The G-DDamned Unix Man You fuc

Bad senior engineers think that interns should only write test code. Good senior engineers put interns on simpler tasks with no supervision. Very good senior engineers put interns on hard problems and guide them the whole time.

Interns aren't there to save the company money in the short term, they're there to grow the next round of junior engineers to hire.

Jun 8, 2023 at 7:22pmWeb
Show threadShae ErissonJun 8, 2023

@theunixman Past ten years I've seen a dearth of "internal training" aka growing the software devs of the future.

I've chosen to spend several hours a week teaching what I know, and learning what others know.

Right now it's Haskell, Nix, and Emacs and it's so much fun! I have so much to learn!

Show threadI Can't Believe It's Not Zero!Jun 8, 2023
@theunixman @symbo1ics this is the way
Show threadradarskiyJun 9, 2023
@theunixman Universe brain: Testing is the hardest problem
Show threadGrumbleJun 9, 2023

@theunixman I had a summer intern working for me some years ago. Smart guy - the team treated him like an equal, and he rose to the challenge. Great code, well written, took criticism well, fun to work with. At the end of the summer, we wrote glowing reviews for him.

HR sent me a note saying they would not hire him for a full-time permanent position because "he had a bad attitude". Seems that HR had some outing scheduled for the interns one weekend and the guy bowed out to work instead.

Show threadSteve DowneyJun 9, 2023
@theunixman Interns get the interesting but not urgent projects. Failure has to be an option.
Show threadMcNullaJun 9, 2023
@theunixman
If you are always trying to put yourself out of a job, you will always have a job. - Me
Show threadSteve DowneyJun 9, 2023

@theunixman
We spend the quarter before producing proposals for intern projects that are reviewed by senior engineering management, and then we compete to attract interns for the projects.

It's a big review point.

Show threadThe G-DDamned Unix Man You fucJun 12, 2023
@Sdowney Hah apparently that's how it works here too... I only realized I wasn't getting interns anymore because I wasn't writing proposals for projects... I'll rectify that the next cycle.
Show threadaardvarkJun 10, 2023
@theunixman @DelilahTech testing the bad Dr engineers’ code will prepare them to replace said bad engineers. Joke’s on them. Good engineers know the value of the tests.
Show threadThe G-DDamned Unix Man You fucJun 12, 2023
@aardvark @DelilahTech hah yeah, sadly the social credit internally for writing test code is pretty miserable, and then the interns are evaluated on other things too often...