An Experiment In Social Status: Software Engineer vs. Data Science Manager

JQuinton

Here is an interesting blog post about a guy who did a resume experiment between two positions which he argues are by experience identical, but occupy different "social status" positions in tech: A software engineer and a data manager.

Interview A: as Software Engineer

Bill faced five hour-long technical interviews. Three went well. One was so-so, because it focused on implementation details of the JVM, and Bill’s experience was almost entirely in C++, with a bit of hobbyist OCaml. The last interview sounds pretty hellish. It was with the VP of Data Science, Bill’s prospective boss, who showed up 20 minutes late and presented him with one of those interview questions where there’s “one right answer” that took months, if not years, of in-house trial and error to discover. It was one of those “I’m going to prove that I’m smarter than you” interviews...

Let’s recap this. Bill passed three of his five interviews with flying colors. One of the interviewers, a few months later, tried to recruit Bill to his own startup. The fourth interview was so-so, because he wasn’t a Java expert, but came out neutral. The fifth, he failed because he didn’t know the in-house Golden Algorithm that took years of work to discover. When I asked that VP/Data Science directly why he didn’t hire Bill (and he did not know that I knew Bill, nor about this experiment) the response I got was “We need people who can hit the ground running.” Apparently, there’s only a “talent shortage” when startup people are trying to scam the government into changing immigration policy. The undertone of this is that “we don’t invest in people”.

Or, for a point that I’ll come back to, software engineers lack the social status necessary to make others invest in them.

Interview B: as Data Science manager.

A couple weeks later, Bill interviewed at a roughly equivalent company for the VP-level position, reporting directly to the CTO.

Worth noting is that we did nothing to make Bill more technically impressive than for Company A. If anything, we made his technical story more honest, by modestly inflating his social status while telling a “straight shooter” story for his technical experience. We didn’t have to cover up periods of low technical activity; that he was a manager, alone, sufficed to explain those away.

Bill faced four interviews, and while the questions were behavioral and would be “hard” for many technical people, he found them rather easy to answer with composure. I gave him the Golden Answer, which is to revert to “There’s always a trade-off between wanting to do the work yourself, and knowing when to delegate.” It presents one as having managerial social status (the ability to delegate) but also a diligent interest in, and respect for, the work. It can be adapted to pretty much any “behavioral” interview question...

Bill passed. Unlike for a typical engineering position, there were no reference checks. The CEO said, “We know you’re a good guy, and we want to move fast on you”. As opposed tot he 7-day exploding offers typically served to engineers, Bill had 2 months in which to make his decision. He got a fourth week of vacation without even having to ask for it, and genuine equity (about 75% of a year’s salary vesting each year)...

It was really interesting, as I listened in, to see how different things are once you’re “in the club”. The CEO talked to Bill as an equal, not as a paternalistic, bullshitting, “this is good for your career” authority figure. There was a tone of equality that a software engineer would never get from the CEO of a 100-person tech company.

The author concludes that positions that are labeled as code-monkey-like are low status, while positions that are labeled as managerial are high status. Even if they are "essentially" doing the same sort of work.

Not sure about this methodology, but it's food for thought.

Interview A: as Software Engineer

Bill faced five hour-long technical interviews. Three went well. One was so-so, because it focused on implementation details of the JVM, and Bill’s experience was almost entirely in C++, with a bit of hobbyist OCaml. The last interview sounds pretty hellish. It was with the VP of Data Science, Bill’s prospective boss, who showed up 20 minutes late and presented him with one of those interview questions where there’s “one right answer” that took months, if not years, of in-house trial and error to discover. It was one of those “I’m going to prove that I’m smarter than you” interviews...

Let’s recap this. Bill passed three of his five interviews with flying colors. One of the interviewers, a few months later, tried to recruit Bill to his own startup. The fourth interview was so-so, because he wasn’t a Java expert, but came out neutral. The fifth, he failed because he didn’t know the in-house Golden Algorithm that took years of work to discover. When I asked that VP/Data Science directly why he didn’t hire Bill (and he did not know that I knew Bill, nor about this experiment) the response I got was “We need people who can hit the ground running.” Apparently, there’s only a “talent shortage” when startup people are trying to scam the government into changing immigration policy. The undertone of this is that “we don’t invest in people”.

Or, for a point that I’ll come back to, software engineers lack the social status necessary to make others invest in them.

Interview B: as Data Science manager.

A couple weeks later, Bill interviewed at a roughly equivalent company for the VP-level position, reporting directly to the CTO.

Worth noting is that we did nothing to make Bill more technically impressive than for Company A. If anything, we made his technical story more honest, by modestly inflating his social status while telling a “straight shooter” story for his technical experience. We didn’t have to cover up periods of low technical activity; that he was a manager, alone, sufficed to explain those away.

