n_time
No PTSD but dealing with burn out I needed to find something else, and that's what I tried. So far it's paying off.
Could it be because microservices and so-called "server-less" have been sold as cost-saving measures that increase the business' flexibility and decrease capital investment?
When... in reality a single deployed Docker container is way more manageable than a distributed system constructed with "lambdas" and requires fewer engineers in the long run?
What I'm trying to say is that FAANG cargo-culting is only part of why developers choose to build solutions that scale larger than they need. Another large part is the cloud development ecosystem writ-large and the consulting culture that has built up around it.
How do you get things done in a larger organization? At AWS it's solved by having APIs and documentation for everything. This leads to a janky UI, a lot of redundancy in their systems, and a pretty bad work environment from what I hear.
In a lot of technical organizations, this problem is solved instead informally through relationships between members of the organization. You want to get something done outside of your constrained contexts? You'll probably need some relationships. Getting a lot of cards done is great, but if you're pushing too hard all the time you're going to sour those relationships.
What I'm saying boils down to this: being a developer in a large organization is about 1-3 parts coding to 7-9 parts communication and relationships. Further, if you spend time communicating you can often realize that the feature you're implementing was already implemented two years ago and there's just a regression that's caused the line of code to no longer be executed.
You can say fuck it to the communications with your peers if you'd like. However, keep in mind that most of your jobs as you become senior are going to come from referrals from former colleagues. Your boss right now isn't going to help you get your next job–the people sitting around you might.
Consider reading [non-violent communication](https://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent-Communication-Language-Lif...).
You need a break to re-evaluate. At least two weeks without work before you even bother trying to sort through important questions like who you are and what you want. Once you've relaxed, you can start to ask the heady, existential questions that it sounds like you've been putting off for a while.
Try asking for some extra vacation from your employers. If they won't give it to you, and you can afford it, ask for unpaid time off.
I’d suggest switching jobs. You’ll lose the social capital and have new tech to learn. The stress and work of reaccumulating those should distract you for a hot minute
If you've been in a growing tech company you've probably seen this as colleagues being hire when you're not clear why, and the organisation actually preferring solutions that require many more employees.
There's also just the factor that – today at least – technology management have a lot of social power within their organisations. Most managers wants to grow their little fiefdom – which usually means more headcount.
Anywho, I guess I'm just saying there's a lot of factors completely unrelated to automation that incentivize hiring more programmers. Many of these factors are not rational for the organistions themselves – managers growing their headcount to the limit their structure will allow. Some of them are though! I.E. company as a financial instrument rather than as a business.
The model of a business selling something and optimizing process for maximum profits is in there for sure, but from my experience there's a lot of other factors that end up building a very incoherent whole.
A truly decentralized, unregulated network will therefore lead to more power being seized by fewer. That is, a decentralized financial network will tend to lead towards the centralization of the value represented within that network. Without the ability for democracy to step in and regulate that network.
Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are an inherently anti-government project, through placing all governments in a single authoritarian perspective and insisting that they must be decentralized; "crypto" is fundamentally anti-democratic. Throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Screenshots NFT
Technology in CS ends up instead being taught to be magical progress fuel that brings us towards the inevitable future rather than tools built by people with access to capital in order to achieve specific ends
Equating climate change activism with all other forms of social justice is a common trend I see. They seem so different to me–the difference between empirical reality and ideology. While the outcomes of climate change will be ideological–save climate refugees or preserve competitive advantage and wealth–the immediate concern of attempting to mitigate the impacts of climate change are relatively rational.
> if you were a fossil fuel or car company that makes gas burning vehicles
Have you tried putting on your role-playing hats and empathising with some of the points being made on the environmentalist side?
I see others pointing out in sub-threads that these services are better than buses because there are "no hobos, gangstas, creeps, drunkards or other people creating a nuisance for fellow travellers".
Should I break down those labels and across which lines they are dividing society? :)
Paid service apartheid?
There's a lot of folks to advertise to on this side of the pond, and we're having elections to ;)
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly...
Have you considered broadening your personal definition of technology past computing and engineering?
From Wikipedia:
> Technology can be the knowledge of techniques, processes, etc. or it can be embedded in machines, computers, devices and factories, which can be operated by individuals without detailed knowledge of the workings of such things.
Technology is the creation of systems. Those systems run as much on the users of that technology, and the members of the organisation supporting it, as they do inside of microprocessors.