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Admin
Ho hum, just another case of lions led by donkeys.
Admin
@Prime Mover is awaiting moderation so this may be duplicative.
Yet another technical manager whose sole skill is ruthless self-promotion. It's certainly a WTF in an absolute sense, but is a world filled to bursting with such people and situations, this example hardly stands out from the crowd.
Still, it's nicely written, so there is that. And "Phillip" moved to a nice new city where maybe he finds a better job. Or new SO. Or at least a new favorite watering hole to drown the pain of being in what passes for modern IT.
Admin
The one thing people like this don't see to notice is that you are not Google. My employer (very very large not tech but uses a lot) has a lot of we can be just like Google/Facebook/etc too, but we are not them either. I remember a meeting where we were trying to get the analytics data team to support using AWS, and they were "our data is too big for AWS", even when we pointed out that Amazon uses AWS, and their data is 100,000x+ bigger than ours. Unless you are Google, you are not Google.
Admin
I'm reminded of the way Microservices started and how they're abused. Places like amazon needed a way to split their software so they didn't need to coordinate huge numbers of developers all wanting to merge to the same monolithic service. So they split stuff logically so "only" 10 or so devs would work on each service.
Now there are places that have 5 devs splitting their comparatively tiny product into 20+ microservices and then complaining about performance and complexity.
Admin
Sounds like your typical startup to me. I worked at one very similar - Despite being a few years old by the time I started, the entire operation was built on top of a homebrew C++ library that the CTO had written 20+ years ago, unit testing (automated or otherwise) was nonexistent, the official build machine was the CTO's PC, the deployment process was the CTO manually copying files to the server, etc. etc.
I, along with the newly hired COO (I was one of only two guys in the company who didn't have a C-level or VP title), were just starting to work on automating several processes when the company went under.
In retrospect, the point where I knew it was all going downhill was when they started asking those stupid lateral-thinking questions at the interview, most of which I had already heard before. I really should have heeded the red flag then.
Admin
If you want to be like Google, then act like Google: choose technology that fits your business, don't copy others
Admin
Heh. Indeed.
I guess this would be the managerial version of blindly copying code from stackoverflow.
Admin
Oh no, Bazel...I had exactly one experience with that, trying to rebuild Tensorflow, and it was awful. Of all the different build systems I've used, including the monstrosity that is the modern SPA flow, Bazel is easily my least-favorite.
I miss Makefiles.
Admin
And it's yet another story where the real WTF is someone walking out of a job the moment they come across any difficulties. I get that it's exaggerated for effect, but it's rarely been the case where you can walk from job to job without consequence.
Admin
"5 devs ... 20+ microservices." I wish. In the company I worked for last, I was on a team of nine or ten people responsible for 130 buggy microservices. I kid you not. By the time I left, we were required to add unit tests for any changes made. This sounds great, except that the refactoring necessary in poorly structured programs to make decent unit testing even possible often wasn't factored into the sprints. "It's a small bug, so it should only take a couple hours."
Admin
Gotta say that Philip's Maven push went in a direction that should concern even a reasonable manager. First Mavenize the project as it is, then add unit tests and upgrade dependencies. Or maybe he was running into trouble with Maven's "opinions" (aka limited functionality) in which case the problem might need a more strategic approach.
Admin
Well, you might just find a job where the Head Moron doesn't throw the term "Google" around as a shibboleth.
And you might just find a job where you're given the room to prove that your chosen tool (Maven) actually does the job and doesn't default to a five month code freeze.
And you might just be able to recover a smidgeon of self-worth.
But if all you want is a pay check at the end of every month, with no assurance that the company will survive (see: OP cretin startup), then by all means. We all have personal choices to make.
Admin
When you load up the daily double you tee eff dot com you should expect to read about the kind of jobs that people don’t want to stay in. That’s the theme.
And one of the reasons people don’t want to stay in these jobs is the presumption they’ll face in future interviews that they were complicit in every poor and outdated practice the company used.
Admin
This. I understand why new tools have been rolled out, but why does every new project have multiple make tools that I've never heard of, are quirky to set up and get to work?
Admin
As to the boss'es "We gotta be just like Google" mania, that's pretty obvious too. He thinks the best way he can get hired at Google, or better yet, bought out by Google, is to be able to claim to them "We're just like you guys, we'll be a good fit if you buy us, and if you don't do that, at least hire me. Because I've practically been working in your environment for years already."
That's what "We gotta be just like Google" is all about.
Admin
I got tired decades ago of these tedious attempts by company bosses to compare their working environment to some other dissimilar place, or their management style to some idiot who just wrote an unconvincing book.
If they are having to do that it is usually because something sucks badly and they don't understand what it is, still less have the competence to fix it.
Kind of obvious here, if you are picking tools just because some mates of yours use them and not because they are the best/easiest/one you already know, you need a firm, swift kick in the rear.
Admin
You think they're naive rich people and the media is just waiting for an upcoming train wreck, but then his google contact turns out to be the first lady of Syria.
Admin
Even people inside Google isn't completely immune to this. Sure, people in Google won't say "Let's follow what Google does". They do fall into the trap of "Let's follow what Search does", even if the problem isn't the scale of Web Search.
Still, this "CTO" is far beyond the follow the new shiny that you typically see.
Admin
Reminds me of how Markus Braun and Elizabeth Holmes both wore black turtlenecks and always tried to advertise their respective companies to be the next Apple and themselves as the next Steve Jobs.