Bill faced four interviews, and while the questions were behavioral and would be “hard” for many technical people, he found them rather easy to answer with composure. I gave him the Golden Answer, which is to revert to “There’s always a trade-off between wanting to do the work yourself, and knowing when to delegate.” It presents one as having managerial social status (the ability to delegate) but also a diligent interest in, and respect for, the work. It can be adapted to pretty much any “behavioral” interview question...

Bill passed. Unlike for a typical engineering position, there were no reference checks. The CEO said, “We know you’re a good guy, and we want to move fast on you”. As opposed tot he 7-day exploding offers typically served to engineers, Bill had 2 months in which to make his decision. He got a fourth week of vacation without even having to ask for it, and genuine equity (about 75% of a year’s salary vesting each year)...

It was really interesting, as I listened in, to see how different things are once you’re “in the club”. The CEO talked to Bill as an equal, not as a paternalistic, bullshitting, “this is good for your career” authority figure. There was a tone of equality that a software engineer would never get from the CEO of a 100-person tech company.

Not sure about this methodology, but it's food for thought.

This reminds me of an article I read once and probably couldn't google now; about how "being a professional" means different things for different professions (radically different, from the status point of view).

The examples used were lawyers and teachers. Both professions have people who try to present themselves as professionals, but they do it differently. When a lawyer says "I am a professional", they mean they do they work well and they demand appropriate compensation. When a teacher says "I am a professional", they mean they do they work well... but speaking about compensation is somehow taboo. Actually, there is this meme going around that if a teacher cares too much about their salary, they were not meant to be a teacher, because they care more about money than about teaching. No one would try saying the same bullshit to a lawyer, though. The lawyer is allowed to say that their job is the most important thing in their life... and then refuse to work for you if you refuse to pay them enough money, or refuse to follow their advice, etc. The teacher is allowed, even required, to pretend they don't have a life outside of their work; but then they are supposed to shut up, accept whatever conditions were given to them, and do their best, and keep doing this for their whole life.

According to that article, the main difference was that lawyers have made their definition of "being a professional" from inside; they put there what they expect from themselves, and also what they expect for themselves in return. On teachers the definition was pushed from outside; and some of them internalized it, and the remaining ones don't know how to defend verbally against this kind of abuse.

With programmers, I think it is mixed. Some of them have the lawyer-like attitude. Just read this article by Joel Spolsky -- he is not afraid to say openly that if a company doesn't use source control, can't make a build in one step, doesn't have a bug database, doesn't fix bugs before writing new code, doesn't have speficication, doesn't have testers, and programmers don't have quiet working conditions... then he wouldn't work in such a company. Because he is a professional; he can produce high-quality outputs, but he also requires adequate inputs. He refuses to work in substandard conditions, because he knows it would impact his outputs, and then he would look like a less competent person than he is. And there is also this component of status... he is good enough and knows that if his conditions are not met here, they will be met somewhere else. So he doesn't have to compromises here, and the employer wouldn't push them on him.

Then there are also programmers who are an opposite of this. Give them a noisy working environment without source control and without testers, no specification and no bug database... and they will somehow take is as a matter of their pride to produce as good results as possible even in such an environment. Without proper financial compensation, mind you; according to my experience such people are paid less than people working in better conditions. (If the company is too miserly to pay for decent working environment and decent tools, they probably try to cut down costs everywhere.) As if for these people the source of their pride is to withstand all abuse, and pretends it's all okay, because hey, they are grown-ups. If you demand better working conditions, you seem spoiled; if you leave the company because someone else offered you better conditions, you are a person who gives up easily. -- This is what I called a servant mentality. It's not: "I'll do my best, and I expect to be paid handsomely." It's: "I'll do my best, of course, and I deserve nothing; my privilege to serve you is the greatest reward I could ever get." Secretly, they would prefer better conditions; but they don't have any hope left.

While the programmers compete against each other based on craft, the predators look after the status and power of their group.

And the rational (winning) reaction is to a) whine, or b) start looking after your status and power, too? And please, no reversing stupidity; I'm not suggesting the programmers should give up their programming skills completely. Just not to pretend that the programming skills with zero strategic skills is the winning strategy. Because it obviously isn't. We are still humans working in human organizations; we need human-handling skills, too. Even if these skills are difficult, especially for some introverted people etc., the low-hanging fruit is really worth picking.

This is what I called a servant mentality. ...It's: "I'll do my best, of course, and I deserve nothing; my privilege to serve you is the greatest reward I could ever get."

But nobody is really thinking that last phrase.

Secretly, they would prefer better conditions; but they don't have any hope left.

This is nearer the truth. They're too hopeless, too irresponsible, too lazy, or too cowardly, and don't care enough about their own lives to take care of business and take action to improve their lives.

And the rational (winning) reaction is to

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An Experiment In Social Status: Software Engineer vs. Data Science Manager

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An Experiment In Social Status: Software Engineer vs. Data Science Manager

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