a_square_peg

It's amusing to think about what the technical hiring process would have been like if it were to happen now.

"Need 10+ years of experience in nuclear detonation device."

I'm sure everyone has worked with engineers who might be 10x on their own but drag the team down being inflexible or insisting on solving the wrong problem.

I like the saying that "engineering is a team sport" and agree that the multiplier should be on the productivity of the entire team as mentioned in the article. The concept of whole being greater than the sum of its parts applies to both engineering systems and technical teams (which we'd probably say is a type of system on its own).

Not meaning to downplay the role of great engineers... I suppose the best scenario would be 10x engineers who can also help the rest of the team perform better.

This is fantastic to see - I've been thinking about the need for something like this for a while.

I think there are two markets for this and I feel like you are already addressing the homeowners. Have you reached out to utilities who are looking to shave peak loads with DER?

Wow - that was painful to read because I can relate so much. Thanks for sharing. Another aspect of such dysfunction is the diffusion of responsibility that comes with it. The stubborn people who pushed for a particular solution rarely suffer ill consequence because the decision was technically made as a group.

I think a functional engineering decision process is more akin to a veto process. Someone, say Olivia in your example, would be tasked with selecting the language for the job and submitting the technical rationale for it and the relevant authorities (e.g. CTO or product owner) would sign off on the decision. They will normally have the power to approve or reject but not to impose certain solution. In a traditional hardware engineering, this is how it's done, where an engineer submits a design and it needs to be approved by relevant subject matter experts in various domains, such as material, thermal, structure, safety etc.

I recommend this essay often to people, especially in a start up. When someone describes their organization as being "flat", it's often a red flag because it means that there are unwritten power structure that newer employees will likely be excluded from.

Thanks for sharing!

Woah - this is strange. This was posted yesterday but I see that the timestamp has changed so it's only 4 hours old now. The timestamps for the comments seem to have changed also.

You're absolutely right on both accounts - it did work to engage us and that I would rather that such posts don't get upvoted.

Thanks for your understanding. :)

Fair enough. I feel like I've been seeing a lot of questions on Reddit along this line that comes off as very low effort to generate engagements so that's really the reason behind my comment but I see how my response also comes off as snarky.

I think this is as meaningful as the question "what's the best food you've ever eaten?", which is to say, it's not a very meaningful question.

I never got to ask this as an interview question, but I always thought it would be interesting to ask - 'if you were wrong, would you want to know?' Not on any particular topic but in general. When I asked this in casual settings, I thought it was illuminating that no one gave a simple 'yes' as an answer.

Interesting to know - thanks for the info. Strange to think that something designed for 'known, understandable, repeatable work' got adopted by software development.