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Comment by hobs | Hacker News Reader

Ok, but we're running a business here not catering to the satisfaction of random programmers. The NIH part of this stuff is a bit weird.

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Turns out that if you don't cater to the satisfaction of programmers, you often kill the golden goose, and then you end up on the sidelines saying "oh, you shouldn't have done it that way" while someone else is succeeding.

People often talk about standing on the shoulders of giants. To extend that metaphor, the only ones standing there are the ones who climbed the giant. If you hire a college grad and stick them on that giant's shoulder, it's not the same.

Sure... but as an eng manager my job isn't to cater to your creative outputs in subordination to good products.

Craft comes before art.

Sure but that assumes the company itself has sufficient attraction that can overpower the lack of job satisfaction. Maybe you pay more. Maybe your brand is more attractive thanks to PR. Maybe you offer more perks. Maybe the product itself is more appealing. Maybe it's something else. You have to have some other advantage to retain people who aren't satisfied in their jobs.

Presumably your job is to get results. If catering to someone in some way is able to achieve that then it's a perfectly legitimate approach to consider.

Craft? I’ll take craft any day.

The downward slide of most great tech companies starts with managers finally losing patience with the engineers. Check out Boeing as a recent example. It’s not about art or craft, it’s about treating people as more than widget producers.

I'd burn out quicker and have to charge more for my salary if the work was too boring

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