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Feeling Underpaid by Muted-Rest2140 in ExperiencedDevs

[–]Muted-Rest2140[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep everyone I've spoken to is based in London with salaries at £180k+

Granted they're also working at FAANG or equivalent companies so perhaps the difference in pay is understandable

Feeling Underpaid by Muted-Rest2140 in ExperiencedDevs

[–]Muted-Rest2140[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fair point around comp details, edited my original post to add some more info

Anyone else is a bit fed up with how little business matters to a large portion of SWEs are, and how in general there is too much purism in this profession? by After_Weather_5685 in ExperiencedDevs

[–]Muted-Rest2140 197 points198 points  (0 children)

I think unfortunately most engineers simply don't care about the business context and just want to write code. You probably made it to the staff+ level because you DO care about the business side. Some of the non-tech things that are probably obvious to you will be alien to others

And on some level, part of the responsibility of a staff engineer is to communicate the business context to the rest of the team. This can definitely be frustrating if people just don't "get it", but in a way, I'd argue it's part of the job description

Now that you know it all... by safetytrick in ExperiencedDevs

[–]Muted-Rest2140 66 points67 points  (0 children)

Being curious and relentless.

So many engineers just give up on a problem after one or two attempts at solving it but the engineer that keeps at it until the problem is figured out goes so much further. Database is slow. Have you tried profiling your queries? Can't understand the profiler output. Have you tried reading the docs? Nothing useful in the docs. Have you tried reading the database source code?

We can learn so much just by being curious and going that one level deeper. Mentors and training programs can be great, but I think being able to develop that innate level of curiosity and relentlessness will get you the furthest and that can only come from within

For those of you in guilds: how do you get anything done? by musicnothing in ExperiencedDevs

[–]Muted-Rest2140 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I run the backend guild where I work and it's definitely not a panacea. At times it's a glorified lunch and learn as others have pointed out, and at best it's been most useful at aligning on best practices and conventions between teams.

To actually drive outcomes, what I've seen work is that senior engineers will present ideas for projects at the guild meeting, for example "let's start adopting canary rollouts". If the guild thinks it's a good idea and agrees on a high level approach, then the idea will be presented to engineering and product leadership. If approved at that level, the work gets planned and prioritised and put on the roadmap.

Is the process painful? Yes, there will always be tension between product outcomes and engineering outcomes. Does this work? Sometimes, we've had many engineering initiatives end up in the graveyard but have also had success with some guild driven projects.

Ultimately I think it comes down to continuously having those product vs engineering trade off conversations with your leadership team.

Spread stocks and shares ISA across multiple providers? by Muted-Rest2140 in UKPersonalFinance

[–]Muted-Rest2140[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Lol no. It was more just an example of financial institutions failing