07 April 2008

Why do good engineers work for bad companies?

Time for *gasp* another post again. I've had tons of things to blog about, yet none I have written down. But now it's time again. The basic idea is that the majority of developers out there seem to be quite frankly bad engineers. They don't care about neither the art nor the product. They are there for the money and honestly could care less. It is not them that I am going to discuss today, I will leave them be to fend for themselves. The group I am interested in is the good engineers. So what the heck do I think is a good engineer then? Let's see.

A good engineer cares about the art, about state of the art, and balances that with the product to find a sweet spot where you are proud of what you have achieved. A good product by good engineering. It has a certain beauty, a certain simplicity and ingenuity. It serves a purpose and does it well. All good engineers have an idea of this, even if it differs from person to person exactly how to achieve it and what the end result should be. So let's focus on these good engineers, those who make a difference.

Next let's define, for the sake of my ramblings, a bad company. A bad company is led by those who do not know nor understand the product they are making. They are very much in it for the money. They might be bad, they might pay good, but they do not care about what the engineers think. More often than not the care more about getting corporate jets, mistresses, reenacting German dungeon porn, living in luxury, shorting schedules, make wild claims, change the product, and put their noses where they do not belong. Simple a pretty crappy environment for a good engineer.

So why do these good engineers work at companies that really only destroys the chances to make great products? We all know the companies, so I won't start to enumerate the worst cases even. I have a few theories. One is the money/laziness theory. They stay because they are good engineers, but lazy. They stay for the money and they don't want to move. They might be bad at getting connections to get new jobs. Basically they need a kick in the butt to vacate the bad company and move on.

Next we have the ones that care about the product and wants to make it great. They are filled with ideas and good engineering principles and knows how to do the right thing™. Management on the other hand do not and constantly tries to save a quick buck and ends up with a much worse product. They have impossible short schedules and requirements from hell. The engineer on the other hand really want the product to be great, so they stay and fights management and turns more and more bitter and jaded. This category of engineers needs to realize that things are never going to change for the better at a company like this, or the chances of it happening are very slim. For every Apple rising out of the ashes there are tons of companies that do not. Again these engineers need to jump ship and move on!

Those are my two, to date, theories. I am sure there are other theories and I am very interested in them, so you have to tell me:)

Oh, and I almost forgot something, you have to make money after you have left the bad company. So how to find a good company? Really research what the board of directors is up to, make sure the company really knows what they are doing, talk to their engineers to see if they are jaded and bitter or energetic and hopeful. Don't sell yourself to a bad company again!

The other option (besides your parents basement, cold pizza, and the lamest computer game on earth all day) is to have an idea you believe in and start your own business, and only hire good engineers (leave the bad ones to the bad companies...). Probably harder, but the rewards all the sweeter!

Good luck all good engineers and let the comments in :)

62 comments:

John Gustafsson said...

I've gotten several comments/questions about this being about some particular company. That is not the case, it's really about a lot of companies all over the world. The initial spark came from an open letter published at Engadget.

Anonymous said...

Interestign article:) I think that this might be the reason why many good developers stay.

Jens

Unknown said...

Interesting topic.

A third category I'm thinking of are the ones that don't know how good they are. They might know that they are among the best engineers at the current company, but since they haven't been working for many (or even any) other companies before, they don't have much to compare with.

Just a thought :)

John Gustafsson said...

Ah. That makes sense. They either don't know how good they are, or they feel very uncertain about it. I think that it is a good experience to get to meet people from many different companies. I've met both the good and the bad and certain days I am sure I'm the biggest idiot around (meeting really clever people make you feel that way), while others make me feel like the world consists of 99% bad developers.

But one can even make a broader statement, good developers stay because they don't know better and think that this is the way it always is.

Corrupted Lover said...

Hey John,

Please pardon my intrusion, and changing the topic. In this post, you mentioned that you seem to have tons of things to blog about, but you don't write them down. If you're like me, the inspiration for a new blog post always comes to mind when I'm miles from my computer, and it's neither the time nor the place to jot down a blog entry on paper.

I sprung for a pocket size digital voice recorder that I can carry around with me, so the next time I get an inspiration for a new blog post, I can do a quick voice recording of my thoughts, and listen to it when I get back to my blog. Perhaps this could work for you also.

I have a question for you, John. I see that your blog title is The Boolean. I'm hoping that you know a lot about Boolean. I'm hoping you can tell me what Boolean has to do with publishing to a blog, such as Blogger.

I'm asking this because I use Scribefire for Firefox, which is a blogging tool that allows me to blog from my Firefox browser, from any web page, and publish it later. One option that Scribefire gives me is the option to "use Boolean for Publish". I have no idea what they mean by that. I was hoping you could enlighten me a bit.

Thank you
Stephen

John Gustafsson said...

Hi there Stephen :)

The real reason why I don't post as much as I should is simply a combination of too much going in in my life / brain and ending up doing other things, more and less meaningful, other than blogging. Maybe I'll blog more in the future, we'll see. I've got many more things up there above my shoulders to blog about :)

The boolean is kind of a "oh damn I need to write something" last minute in joke that only I know myself. Even though people who know me well can figure it out if they try really hard:) It's simply that I tend to often have very black and white views on things, even though I am getting better and better at nuances for every year that goes.

So I am sorry to tell you that I am not affiliated why anything else called Boolean. I am afraid that I will have to leave you to the harsh cold mistress known as www.google.com, good luck in your search!

Anonymous said...

kindspirit:

The option you are referring to is an advanced option in Scribefire, that is only relevant when posting to blogs that have more than two "Published-statuses".

Normally a blog post is either published or unpublished, but Wordpress for instance allows posts to be "Published", "Pending Review" or "Unpublished".

When there are only two options it's sufficient to just use a boolean value for the "published"-setting when posting, but if more control is needed, a different datatype must be used.

Sorry if I'm unclear, but as I said, it's an advanced option, and if you didn't understand my explaination, you're probably best leaving it as-is :)

Corrupted Lover said...

Shinmai,

I'm sorry for such a late late reply. I've been away for a long while. Anyways, Thank you for your information. It's very helpful to me. And thank you John, for replying to my response as well :)

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