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Facebook Exec Explains Why Technical Skills Aren't Enough To Be a Great Engineer (geekwire.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Facebook's Regina Wallace-Jones, who is in charge of protecting 1.6 billion people on the social network, says math and science skills aren't enough to tackle challenges at a firm. "Don't let anyone tell you that engineering is only about math and science or that engineering expertise is all you have to offer the world. Your experiences and your perspectives can help inspire a company to find a different approach to a problem or encourage someone else to speak up," she said. "The impact of engineers goes well beyond the mobile apps, the gadgets, and the security systems that we build. The quest to engineer meaningful solutions... is not just about math and science, it's about making amazing solutions for real people in the real world. It's about pushing mankind to its outer limits by inspiring the world to imagine bigger solutions than our hands can hold."
Nothing is ever enough for these corporations while there are still dollars in circulation that don't belong to them. Facebook is about making amazing solutions to fill Mark Zuckerberg's pocket, nothing more, nothing less. "Real people in the real world" my bollox
H1b and the will to work 80 hours a week is what they really want.
"protecting" 1.6 billion people? from what exactly?
remember when this was "news for nerds"? reads more like "news for social studies majors". and it isn't even SJW friday.
c'mon slashdot!
Translation: My company is built on unicorn dust and bullshit, so your technical skills are worth squat to me; Call a stylist.
What on earth does Facebook "engineer"? Web pages?
... it's about making amazing solutions for real people in the real world."
Define "Amazing solutions"? It sure as hell isn't anything Facebook has to offer.
It's about pushing mankind to its outer limits by inspiring the world to imagine bigger solutions than our hands can hold.
Nonsense that can be interpreted subjectively. By using that "benchmark", I could use it to turn away anyone I want. Sorry old guy (40 something) but you didn't " imagine bigger solutions than our hands can hold". Same for you miss, your solution isn't "big enough".
The capricious reasons that employers come up with to screen people out is just getting out of hand. I guess they have to do that in order to not be considered liars when they say "we can't get enough qualified people."
You also need the ability to say no, a bullshit detector, and enough people skills to explain to someone that their idea is terrible and will have terrible consequences without causing them to lose face.
Wake me up when Facebook does something meaningful rather than yet more social media tat and BS using code that could have been written by an undergraduate.
And that's why she earns the big bucks. Because she's the one with this insightful knowledge which no one ever though about before.
Every engineer has five senses:
sight
hearing
touch
smell
taste
Every great engineer has two additional senses
horse
common
Being good at math doesn't help you build UIs at Facebook. But there's more to engineering than building UIs.
Math guys need UI guys and UI guys need math guys. What we don't need is more false nonsense about how one is "better" or more necessary than the other.
For it to work like that, the suits would have to listen to the engineers. In reality there is always a sweet spot for getting into a new technology: Shortly after mass-market availability: After the early kinks have been eliminated, before the quality has been lowered to the minimum that creates the most profit. It's so fitting that a Facebook exec would spout that bullshit: Engineers gave us the Internet. The suits are turning it into Facebook.
... would Facebook know about "real solutions for real people"? It's a frickin' social network, fer Chrissake! What exactly do they produce? What particular problems do they address? How is mankind's lot significantly improved by the presence of Facebook?
Signed,
an engineer
licet differant, aequabitur
After having worked with facebook's API for a while I have really strong objections against them telling what it means to be a great engineer. Facebook is a mess. (However, their js solutions are quite neat)
That's like Briebart running a seminar on ethics in journalism.
Facebook's Regina Wallace-Jones, who is in charge of protecting 1.6 billion people on the social network
Who's in charge of protecting 1.6 billion people from the social network?
This... coming from Facebook... is just about the funniest thing I've seen in several days.
"meaningful"
Ah ha.
Ha ha ha ha. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Or your a white guy who isn't as good as he thinks he is at his profession. Given the your rant, I suspect this is exactly the case.
Hint, not being an asshole goes a long way towards landing a job. Also a bath.
with not necessary.
You gotta have the skills to do the job.
And if you look around for two seconds you'll also see that technical skills alone can be sufficient--in sufficient force.
If your technical skills in *any* profession--musician, carpenter, race car driver, professional athlete, and even engineer--are good enough, you can be an asshole and still keep your job.
BUT--that doesn't mean that if you're a nice enough person they'll let your incompetence slide.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Yeah, he basically said math and science aren't enough...... then described math and science. The headline actually made me think he had something insightful to say.
