This post reminds me that software engineering doesn't have a plus minus.

[rowlandm@disabled.social]

@paul_ipv6 @mekkaokereke in my terminology, I call them translators or generalists.

They not only know how to talk to people to get things done, but also can push back because they have enough knowledge to know when others have already done it/ know that it is possible.

[gunchleoc@mastodon.scot]

@admin @mekkaokereke @david_megginson I definitely document the shit out of everything, because I'm a bus factor of 1.

Documenting things can be hard for software developers though, because not all of them speak neurotypical. So, generalist "translators" are indeed important.

[david_megginson@mstdn.ca]

@gunchleoc Yes to all that. Present Me appreciates every word of documentation Past Me wrote 5, 10, or 25 years ago, because otherwise I wouldn't know what that fool was thinking with that code.

But as you wrote, writing doesn't come easy to everyone. And furthermore, documentation works only if you guess correctly in advance what questions people will ask. Experienced human colleagues can adapt to changing contexts and answer new questions as they emerge.

@admin @mekkaokereke

[david_megginson@mstdn.ca]

@gunchleoc The other side of the coin is that BigTech companies think employees are interchangeable units that they can lay off at year-end and replace 3 months later with a different "full stack developer with 10 years experience."

Not so. Companies are the unique people who make them up, with their knowledge, experience, and social interactions. Connector types hold them together: casually laying one off is like amputating a finger and assuming you can replace it later

@admin @mekkaokereke

[gunchleoc@mastodon.scot]

@david_megginson @admin @mekkaokereke Yep. Some poor sod will need to understand that code 2 years down the road, and chances are that poor sod will be yourself.

If you aren't given time to do anything else, at the very least hack some quick comments into the code for the important decisions you made.

[riley@toot.cat]

@mekkaokereke The fact that highly sklled yet marginalised people tend to get career-blocked and end up in these "informal advisory" rôles might possibly have contributed to the Hollywood trope of the Magical Black Person and/or Old Woman Who Gives Good Advice.

[riley@toot.cat]

@admin You're being a bad manager.

Carry on. Wouldn't want to give you good advice that might increase your power of bad management over non-standard people who deserve better.

@mekkaokereke

[mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io]

@riley

Yup.

Somewhat related...

Stacey Abrams is not an impressive civil rights worker. ‍️ Well she is, but that's not what's really going on.

MLK jr was not an impressive civil rights worker either. ‍️ Again, that's not what's really happening.

Stacey is an under-leveled governor of Georgia. MLK jr was an under-leveled president of the United States of America.

mekka okereke :verified: (@[email protected])

Attached: 2 images @[email protected] Stacey Abrams. https://www.fairfight.com Stacey Abrams isn't "a brilliant civil rights leader." She's a brilliant governor, who was denied being a governor due to systemic racism, and so has been forced to spend her time addressing that racism before she can be a governor. So yeah, she's a little overqualified to drive this non-profit. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Civil rights leader is the fallback job title for Black people that should have been governors or presidents.

Hachyderm.io (hachyderm.io)

[riley@toot.cat]

@mekkaokereke That's a neat and sobering way to put it.

[linuxandyarn@mastodon.social]

@riley @mekkaokereke I still remember the 50-somehting woman at the travel agency I went to work for at 20, talking about how she trained her division head from an intern while she had the same job for over 15 years.

[gunchleoc@mastodon.scot]

@riley @mekkaokereke This reminds me of an article that was posted here somewhere this week on another thread: https://www.noidea.dog/glue

[dotproto@toot.cafe]

@rowlandm @paul_ipv6 @mekkaokereke I feel like I'm in this bucket and I've tended to describe myself as the grease that keeps the machine running smoothly