IT/Software career thread: Invert binary trees for dollars.

TJT said:

I'll post an example of what some of mine do later, but it isn't like a super intelligent/fancy report. I spent a few hours creating them in SSRS and called it good. If I actually get the keys to the kingdom and can directly query our databases I'll start using Tableau because its prettier. It just shows the milestones/defects/performance results/test results with a red/yellow/green indicator calculation for all of it. When they email out via SharePoint that's when the team can act on them if there's failures and defects and shit.

Our enterprise tools team doesn't let you do that though. But you can still query through the API and they're too dumb to realize that. My local DB I designed for this is much more streamlined than the 3 different systems I would have to design queries to get what I currently have. But I don't want to generate an pseudo-OLAP like I'm doing now if I don't have to in the future.

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We're expected to dig into the failures a bit before opening bugs for devs. It's probably my biggest gripe about this job. How am I supposed to make any efficient headway on a bug from a codebase I never work in? So most of the time we just manually open bugs and paste in the information we think might be relevant. It's frustrating, boring, and my time could be spent better doing other stuff.

TJT said:

Deathwing

I mean, this is nothing too fancy, I didn't spend a ton of time on this part. But my tool strips out all of this data out of our various data management systems and aggregates them like so. The SharePoint feature emails it out to everyone on a team when configured at a specific time (subscription) so it creates a lot of efficiency. That way Test/Dev can get right to the defects without reviewing all results too much.

Some logic in calculates all the values, red/green and hides null fields and just generates them as needed dynamically.

Spoiler

View attachment 118983

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Yeah, that's part of the problem. Devs want bugs filed or for us to update baselines if we think the product behavior change is good or not. I'd much prefer them to review the results themselves but their time is constrained as it is. Everyone's bug count, including my own, is going up, not down.

Awesome TJT , best kind of exposure & great example to use *nicely* on a cv or interview.
Corporate bureaucracy I always found shitty to deal with as the management is usually not tech savvy. It leads to disfunctional levels of retardedness, and even worse nightmare scenarios for everyone when people running homebrew systems quit. Those are often best places to exploit for contractors, depressingly easy money . In my experince things got really boring and then depressing though.

I started to really like working again only when I moved from business/finance to more technical IT focused shops. They seem to promote more management and engineers from within the ranks of technical people & for me that was the key difference to make a happy IT workplace.

So much less risk of running into the worst kinds of fools: those management idiots who have zero domain knowledge and experience but are dead certain of being right, thinking they know enough to not even bother listening to anyone. Never experienced an example quite as ridiculous as @Cad s though lol.

Noodleface said:

Ah yes, the classic "haha idiot easily replaceable by your own tool " without realizing what you actually have.

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Nice phrasing. We have to fight against this as we get older.

Deathwing this is why a few weeks back I referred to a lot of programming work as dumb automation. IT moves fast, and is not slowing down at all. It is easy to get trapped being an expert in knowledge that becomes very obsolete very fast. Many industries in IT are just not worthwhile investing much time acquiriing knowledge and experience in. The writing is already on the wall for many *easier* programming & development jobs, and this will become very apparent as automated learning software industry matures.

After a problem is solved once, it does not and should not require solving from scratch again except as a teaching method. Applied? Yes. Re-solved? No. We would like the application of the solution to be as automated as possible..... dumb automation unless you keep learning.

Unfortunately businesses are encouraged to hoard ideas and intellectual property for profit. We get scenarios where there are too many companies solving the SAME problem over and over often from scratch. Incredibly inefficient and dumb.... except from a financial perspective for those profiting from the hoarding. A little competition for variety of solutions is good, but diminishing returns kick in pretty fast.

So propagatin of knowledge is slow and inefficient because of human nature and it pays for a lot of *easy* entry level jobs.
A fringe benefit for our economy & IT workers: easy getting work solving easy problems over and over!
However, the ride never lasts long. Once old problems are solved well across the majority of the industry, this acts as a downward pressure on availability *easy* work in the economy. It forces devs to keep learning new more advanced tools and techniques to avoid obsolesence and replacement by students who know the new better than the obsolete old

This obsolesence of knowledge SHOULD be naturally countered by the finding of new usefull work. New work that should be given experienced people to solve new problems .....unless you have blind/greedy or ignorant management as in @Cads example where the dev is fired because the idiot manager views him as obsolete. Unfortunately in reality there is always a valid business (greed) counter perspective that pertpetuates this sort of idiocy for greedy profit.

Good to be aware how the system works , automated machine learning will make things even more difficult for us pesky humans.

I imagine by the time automated machine learning ramps up, there will be bigger issues(good and bad) than just my own personal career

I do agree with your post though. I'm kinda new switching to a purely software job, I used to do hardware testing but got out of the industry because it was way too fickle to consumer demand. So, I see some of this "wasted" time as learning via osmosis. But at the same time, going home after a long day of just reviewing test results, filing bugs, and fighting with offshore contractors, doesn't feel like I've learned much.

Deathwing said:

I imagine by the time automated machine learning ramps up, there will be bigger issues(good and bad) than just my own personal career

I do agree with your post though. I'm kinda new switching to a purely software job, I used to do hardware testing but got out of the industry because it was way too fickle to consumer demand. So, I see some of this "wasted" time as learning via osmosis. But at the same time, going home after a long day of just reviewing test results, filing bugs, and fighting with offshore contractors, doesn't feel like I've learned much.

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I hear ya, and I sympathize. You can still gain a lot of usefull non development cross-domain knowledge doing that. Just know that employers do not care about your learning these days: they are preoccupied with just getting their $ and the job done to get paid. Few outside of acedemia and highly research related niches, invest in truly training and guiding their employees anymore :-( In todays profit or loose economy it is not really the businesses responsability is it. It is our responsability to learn and find ways to progress productively. Just tough to do since most need the paycheck and cannot *afford* to work on their own progress or ideas.....

Keep your eyes peeled. I just bring these things up because it is good to keep in mind always as you progress through your career. Will help you (all) spot those good jumping off opportunities to pursue the work (cool startup or more advanced position) that you will find most interesting and rewarding personally. Do not be blinded by the allmighty $$ like the idiot managers in our examples today =)

Employers will kiss you ass all day, but just until the day they do not need you. Then you are in the dustbin unless you took care to plan ahead career wise.