"The impact of engineers goes well beyond the mobile apps, the gadgets, and the security systems that we build. The quest to engineer meaningful solutions... is not just about math and science, it's about making amazing solutions for real people in the real world"
Regina, this is not news. Any software engineer worth their salt (i.e. with a natural aptitude for computer and software engineering and science) knows this. The whole problem with our industry is that management has seen fit to offer jobs to just about anyone who wants to "work with computers". Worse, they employ the ones who *don't* even like the work ... they just want the money (they've heard there's good money in IT), but actually detest the work ... you'll never get inspirational work out of them.
Could it be that you're one of those managers who think they have a monopoly on intelligence and insight ? Some of us have known what you've just said for a decade or two, but management didn't want to listen, because "the numbers". Now that your numbers are looking good, some of you are stumbling on our prior art as if it's new and deep wisdom.
If you don't pray in my school, I won't think in your church.
Gee... whodathunk.
Next, they're going to be claiming that being a physical specimen that can jump high and bench press 220 lbs isn't enough to succeed in the pro sports leagues!
Managerial engineering is another way to say a cattle prod, a rolled up carpet, a couple of bags of lime and 2 shovels.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Looking at her background she does at least have a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. Then she went to grad school for public policy. She might be on the right track for that.
Tell Facebook to quit begging for my phone number. You don't need it, and I don't want to give it to you. Every time it happens, I see Zuck as a clingy bitch.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Just start looking, horse common should be just as easy to find as horse rare, at least in France.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
1st Bob: What you do at Initech is you take the specifications from the customer and bring them down to the software engineers? Tom: Yes, yes that's right. 2nd Bob: Well then I just have to ask why can't the customers take them directly to the software people? Tom: Well, I'll tell you why... because... engineers are not good at dealing with customers... 1st Bob: So you physically take the specs from the customer? Tom: Well... No. My secretary does that... or they're faxed. 2nd Bob: So then you must physically bring them to the software people? Tom: Well... No. ah sometimes. 1st Bob: What would you say you do here? Tom: Look I already told you, I deal with the @#$% customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people, can't you understand that? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
"Don't let anyone tell you that engineering is only about math and science or that engineering expertise is all you have to offer the world."
Except no one has ever told me that, and if they did I've have told them to "shut up and fuck off."
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Nobody ever said "engineering is only about math and science". I've never seen it written or heard somebody ever even imply that, nor do engineering curriculums limit themselves in such a way. Reading between the lines it would seem that one person feels inadequate around people with significantly superior "math and science" knowledge and feels the need to justify their self image (and position) by implying that other people are somehow incomplete or defective.
Engineering *is* all about math and science. Software developers are not engineers. Devs are artists with strong sub-calculus math skills with a knack for flawlessly drawing within the lines while imagining a result far beyond them. We're artists first.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Honesty to others, and especially honesty to self. An engineer has to be a realist in a world of wishful thinkers. He's got to work well with others, but be able to stand up to them as well. He also ought to be bold, but conscientious; sometimes taking risks but never unnecessary or sloppy ones.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
When's Facebook going to make a start on that?
Maybe they should hire more Medieval History majors. That worked out so well for HP.
"I can visualise, for example, a world ten years from now where every activity of one's life will be constantly recorded .. Great portions of our waking state will be spent in a constant mood of self-awareness and excitement, endlessly replaying the simplest basic life experiences." ref
The mistake here is assuming that those 100 "UI guys" are equally or even minimally competent. Good designers are just as difficult to find, and it's much harder to separate the wheat from the chaff. When it comes to developers, those with a strong aesthetic sense tend to produce more legible and maintainable code than those with a stronger technical background. Finding people with a mix of both is difficult, but ideal.
Privileging one set of skills and trivializing another is foolish. It's a lesson many of us have learned the hard way.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Here's the quote that you're referring to
"Don’t let anyone tell you that engineering is only about math and science or that engineering expertise is all you have to offer the world. Your experiences and your perspectives can help inspire a company to find a different approach to a problem or encourage someone else to speak up."
The headline is a bit inflammatory, the actual quote is about how engineers should have *more* say about how things are done.
At no point did she say that maths and science aren't important.
So maybe pause for 5 seconds before you hate on everything.
It's turtles all the way down.
So we know you're not talking about real, actual engineers.
