Software Engineer Dissatisfaction
I read a lot of my fellow software engineer's blogs. I read technical posts. I read books. I read message boards. I read. Today, while I was reading a rant about the poor practices of most of the recruitement / technical staffing agencies when it dawned on me. Maybe this is obvious to everyone else, but hear me out. Software engineers are always dissatisfied with something (everything?), and I think I know why.
We spend our entire lives trying to quantify, qualify and design systems to be efficient, functional and easy to work on. We can't help ourselves - we even do it to non-computer systems. Whenever we look at a system we instantly see how it could be better, or at least how we think it could be better. Why hasn't someone seen this before? We don't even work in that industry and we can see how it would be better, just based on common sense. This frustrates us.
We rebel against the "that's the way it is concept" because in our code we have ultimate control, things can be better if we are willing to put in the effort. Changes in code are much faster than changes in government, society or the recruitement process. Changes in our systems are effected at the speed of light while everyone else is waiting for the bus by the side of the road.
The uglier version of this sentiment is the root of why we talk down to other groups (salesmen anyone?). We see that their system is lacking, inefficient and driven by dogma. That's not even so much what is bothering us, it is more that people caught up in that kind of a system are unwilling to do anything about it. Why won't they fix it and make it easier for themselves, more efficient and more productive? I think we collectively look down at other groups because we think they are foolish for just grinding it out day after day and not trying to improve things.
We are a progress driven bunch. So, we reject anything that does not help us get somewhere new. Why do you think it is that this industry can produce an entirely new platform to work on every five years? We want something better. We keep trying. We keep working towards it, even if it's in small steps. Hence, anything that is not changing as rapidly is clearly not being worked on enough, perfected enough, improved enough. We are blessed to be dissatisfied with the status quo, but at the same time, we are constantly dissatisfied and grumbling about the lack of progress.
We spend our entire lives trying to quantify, qualify and design systems to be efficient, functional and easy to work on. We can't help ourselves - we even do it to non-computer systems. Whenever we look at a system we instantly see how it could be better, or at least how we think it could be better. Why hasn't someone seen this before? We don't even work in that industry and we can see how it would be better, just based on common sense. This frustrates us.
We rebel against the "that's the way it is concept" because in our code we have ultimate control, things can be better if we are willing to put in the effort. Changes in code are much faster than changes in government, society or the recruitement process. Changes in our systems are effected at the speed of light while everyone else is waiting for the bus by the side of the road.
The uglier version of this sentiment is the root of why we talk down to other groups (salesmen anyone?). We see that their system is lacking, inefficient and driven by dogma. That's not even so much what is bothering us, it is more that people caught up in that kind of a system are unwilling to do anything about it. Why won't they fix it and make it easier for themselves, more efficient and more productive? I think we collectively look down at other groups because we think they are foolish for just grinding it out day after day and not trying to improve things.
We are a progress driven bunch. So, we reject anything that does not help us get somewhere new. Why do you think it is that this industry can produce an entirely new platform to work on every five years? We want something better. We keep trying. We keep working towards it, even if it's in small steps. Hence, anything that is not changing as rapidly is clearly not being worked on enough, perfected enough, improved enough. We are blessed to be dissatisfied with the status quo, but at the same time, we are constantly dissatisfied and grumbling about the lack of progress.
posted by Josh at 2:04 AM
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