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Facebook Exec Explains Why Technical Skills Aren't Enough To Be a Great Engineer (geekwire.com)

Posted by msmash on from the beyond-math-and-science dept.

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."

15 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. It is all a rat race by ickleberry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

    1. Re:It is all a rat race by Aighearach · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, the crap about "pushing mankind to its outer limits" is hard to read. Is that really what engineering does?

      Obviously, understanding the humans and the use cases is more important to being a great engineer than just math; the math is just a base requirement, not the job of engineering.

    2. Re:It is all a rat race by Kjella · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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

      And yet... how many of us have actually made a product 1+ billion "real people in the real world" use and how many are just being Internet warriors in the comments field? I've seen a lot of engineers get lost in technical or academic challenges, philosophical issues or just perceived wants and needs the customers/users would have that they really don't. Cue the infamous "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." when Apple released the iPod. Or why "assume a spherical cow" has become a running joke of theoretical models.

      There is a lot of hubris that it's what the STEM people do that's important and everything else is fluff. If nobody else will stick their neck out, I will: I don't really understand people, like what the mainstream wants or why. And that's okay, because the people who do generally haven't don't know much about actually building it. And sometimes the economists will tell you that yes, people want it and yes, we could build it but you'd be spending $100 for a solution to a $10 problem. And sometimes you build it and it's the best solution nobody's heard about.

      real world <-- investigate, analyze --> problems
      problems <-- design, build, test --> solutions
      solutions <-- communicate, distribute --> real world

      I've written a lot of good code that went to naught not because there was anything wrong with it, but because it wasn't actually solving real world problems. And you can of course blame the spec or that the user is holding it wrong, but at the end of the day it just isn't providing value. So I try to go beyond what they teach in STEM classes and work on what's the user really trying to achieve and can I deliver on that. Or maybe it's just in-house what the business analyst wants or the way the architect or development team wants to build things but there's hardly any position where you don't need those skills.

      I have this person at work in mind, no doubt he's very bright but he's also quite terrible at talking to people in a way they can understand. Even for an IT person it becomes an incoherent rant of technical details, niche concepts and proscribing solutions instead of explaining them. Meanwhile I pushed through a good technical change recently asking "What if the person changes his mind?" because the proposed solution failed to take that into account. That I pointed out how we'd already solved this other places helped, of course. But if nobody pays attention, we're going to reinvent the wheel and poorly, over and over again.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:It is all a rat race by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, the crap about "pushing mankind to its outer limits" is hard to read. Is that really what engineering does?

      Well a little. But I don near shit myself when includedn in the quote was "The impact of engineers goes well beyond the mobile apps, the gadgets,

      Because yeh - once upon a time we went to the moon, using simple computers and slide rules. That's pressing the limits.

      Now pressing the limits is writing apps. http://img.memecdn.com/Cutting...

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  2. H1b and the will to work 80 hours a week by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    H1b and the will to work 80 hours a week is what they really want.

  3. Insightful by El_Muerte_TDS · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Insightful by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      No, she earns the big bucks because she can make her bosses think it's insightful.

      The corporate world is the Art of Bullshitting. In other words, she's a Bullshit Engineer (at least for this article).

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  4. What the hell ... by Rudisaurus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... 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
    1. Re:What the hell ... by Lurks · · Score: 3, Interesting

      > ... would Facebook know about "real solutions for real people"?

      In fact, more than virtually any other company in the world, excepting perhaps Microsoft.

      > What exactly do they produce? What particular problems do they address? How is mankind's lot significantly improved by the presence of Facebook?

      They produce a social network. There are many problems that these address. Sure, from your point of view, people post cat baby photos. Around the world Facebook is virtually the Internet, because it provides the means to connect with a social graph of people in similar circumstances. The breadth of communities, NGOs and government agencies worldwide that use Facebook groups to communicate with small communities, where there exists no infrastructure to build and publicise traditional web sites, is beyond large. Today I fly out to the rural mountains of Taiwan where I will be working with the Taiwanese indiginous people to document their own language. They face a great many difficulties but the various tribes have been able to pull together to share information, organise events, publicise their political struggles, all via Facebook and mobile networks (another great engineering achievement, which presumably you actually rate?)

      Signed,

      Also an engineer (one who develops solutions for people outside of the rich white-anglosphere).

    2. Re:What the hell ... by DerekLyons · · Score: 4, Interesting

      How is mankind's lot significantly improved by the presence of Facebook?

      Let's see what I've accomplished on Facebook today...

      • - Corresponded with my sister on a medieval recipe recreation we're both working on.
      • - Took part in a discussion in a group dedicated to Food and Society on the relationship between geography and food choices.
      • - Helped someone in the KSP group with the design of a new lifter.
      • - Voted on the anime we'll be watching at next month's meeting of our local anime club.
      • - Helped a fellow photographer troubleshoot a problem he had in processing an image.
      • - Commented on a restaurant review in a group about local restaurants. (The reviewer had gotten the hours wrong.)
      • - Commented on an analysis of SpaceX's landing attempts that was posted to a group dedicated to discussion of space related businesses.
      • - Helped someone new to our local SCA branch hook up with the local expert on a topic he's interested in.

      All that - and it's only quarter to four in the afternoon on a slow Sunday.

      You may not find communicating with your fellows useful, but I certainly do. Contrary to the ignorant and idiotic position often seen here on /. (and one continues to be held in defiance of repeated corrections on the matter), there's a lot more to Facebook than playing Farmville and posting inane photographs.

  5. Yes, but... by Raenex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

  6. This... by fyngyrz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The quest to engineer meaningful solutions

    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.
    1. Re: This... by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Billionaire != meaningful.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    2. Re: This... by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Billionaire != meaningful.

      Strongly disagree. If you are a billionaire you will have more influence over the lives of others than someone who is not. How is that not meaningful? It doesn't make the meaning positive.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  7. Well duh ... by Tetch · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Regina Wallace-Jones apparently 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"

    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.