Communications of the ACM
What Silicon Valley 'Gets' About Software Engineers That Traditional Companies Do Not
Silicon Valley-like companies think of engineers as value generators and creative problem solvers.
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Silicon Valley companies consistently "get" a few things about software engineers that their traditional counterparts fail to either understand or implement in practice. These practices result in faster innovation at a company-level, better professional growth for engineers, and better "utilization."
A "Silicon Valley-like company" creates high leverage with each software engineering hire. These companies are comparable in working output per engineer to the likes of Facebook or Google. These companies think of engineers as value generators, and creative problem solvers. Traditional companies think of them as factory workers.
The key things these Silicon Valley-like companies "get" better than many others:
- Autonomy for software engineers;
- Curious problem solvers, not mindless resources;
- Internal data, code, and documentation transparency;
- Exposure to the business and to business metrics;
- Engineer-to-engineer comms over triangle-communication;
- Investing in a less frustrating developer experience;
- Higher leverage --> higher {autonomy, pay}
From The Pragmatic Engineer
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