhai Amazon pe hai but didn't learn Single Responsibility Principle
Man realizes that for-profit companies only care about profit. *Pikachu face*
More specifically, I'm complaining about the impact this has had on the roles and responsibilities of an SDE.
An SDE of a for-profit company still an employee of a for profit company just like any other employee of the company. If a marketing professional likes to make "good" marketing content (idk a martin Scorcese equivalent of ads/marketing campaigns) but it doesn't get the company eye balls it they don't care.
A company with 1000 customers doesn't care if your app can scale to 10,000 users per minute in case of high load.
You're an SDE, as an SDE it's your job to turn business requirements into actual technical implementation that supports business.
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How do you envision career growth if one just implements ideas? At some point you need to take ownership and design solutions and that won't happen if you are unaware about the company's business.
Alternatively, you can stay SDE and keep getting proportional salary.
It should be a mix of both. But by reading your response in other comments you are sticking to the definition of sde. But the definition says you develop software, (A software engineer is a person who applies the engineering design process to design, develop, test, maintain, and evaluate computer software)
In the design part, you also have to include business logic without which there's no software it's just CRUD. And nowhere in the definition is it mentioned that you have to solve challenging problems.
Regarding impact, I don't see why that's an issue, if you are doing something that has no impact then it's probably a hobby.
I am actually the exact opposite, I get bored if What I'm developing will not have any users? There should be a question as to what value your work has, if it doesn't you're just doing whiteboard masturbation and nothing else.
I don't really care about how many users end up using my code, I merely care about the quality and complexity of the problem I'm solving (with software). It's more the intellectual exercise that I enjoy, rather than creating value for the business or helping anyone at all in the end. Business could definitely have a role that benefits from this responsibility as well.
Personal Enjoyment for complex problems of an SDE may not earn him the best money.
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human
Stealth
10 months ago
It feels like you just started out. It's okay to feel what you're feeling. I think you should focus on tech right now as you mentioned. Your perspective will change in the future.
"Those with a different perspective and priorities than the norm must be noobs! It could never be possible otherwise!"
human
Stealth
10 months ago
well, are you experienced?
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Sashaboi
Stealth
10 months ago
Leetcode boi when they get a job vibes.
You should go into research OP. Pays very less , but you'll solve complex af problems.
I want a high pay for executing a list of pre-planned coding tasks. Complexity is second concern.
Idk
Stealth
10 months ago
Sadly, chasing impact will always be there as companies grow big and management gets a bigger voice because it is all about money in the end for them. that is why good company culture and policies are necessary in these places. for ex. i think google has a 20% time where people can focus on their side projects during company time. More companies and team should focus on their core values while also driving profits.
will a company pay you 1 crore if you don't make them 10 crore profit?
🔔 impact sab jyada majdoori karwane ka scheme hai.
🔔 Exactly. Unless you have a % equity in the company, you aren't going to get 1 crore after making them 10 crore profit. You're more or less gonna be taking a fixed salary regardless of the profits your work brings.
Fullstacbaklol
Stealth
10 months ago
Don’t worry you will get reality check very soon.
I can understand your point.
But, any company you go, their org goal is always gonna align in shipping product to consumer faster (they won't be focusing on solving tech problems at the expense of not shipping features to customers)
Maybe find a balance, talk to your manager. You should be able to do both, but you can't do only what you want if your expectations aren't aligning with org.
If it's something strictly no go for you, then tech career isn't something you need to look at. Maybe you can find freelancing, consulting or hackathons to be more of your interest.
Freakrishna
Stealth
10 months ago
Start your company bro.
If I enjoyed the business side of things I wouldn't be making this post.
Kamlesh
Stealth
10 months ago
What use is solving technical problems if they have no real world impact?
I sympathise with you because I'm more of a researcher myself who's forced to work on stuff. But everyone has to be pragmatic at the end of the day. Businesses won't survive without impact, neither will society. Problem solving in a vacuum is useless, vain, narcissistic and selfish.
Also, you can still solve challenges that are impactful. Just that they might be harder to come by.
If you really want a challenge you can work on AI models from the ground up with a novel approach that differs from existing ones. Plenty of research happening there these days. Friend of mine is working on a compiler from scratch for LLMs for his PhD. Maybe you can look at doing masters or PhD's too.
I never mentioned solving problems that hbe business doesn't need. I just want an SDE1- type role which is strictly coding and where you can function and progress, man
Bakwasmaal
Stealth
10 months ago
You are “too low” in the food chain to “chase impact” /s
Ironically, that's what I would love to hear. While still being paid a high salary for simply executing pre-planned coding tasks.
We are hiring if you are interested and I am looking for a person who can solve problems.
@LichKing If serious, please send me an email at [email protected] and we can talk about this opportunity
Dcube
Stealth
10 months ago
This is like saying I'm a browser, I like surfing the internet. And for a long time people use you like that, but one day someone wants to block ads and now you have to come up with plugin support.
Later they want to open the file, so you do that.
In short, As you and tech matures, expectation and field of work increases
Tbf I feel somewhat similar but the reason might be different (?) I personally just like to build things without caring about if it creates any impact or not. Corporate isn't the place where this mentality would work, so just do your corporate job to earn the $$$ and create profit for your employer while you can solve "technically challenging problems" with your side projects, freelancing, opensource contributions, etc (it's what I do)
I don't see why corporate also cannot benefit from having strictly SD-focused roles. It's just that they think they will get more impact if they tie your career progression to impact created, so as one becomes senior, they are forced to chase impact and contribute out of pure coding.
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You are a labor. You will do what's told.
If you want independence start your own company.
nobody_90
Stealth
10 months ago
Simple, it's technology vs engineering. Most of the companies are hiring engineering folks to solve problems. Some giant do invest resources in technology but these roles are less. Others are universities for research etc
Came to this realisation after being a more tech focussed person. One way of becoming a better technology maker/ better SDE is putting time outside of working hours to make abstract items. Implemented a logging feature? Go develop a framework for everyone to do it..
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