The sentiment about startup 'engineering' is dead-on, and it should be called what it is: anti-intellectualism. Rather than thinking a bit harder, going a bit slower, or designing a bit more, it pushes you to produce faster, break faster...after all, everything's in INTERNET TIME now! Things don't usually have to be like this.

You should be deeply suspicious of any culture that drives you to work longer, rather than smarter. My real life fuels my research at work and in open source.

There will be more noise about ageism in the future, but only when the current crop of SV favorites realizes they're no longer the young hot thing. Ageism screws everyone eventually. You will be discarded and ignored.

The "we're changing the world" mentality is a bit annoying to me, as well. When I think about changing the world, I think about discoveries in medicine and science, people dedicating their lives to improving humanity, etc. To me, it's just a popular catch-phrase for 'the pitch' and relatively devoid of meaning in most cases.

It could be construed as a negative signal: is the company delusional enough to believe that another social dog-teeth-cleansing website will really change the world?

But, yes, somehow SV has found a way to promise to twentysomethings that they can fulfill their life's deepest purpose with the potential to become very wealthy. The catch? Just work really hard!

SV is a machine fueled by the optimism and naivete of the young. It's possible to do really well in it, but I feel like you need to keep your wits about you.

It usually means they have yet another CRUD app but theoretically doing something unusual with the CRUD app. Sometimes slightly more complex, like some reporting.

So the example of the consumer to consumer dog tooth brushing marketplace might be an exciting world changing marketplace, but fundamentally its pretty much a customized web CRUD interface to a dating app, being used instead of matching up dates, to match dogs with bad breath to freelance tooth brushers. Its just not that technically exciting, in which case having noobs do the work isn't all that dangerous plus or minus the usual SQL injection attacks and such.

If science and medicine has the same unregulated freedom as software development, it would happen. Connected data is just the beginning. Give it 30 years, when 3D printers can make anything you need for a lab.

As someone from a liberal arts background who is taking steps to change careers, it's comments like this that are making me want to go into computer engineering rather than computer science. It'll be harder, but as someone whose career suffered from the last recession I've become a bit more sensitive to bubbles and the growing size of the labor pool in CS. I fear that in the next decade being a programmer could become more akin to being a lawyer today.

I'm not trying to make an argument about whether what I say is true. I'm just expressing a few musings.

I do think web programming is going to be become commoditized in next 10 years or so. Don't get me wrong, the salaries will still be livable, but for the kind of websites the OP talks about, there's going to be more supply then demand.

That said, I do think there will always be a need for people who are willing to solve tough problems using methods and technologies that may not be cool, but are effective.

Great point.

If you're specializing in webdev, it cannot hurt to look beyond and make contingency plans if this turns out to be true. You don't want to get laid off unexpectedly and find yourself technically lacking. What I mean by this: find a more specialized area and see if it's interesting. Could be mobile, machine learning, compilers, etc. Don't be scared of systems programming -- it may come back with a vengeance.

FWIW, webdev has smelled of commoditization and 'cheap' devs for a little bit to me, and it's scary. Everyone gets screwed by this; especially as you get older.

What kind of webdev are we talking about? Large backend services or a wordpress website? Or even the Ghost [1] blogging platform? By mobile, do you also include mobile web front ends then? Do you include Twitter & Facebook as part of that kind of commoditized developer?

I'm an iOS developer and have been looking into webdev to spread out a bit. Possibly something like clojure for a backend and node.js for quick simple services.

[1] http://ghost.org/features/

Good question! I'm speaking mostly to the simple CRUD apps that startups often concern themselves with. Complex backend services will be fine. My heuristic is this: if a framework is giving you huge productivity advantages, there's nothing stopping someone from figuring out how to GUI-ify/sugarcoat the parts you write as a good disciple of this week's True Framework. After all, that's what VB did: made it easy for non-devs to make a Windows GUI with a little bit of code. It will happen to webdev, and it will happen to iOS (usepropeller.com).

How do you counter this? Easy: specialize in something requiring hard-fought knowledge. It could be great chops in UX, or deep domain knowledge. But I use the word hard-fought intentionally: this is know-how that is not easily digestable from a blog post.

