The Tech Crime Worse Than Doing Nothing

Photo by Alim @apyfzon Unsplash

FAANG companies are wasting BILLIONS of dollars paying their engineers to do…NOTHING.

That’s hyperbole. We aren’t talking about nothing-nothing, as the engineers are doing something but not what we might expect. Let me explain.

What Engineers Actually Do (Excluding Quality Coding)

Engineers perform a variety of tasks that represent more than their core job of writing and pushing code.

Engineers actually spend time attending meetings, sending emails, sharing knowledge and debating the use of an outdated API. Instead of writing useful code they also battle bugs that should not exist, rewrite dead features or create a feature that will never go to production.

I say the problem is clear. The output of this work is null and meaningless. Worse, it takes up much more of their time than makes anything approaching sense.

Why It’s Damaging

Take it from me, when you write code that never goes into production it destroys your programming soul.

My Experience

One time, our product manager seemed excited that we could create a new feature that would previously have involved phone calls. We created web pages and mobile app flows to help our customers. We were 90% through the feature when the news came thought that “all features must be revenue positive in this financial year”. The work was cancelled, and IIRC I just left some work merged and some work on a local branch. 

Nobody called my behavior into question, as who cares about cancelled features? Nobody questioned the costs sunk into the feature, but worse was to come. We didn’t roll onto another feature or project (nothing could get approved if it failed to increase revenue), so I literally sat doing nothing for months. After that point, I really couldn’t care less about the work I needed to do for that company, because I couldn’t be sure that it would ever be used.

The Dirty Secret

This is one of Big Tech’s dirty little secrets. They hire some of the smartest, most highly-paid talent on the planet, then fail to find real problems for them to solve that are actually fit to be completed. It’s not just incompetence — it’s an overabundance of talent in tech and a lack of the same in business. 

New color for the button? Sure! Algorithm tweak to show 0.0001% more ads? Why not! Actually, making a product that will change the world? Slow down speedy.

It’s Not Fun

Getting paid $100,000+ to spin your wheels sounds sweet. No, actually it doesn’t.

If you’re a conscientious type (and if you’re a programmer, you probably are) you’re likely to feel guilty and might act in less-than-ideal ways in frustration. I have to confess I did make fun of someone who asked for confirmation of which data type we needed to use for a true/false property, not my finest hour.

For your career, it’s a slow-motion disaster. Solving fake problems atrophies your skills and decimates your market value.

None of that sounds fun to me.

The Solution

The solution to this is easy. Learn how to identify projects that matter and get involved with your true heart and soul. Look for business impact and look at what you might learn.

It’s not good enough for anyone’s career to work in a feature factory and churn out work for the business. If this sounds like you it’s time to brush off the resume and get moving.

On the business side, FAANG’s obsession with scaling up has turned small, agile teams into bloated bureaucracies. Meetings with 20+ people, ceremonies that don’t represent the Agile principles, and a lack of accountability aren’t good enough. 

Things got so bad because engineers have gotten used to waiting for a check to clear, and the stock options to vest before looking for something better. It’s time we insisted on better. Only then will we get better.

Conclusion

I think we owe it to ourselves to stay sharp, stay skeptical. Don’t settle for solving pretend problems or technical dead-ends. Your conscience and career will thank you.