The biggest challenge the software engineering industry has today is not related to engineering.

It's related to teaching.

How can we train (very) junior engineers to get to a level where they are autonomous enough, in a reasonable timeframe? Can we do this in a remote setting?
All the while in the industry, the most experienced engineers are busy building the next framework that does an incrementally better job than before and adds another layer of complexity.

What if these people - naturally suited to teach - would be incentivized in doing so?
You don't need to look further than web development to see the contradiction.

Take React.

The API is ever-changing. Documentation is lacking. Onboarding is non-existent. Junior engineers are overwhelmed trying to learn the ever-changing React as their first frontend framework.
To be clear: I'm not blaming teams building stuff and moving things forward.

The blame is on companies failing to recognize they need to take some ownership of teaching and training their jr engineers. Choose frameworks not just for coolness, but onboarding experience.
"Will this problem ever be solved?"

Not across the industry. But already, some companies are spending a lot more time on training people. Creating environments where this training happens on the job with guidance and limiting impact (hello, microservices and micro frontends!)
Training doesn't just have to be the traditional setting. BUT it does need more experienced engineers spending time with less experienced folks.

Also, remember how Uber was made fun of 1,000s of microservices? That setup conveniently helped growing thousands of junior engineers.
One of the biggest stepbacks in the industry related to this from 10-20 years ago is how pairing and pair programming is no longer "cool".

It was one of the best ways more experienced engineers taught. Few things beat two people solving one problem, even today, learning-wise.
Finally, a quote from a junior web engineer:

"Feels like 20 years ago you needed to know HTML, CSS and a bit of JS to get started.

Today I need to know React (Hooks, Routes), Next, CSS processors, webpack, npm/yarn, JS/ES6, git, Typescript, testing, SEO, performance..."
And to close with an inconvenient truth:

For senior engineers, *not* teaching (too much) is sensible for keeping their skills in more demand, and their salaries higher.

There's a severe shortage of senior engineers. Once there will not be, compensation might not be this high.

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More from @GergelyOrosz

12 Dec
I cannot shake the similarities between the Dotcom Boom and web3:
- Huge hype
- A technology most people don’t understand
- Few practical/real-world use cases
- Incredible returns in the span of months (then: IPOs. Now: tokens)
- Lots of naysayers
- Celebs/influencers involved
For the Dotcom Boom, there was the Dotcom Bust.

It’s impossible to predict if this will follow: but I do predict a crypto winter. All crypto startups need hypergrowth in users/revenue to survive & success depends on mainstream adoption.

I expect some adoption: not mainstream.
Some characteristics are similar:

Dotcom Boom companies paid a *lot* more for employees, with the expectation of becoming millionaires in 6-18 months.

Same thing is driving the hiring success for web3 companies who are burning cash like there’s no tomorrow, paying above market:
Read 8 tweets
12 Dec
One very interesting trend I’m hearing: everyone is struggling to hire senior engineers, designers, tech leads.

Except.

Some well-funded web3 projects that are smashing it thanks to excitement, cash compensation + (token)upside.

Keen to learn more on this. (DMs also open)
A huge difference to early-stage startup hiring vs early-stage web3 hiring: equity. Startup equity is illiquid till exit (5-10 years)

web3 tokens are liquid as soon as they vest.

Solana founding employees 100x’d in a year, those joining in July already 10x’d. And they can sell!
How do some of these places hire? The opposite of big tech:

“They found me over Discord after they saw my open source contributions. Two chats with founders, no Leetcode. Offered 500% (!!) more than what I make, in USDC. I saw no reason to not accept and now I kinda like it.”
Read 5 tweets
10 Dec
Was invited to join one of the largest EU tech lead/CTO communities.

Looked through the list: ~95% of the members are men. I declined to join a club like this.

Here I am wondering if
1. No other CTO member noticed this
2. If they did: why did they not do anything about it?
Unfortunately, this club showcases one of the sad state of the EU tech leadership community.

I was once invited to an Ams CTO dinner. It was 30 of us, men. The organizers did not invite a single woman eng leader: yet they invited me, a simple engineering manager (not CTO)
The irony is there are plenty of women leaders, engineering managers.

Not a single club member invited them to this organization. Oh, did I mention how the organization's name rhymes to alphamale?
Read 4 tweets
29 Nov
A level-headed thread on web3 by @JoshWComeau. I fully agree with it. If you're thinking of learning web3 because this is all you hear: give it read.

Learn/build things you are interested in. If you *only* get into learning into web3 to make money: you might get disappointed.
As with any new technology, the earlier the days, the more the churn (meaning things change more rapidly).

E.g. if you got into rich web apps 8 years ago, you would've learned Knockout, Angular, Backbone, and many others... until today, where e.g. React, Vue, Next are prominent.
Are the best rich web app developers/frontend developers those who got in early enough to use Knockout and Backbone?

I'm not so sure. But what I do know is this:

If you're a software engineer who keeps learning, you'll have no problem picking up web3 / React / anything else.
Read 4 tweets
28 Nov
Coming from the person who built Uber in NYC from the ground up, I’m a bit surprised.

Uber as a concept has been successful because of the central entity that was always accountable. Customer support & fraud detection was always central and key to Uber gaining trust.
This “central accountability” is the reason no peer-to-peer Uber alternative was ever successful.

Did a driver rip you off? Uber: “here’s a refund.” Non-centralised version (P2P or web3): “Better luck next time”

Same with fraud, safety concerns, need for support…
Finally: regulation. As soon as you have people transported in noticeable numbers, government gets involved on health & safety grounds.

This is where it *could* get interesting. How would a government interact with a… DAO/coin facilitating this with no POC or local subsidiary?
Read 5 tweets
26 Nov
Time to rethink the live coding interview for any company wanting to hire women, from underrepresented groups and those with performance anxiety.

Don't take it from me. Take it from @cherthedev, @gurlcode, @erinfoox, and dozens of other engineers who shared the same in private.
Take it from @cherthedev. Read the whole thread and the responses:

Take it from @gurlcode and @erinfoox. Listen to the episode on how interviewing is like and the unnatural expectations live coding created: anchor.fm/single-threade…

A woman engineers shared: "They expressed it so much better than I could have ever. And I feel the same."
Read 8 tweets

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