Source: Oh my poor business logic

Summary

The post itself has some interesting points to consider. However, I do not fully agree with the point that developers want to learn new technologies just because that is valued more than working on the core business logic. I observe that organizations do value people who work on core business logic more than people who know the latest and greatest.

It’s more of a case that sticking to the same company isn’t as rewarding as switching to another company every few years.

Also, the excitement that comes with new things is more to blame. Just like how excited one would be to get their hands on the latest MacBook or iPhone, the same is true with learning and using the latest tech available.

Notes

One that only cares about measurable business outcomes

This is a lot more common. I haven’t yet joined any company that does not value business outcomes more than technical fanciness.

Another that has staff engineers spending all day on linter configurations and writing seldom-read RFCs while juniors want to ditch Celery for Kafka because the latter is hip.

This is often the case for the engineers. Sure, staff engineers can be considered “leaders”, but I don’t think it’s right to say that they represent what the company is all about… unless, of course, if it’s a specific-tech consultancy/outsourcing shinemagig.

Maybe because there’s no incentive for doing that and resume-driven development genuinely pays better. As long as companies keep making people solve obscure puzzles that has nothing to do with the job or hiring managers keep employing automated systems to look for keywords in resumes, a group of smart people will always engage in techno-maximalism to prepare for the next big opportunity;

I feel that this part missed a much more important problem: Job hopping usually yields better pay than sticking with the same company.

The whole concept of “resume-driven development” is leaning towards the assumption that it is inevitable that engineers would want to hop to another company no matter what.

The root cause isn’t because of how the hiring process is commonly designed right now, leaning towards the latest and shiniest thing in the world, but it is rather the issue that job hopping pays off better than sticking to a single company for a longer period of time.

If professional growth within the same company pays off the same way as one would get when they job hop, then it should solve the problem stated by the author in this paragraph.

If working on the business logic isn’t rewarded, why should anyone focus on making that better?

As I noted earlier, unless career progression within the company can keep up with “job hopping”, we will see this problem be more profound. Obviously, this isn’t the only root cause, as more often than not, it’s the FOMO that usually gets people to “want” to work on the latest and greatest.

No one wants to be in a Perl convention, right? I’d rather join a Next.js Conf or a RustConf… but to appreciate and hopefully be able to make meaningful conversations with fellow attendees, I would need to have used the tech a little more than my evening dabbles.

Another thought, job security is also at play here. In a world where one can be laid off in a whim, individuals would always want to stay relevant to make themselves hirable.

Final Thoughts

As a team lead, this is a good reminder to me that:

• I should be able to provide opportunities for my team to grow professionally.
• I should be able to provide them with the right amount of challenge and support to grow.
• I should be able to provide them with the right amount of recognition and reward for their efforts.