Re:Learning to code vs. learning to automate
by satokema_work on Monday December 09, 2019 @04:32PM
(#21746851)
"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
The cynical advice here is: automate your own tasks and keep the extra slack you gain from it - unless there's a compelling reason to do otherwise.
Management will be pleased and then ask the team to achieve 20-50% more per day because your automation sped things up and now you have more free time to do stuff. This adds stress to the team because the script isn't 100% reliable, and when it fails the team is still expected to maintain the 20-50% more benchmark. Your ass is being burnt to fix the script ASAP, and everyone has to work long hours to hit the "new normal" benchmark.
Oh, and of course, you don't get any real reward for improving the team's productivity because "It's awesome you did this but writing scripts isn't what we hired you to do".
I've lived this guy's life:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21737666
And after a bunch of similar experiences there I decided that I'd never work again in a team where management exhibited such behavior. If improving the team's performance adds stress to everyone in the team, I'm not going to automate. But I became an engineer to solve problems and not to pointlessly spin wheels. The only good option: Leave and find another job (which I thankfully did).