Industry may require you to be skilled in certain frameworks, but it's not the same at all as having strong, general programming skills you can apply everywhere. Personally, I'm looking to Clojure for the infinite meta-programmability, and resulting brain-refactoring that ensues.

It's about a lifetime of education, and always challenging yourself. That's the real payoff. Industry will run in circles, convincing itself it is innovating, while ignoring a lot of cool stuff done in the past. Dig into it, learn, and write about it.

Agreed, but I think it's already happening and will get even faster, possibly within the next 5 years. All my cousins in highschool are learning RoR / Python; millions of contractors overseas are picking up new languages besides PHP (granted, most of them still write terrible code). It has just gotten so easy to build basic CRUD apps that people need a hell lot more to call themselves developers.

Ya, I lost the instruction manual to my crystal ball so I hate trying to predict things like this, but I don't see any moat that the US has that will stop the world from writing the simple CRUD apps. And we regularly get 'self taught' resumes coming through where people have tossed together some simple apps that they have sold. It's a pretty low barrier to entry when everyone owns a smart phone and the dev tools are free.

Learn math. Learn physics. Learn some chemistry or biology. Be able to write digital signal processing code. Know linear algebra. Learn some NLP. Learn enough algorithms to write an efficient soldering path tool, or network router. Even there I am not sure of the moat; the number of searches for terms like "asymptotic complexity" are far higher in places like India and China than the US. But if you can reasonably say "if I leave it will take 3 normal people to replace me" you will have job security and the ability to command a high salary regardless of the economy.

Secondarily, I think there is an untapped market for people that are actually able to architect software and lead teams. I don't mean writing StrategyFactoryAbstractVistorBuilderFactorySingletonFlyweight horror shows, but actually putting together a solution that is maintainable and extensible over time. The field seems very immature in this regard. Or someone that can just think clearly, put a plan together, and execute it, even just at a middling level, seems pretty rare. I don't know if that (project management) pays a lot, but I think skilled people are worth their weight in gold. It seems to attract people that don't have the technical chops, not because they chose a different education, but more that they tried to be technical and just weren't that smart. If you are smart, you will always have a job in that arena.

If computer science interests you, feel free to take computer science. Seriously. At a reputable college (no, it doesn't have to be MIT, I just mean an academically serious school) you'll take calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, physics (maybe). You may need to take (or have the opportunity to take as electives that count to the degree) advanced courses in stochastic processes, mathematical optimization, numerical analysis, simulation design. You'll learn very interesting things about data structures and algorithms, graphs, pattern matching. You will write a compiler, and it will be hard as hell.

If you are interested in computer engineering, well then, of course study that!

But don't let the vacuousness of some of what masquerades as "tech" deter you from studying something so rigorous and fascinating. The applications are very broad. If you like this sort of thing, you can find something very meaningful that will interest you!

Um... Do you actually understand the difference between "Computer Science" and "Computer Engineering?" You seem to imply that there is a difference in terms of rigor, which is untrue. The difference between each major depends case by case on each college, and most/many colleges only offer one or the other. A common, but hardly universal, difference is that CE might involve EE/hardware classes while CS might involves fewer such classes. I have never heard of an instance in which CS is less rigorous than CE at the same school.

As an aside, you joke but:

> launching the 5th dog teeth cleaning service in the same tiny geographic area.

A quick search will show you the top hit is geographically dispersed: http://petdentalservices.com/

So as you note: you exaggerate, but only a little.

Well-put. Anecdotally, I see that there is a percentage of startup people who did well in the scene without deep engineering skills but gradually see their deficit as they get older and go back to school.

Geezers saying today's start-ups are only social cloud services for pets is the modern version of the "get off my lawn" cliche.

Stop saying it, plz. It's not how old you are, but how old you sound.

(I'm 45, btw).

