RE: A step up, a step down

[david -dot- locke -at- amd -dot- com]

I've just run into too much egotism, which seems to be the norm here in
Austin. It wasn't in Houston. 

I've also seen too much disrespect for the other people that work in
software companies. One company I worked for staffed every position with a
programmer. The sales reps were programmers. The trainer was a programmer.
They went out of business quickly after selling only twelve units. They had
focused on technological differentiation. The products lacked any real
benefits particularly where the products where shells that still required a
lot of programming effort to make the product work. They were elegant in
their code to a fault. It was too complicated for the customer's programmers
to learn. 

I've been to too many interviews and heard the "You're not technical enough"
excuse that gets used to hire only young people or enforce the methodology
light, the base-less exclusionary, elegance is everything practices typical
of programmers coming out of school today. One of the companies where I got
that excuse was going to ship in two months. Six months later they were
still looking for a TW. They cared about their code more than they cared
about their product. The technology was wonderful. I'm sure it didn't help
that the VP of Dev wasn't happy when the VP of R&D told him to write up the
use cases that were found to be missing during my interview. 

The people I work for right now wouldn't raise the "technical enough"
objection. But, I work for a big company and I'm surrounded by people my
age. The young engineers get to express their technical virtuosity rather
than their people skills. And, when the time comes, the company will instill
the appropriate people skills. 

David


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