I did not know that. I wonder where the outrage is, seriously? I've been told, many times, that a boss sleeping with an employee can never be consensual. I'm told that it starts on uneven terms and that there's no way that the employee can make the choice to be a part of that relationship. I've been told this multiple times and by multiple people.
I'm going to speculate that, by being the owner of the company, they're in a position of authority (or were) and thus any relationship is coercive and illegal/immoral/rape - depending on who has shared those views. I'm really kind of surprised I'd not heard about this. I'm surprised that nobody is outraged or was outraged.
Ah well... That is fairly off-topic, I suppose.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I can't count how many engineers I've come across who are absolutely brilliant but can't for the life of them prioritize problems correctly, stay communicative on their challenges, and find pragmatic ways around issues. Want to be a great engineer? Learn that your talent is merely a tool, and how you use it is every bit as important.
Of course, for probably 99% of CS jobs, they aren't particularly important, which makes it kind of disappointing that she didn't say that. :-)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Precisely. This "you need more than technical ability, you need soft skills" stuff is just one in a long line of things to keep good technical people "in their place". No one ever tell a salesperson that to advance in sales, they'll need to learn to build the product. Nor does a marketing person get told they'll need to service it to advance in marketing. But engineering? Sorry, if you can't do absolutely everything, technical and "soft", you're just a low-level drone. As you say, if I could do everything, I'd found my own damn company.
There's a lot of hate here for what is not a novel point, but a good one. Who likes to work with the technically brilliant arrogant jerk? What's the point of an awesomely engineered solution that took 5 times longer to develop than a simpler one which also did the job? If you want to do computer science research, go to a university, but 99% of you have not done that and would not thrive in that setting. Software engineering is about building good solutions with simple maintainable code, not about programming whiz tricks. Even if you're working on very performance-sensitive code, like say graphics, I'd rather you code something up based on the research or use the right library rather than spend a lot of time cooking up a possibly half-baked solution yourself. If you spend all of your time coding and don't know how to interact with people, you are a team of one, and for all but a vanishingly few, that hugely limits what you can achieve. There is no question as to Facebook's social value, just ask your grandmother where she shares her pictures. And for all the people scoffing at Facebook's technical achievements, what about HHVM, OpenCompute, Cassandra, Hive, Flux, React, GraphQL, M, and hundreds of random open source projects. And who employs the coreutils maintainer?
I can't see anything that Facebook does as any sort of serious engineering.
Your are essentially an organization that is an extension of the intelligence agency that started you out the gate.
Facebook has no engineering goals outside of its narrow mission of intelligence gathering worth discussing when organizations with far less fake value, and far more real value are doing erious operating systems kernel reengineering with real goals to improve the human condition in engineering, financial areas.
I especially don't like the fact that Zuckerburg feels he can subvert the political and deocratic process by escaping to an island with a bunch of other crony capitalists and figure out how to subvert the voting process because the "Donald" is giving them acid reflux.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Bullshit.
For a start, your list is flawed. e.g. Turing was a scientist, and spent much of his time doing administration. He worked with engineers who did a lot of the design work and all of the physical engineering.
Engineering is not only about maths and science. It's the intersection of maths and science with people.
Shit, I hadn't even heard of Korolev (I'm not Russian) but his wikipedia page even states "his greatest strengths proved to be in design integration, organization and strategic planning".
Organisation and strategic planning. Fuck all to do with maths or science.
If you think you're an engineer and a large proportion of your work doesn't involve communication, you're deluding yourself.
Bridges and airplanes? Engineers drive trains and run steam plants.
Agreed.
I have to go further than that and agree with her absolutely. Math and Science must pass a sufficient threshold to get things done. Knowing PI to the 125th digit is more mathy, but will probably not particularly help solving any problem. Knowing Partial Differential Equations probably would help in many instances, but when was the last time they came to use for you in programming? Many of us learn more and more about math and science because we love it; we love knowledge.
Engineers have to solve problems first and foremost. It's critical that an engineer have the skills to realize what the problems actually are. Perceiving the problems takes more than math and science.
Computer programmers are not paid to write computer programs; computer programmers are paid to solve problems. Many confuse the medium with the purpose. It just happens to be that computer programs are good at solving problems.
When did we start listening to EXECUTIVES about what it takes to be good at a job? These are the parasites that don't do any real work, but claim all the credit for things done by other people.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.