I kind of think I said the opposite. I said the kind of thinking that works for such start ups (you must admit plenty do exist) leach into companies where such thinking does not work. In fact, I said that the world is fueled by things like thermostats, medical devices and the like. We have plenty of start ups in the Bay Area (and the world) pursuing things like new medical devices. I get worried when some of them seem to borrow from the 20-something, brogrammer mentality, or equally (but oppositely), buy into silver bullet type things like agile or what have you. Everything has it's place; Jobs did not agile, pivot, and story point his way to the Macintosh, no one could have. OTOH, his approach would be death for somebody trying to test launch a really neat social app idea, where we would all be appalled if they weren't shipping weekly. Different tools for different jobs.

And so, back to the OP, and the frequent sentiments expressed on HN, there is value in engineering, a skill that is hard won and built over time, and there is value in knowing how to run a company (again, excepting a few savants, something that requires experience). Do not allow the existence of genuine counterexamples to cloud those facts.

edit: clarified a few sentences.

Sorry to reply to myself. This was intended as a reply to steven777400 below, not to the article itself. I guess old people can't handle these new fangled interfaces ;)

'cause it was hacked together by some young, inexperienced programmer!??! :)

No, 'cause it was hacked together with SV-startup attitudes, using the wonderful new system-du-jour (in this case, Arc) featuring ideological purity (sessions are just continuations — isn't that beautiful?) over something that would actually work ("Unknown or expired link.").

I think I can speak to this. I was a lot like 'those kids' - except that I came of age in 1997, in an earlier bubble. Note, to this day I don't have any college. Standards were low in 1997, and I got lucky and got a prestigious job during the bubble, and got lucky and got a job after the crash... (and there may have been some brains and hard work in there, too... but there was a lot of luck.) so I 'made the cut' as it were, and remained employed. (My salary didn't even drop, though it was flat for a few years.)

I'm sure you also lived through that boom, but it was... more vivid for me. Imagine; graduating out of one of the worst high schools in the state. A hellish experience (by the standards of a middle-class white guy) and immediately, you are immersed in a world where everyone wants you. It was... pretty great.

Note, I'm a sysadmin, so I probably hang out with more C types; systems programmers and embedded programmers, but I'm not really that much of a programmer myself. (I mean, I can patch things, and I can sling enough perl to handle many tens of thousands of nodes; I can read code, and I know C. I'm just not /very good/ by the standards of systems people or embedded software folks.)

Sysadmins... well, we mostly aspire to be systems programmers or embedded software people. We really look up to you. And we generally look down on web developers, and php programmers. A lot of that is, well, it's our job to clean up after the PHP guys. We're the janitors; the busboys; the PHP guys are the waiters who actually deal with customers, get tips, and all the credit, but we have to clean up after them, and nobody notices us unless we don't do our job right (at which point, everything goes to hell. We're like the bus boy, the janitor, the plumber, the appliance repair tech... In my capacity as SysAdmin, I actually solved a problem of a toilet that was overflowing in an office above a restaurant.[1])

>Moreover, I rather worry about all the people coming up in the bubble, thinking it is bedrock reality.

My impression was that yeah, it seemed normal at first, but... it quickly became apparent that it was a bubble, even to a 17 year old kid who barely made it through high school. It was talked about pretty openly. At this point, I don't have a big corporate job, but my impression (I have a bunch of friends at google, and a few at facebook) is that this time around folks, especially the younger folks either really believe, or they are pretending to really believe.

>I wonder at their job prospects when they are 35, have a family, don't have time to go back to school to learn calculus or what have you, and didn't 'hit' and make fuck you money

If it is like the last crash? the top 30% have zero to worry about. There is plenty of webdev work, and there will be for some time going. They might not get signing bonuses anymore, but eh, they'll be comfortable. The bottom 50%, yeah, will need to get new jobs elsewhere. The rest? they'll have problems for a while, but after a few years of retail, they'll get back on their feet.

(Note, percentiles are judged by employer perception here, not actual skill.)

Overall? I'd say it's a reasonably good bet for a youngster. Nowhere else can a young person get as much respect. After the crash? sure, maybe you will have to do something else, but that's okay. Nothing is forever.

[1]Oh man, it's one of my favorite stories. I love it when I find technical solutions to social problems. Our office was above a Chinese restaurant. Maybe 30 phone support folks, maybe 5 technical folks. The bathroom was overused, and poorly maintained. the toilets regularly overflowed from what I would call reasonable amounts of toilet paper. Anyhow, if you grabbed a plunger (or hollered for help, so the office manager would grab the plunger) it was okay. Not that big of a deal. But some people would just leave, hoping nobody would notice.

The boss wanted to install cameras in the bathroom... or to have a sign-in sheet. 'Gimme $20' I said. I got a water alarm. They make 'em for basements. We put it in, and tested it (mid-day, and the alarm was /loud/) The toilet never overflowed again.

>it quickly became apparent that it was a bubble, even to a 17 year old kid who barely made it through high school. It was talked about pretty openly

I remember a number of dotcom vets saying that their bubble was different because they really believed a revolution was happening. Just how openly was it (the bubble) discussed in your case?

>I remember a number of dotcom vets saying that their bubble was different because they really believed a revolution was happening. Just how openly was it (the bubble) discussed in your case?

Huh. that's the opposite of my perception. The kids today actually believe it; most of the folks cynically pointing out that it's a bubble around building mostly-useless CRUD apps are people who are old enough to remember the first time around, (people who are older than these new bubble companies usually hire.) Of course, it depends on where you are; Facebook... Everyone I know at facebook actually believes the company line. Like disturbingly so. At yahoo? everyone knows it's bullshit, and the good people get themselves into interesting technical positions where others can't bother them too much. (I am... honestly not sure that the Facebook approach is better for the company. If your employees can't see the problems with your company, they can't fix them.)

(Google, while I don't think it's as bad as facebook, has a similar problem; I've seriously had otherwise intelligent Engineers tell me that ads are good for consumers. Not that well-targeted text ads are less-bad than annoying pop-unders, Not that ads pay for good things, but that the ads themselves, when done right, were actually a net positive for the consumer. Yeah.)

From my limited experience? there was a real day-trader mentality in the '90s; I I remember a bunch of my (technical) co-workers would carry around pager-like devices that had the stock price for the company. (this was in the era of the 32MB rio MP3 player, and of file transfers over the parallel interface.) There was much discussion on when to sell (and how much to sell) when your stock options were above water, and much bitching and moaning when they weren't. Probably almost as much discussion as about what fancy car to buy with the winnings. (come to think of it, I only remember the stock pagers when I was on the east coast, so it's possible that in silicon valley there was more faith.)

Of course, this was the very end of that boom, too, and this was 1/3rd of my life ago, so 1997 and 1999 kinda blend together. I could be talking mostly about 1999, so it's possible that there was confidence among the workers until very nearly the end, and I just didn't notice.

As a sidenote (and possible useful bit of advice for youngsters who are employable now, but are concerned about after the crash) In '99, I chose to go for a prestigious job over a job with options. Obviously, it was the right choice; I still brag about that job, while the options would have been toilet paper long before I vested.

This VC-funded light-tech bubble is a gigantic bike shed.

The problem is that a VC who "sees things in people" (usually, only young white male people from Stanford) can't evaluate them for the skill and expertise to build a new dialysis machine, anti-lock brake system, or graphics card. It's actually hard, from an armchair perspective, to know what should and should not be built unless one is in those "unsexy" industries, much less evaluate people for the competence to execute, when you don't know that stuff yourself.

On the other hand, for trivialities, the "we invest in people, not businesses" morons can get to believe that they have all the relevant information. (I doubt their judgment of character is nearly as good as they think it is, but that's another discussion.)

Additionally, the hottest VCs are the ones who can garner the highest social in-degree, and that means they have to be in the light-tech space where they could conceivably fund anyone (even an idiot). Most people are ignoring the rest of technology and focusing on the low-grade light tech (where the age discrimination is worst) that is closer to marketing than engineering.

See, if you ask a hundred people whether self-driving cars are technically feasible now (much less, what algorithms one would use to train them) 99 will say they have no idea. On the other hand, every idiot in the Valley has a strong opinion of whether Twitter, Tumblr, Uber, et al deserve to get another round of funding, an acquisition or IPO, etc.

You get the age discrimination in the bike-shed world, which isn't really technology if you ask me. In real technology, people know better than to turn away talent over something so trivial.