Who here works in tech?

[nvanprooyen]

they usually promise the wrong things and don't promise the right things

Usually because the person with purchasing authority just wants to be told what they want to hear, which is what a good salesman knows how to lock in on. Realities are left to the people who actually know what they are doing, on both sides of the transaction. Good companies typically use a high level technical resource on the sales side, and qualified people on the buying side to vet the proposal and figure out implementation.

 

[ShiftyDevil]

Over the years I've purchased a lot of electronic test equipment from HP, Tektronix and a dozen other companies. They all have the same technique, a 2 man sales team consisting of one engineer that really knows his shit and an empty suit, a salesman that doesn't know shit, he is there to pay for lunch and be quiet while the smart people talk.

I'm sure it's different in software.

NooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooope

So we're looking at a migration to Azure, and so we were on a conference call with a MS guy talking about Data Bricks. I had looked at some documentation before the call and had a question.

Shifty: "It says on this page *links page* that databricks has some level of integration with Git, can explain that a bit?"

MS Sales Guy: "No but I can send you some documentation!" *Sends a link to the exact page I just linked him*

Fuckin' sales guys. I liked the Oracle sales guys though, they always had good catering.

People don't respect salesmen/women because they are morons who don't know more than the bare minimum of what they're selling.

They usually sell anything the client asks for and just passes on the burden of figuring out how to implement the package that was sold to the tech people who actually do the work.

If you know how to talk, and can understand the bare basics of a technology, you can sell it.

If you know how to talk, and understand the real value and features of a technology, you can sell it correctly so the implementation goes well, the operational overhead isn't horrendous, and the client winds up way happier and willing to buy more stuff.

I am not passing judgement on you Ommy, you might have known plenty to sell your stuff properly, but in software sales the sales people are generally ignorant of the business and product to a pretty sad level.

Oh god, it's even worse when your company does consultative work.

 

[Ares]

Dude. You fucking nailed it. So many sales people promise the world with zero understanding of the realities of implementation. And someone infinitely more capable is left holding the bag to deliver. It happens constantly in my experience.

Once they close the sale they get their bonus and move on.

There's a big incentive to promise anything/everything to get a sale closed, regardless of if it is a good/reasonable contract for the company.

When things get messy and you have implementation headaches or operational nightmares, the sales people get no flack, the project/program managers and the IT Development/Operations folks do.

This is why I try to keep in contact with our sales people and, as much as it irritates me, I will baby them and answer all their questions (do half the job for them) about the product, because I can at least influence them against making awful promises.

 

[KittiesKorner]

Usually because the person with purchasing authority just wants to be told what they want to hear, which is what a good salesman knows how to lock in on. Realities are left to the people who actually know what they are doing, on both sides of the transaction. Good companies typically use a high level technical resource on the sales side, and qualified people on the buying side to vet the proposal and figure out implementation.

you don't have to tell me twice. One of the reasons I quit 2 jobs ago now is because we 'won' a technical project manager from Sears who didn't even know how to use Jira, and she was responsible for communicating our deliverables to the account manager, who communicated product capabilities to the sales team for pitching. Process, baby.

 

[truthbedamned]

I started making games with Pygame a girl in my class was a pretty good coder and her Dad worked for a big company that was how I learned Python, C, and assembly language.

I know a bit of networking I have a bunch of certs just to stay well round my most recent is my CCNP from Cisco.

LOL...you got a ways to go youngster.

 

[Aesopian]

LOL...you got a ways to go youngster.

CCIE next.

 

[Alpha Male]

I do web development. Spring boot on the back end and angular 5 on the front end.

 

[Alpha Male]

People ask me all the time where they should direct their kids and I say:

-Security
-Artificial intelligence
-Big Data

Outside of sales, the tech side of these disciplines are the best way to make a very good living

I think security will be big. Lot of breaches now a days at big companies.

 

[Alpha Male]

What's your favorite editor or full blown IDE? Most of the stuff I work on doesn't require the overhead of an IDE, so I tend to gravitate towards editors. Used Sublime for years, but recently have fallen in love with VS Code. They brought a lot of the stuff that makes Visual Studio great over, but in a light format. Lots of extensions, customization, and the Intellisense is really good. Tried Atom for a minute, but it felt really slow.

Intellij is my favorite for java development. Once I started using that, I couldn't go back to eclipse.

 

[nvanprooyen]

Intellij is my favorite for java development. Once I started using that, I couldn't go back to eclipse.

Jetbrains makes nice software. I've never used Intellij, but I have used some of their other products. E.g. PhpStorm, WebStorm. Also their Resharper extension when I was toying around with C#. Been meaning to check out PyCharm. I kind of wish they would roll everything into a single IDE though. I hop around a bit and it would be nice to have a single IDE across languages, without needing a bunch of licenses. Bottom line, they make really good development software IMO.

 

[nvanprooyen]

I do web development. Spring boot on the back end and angular 5 on the front end.

I have never written anything in angular, but literally every single person I have talked to that has used it, hates it.

 

[Alpha Male]

I have never written anything in angular, but literally every single person I have talked to that has used it, hates it.

Its pretty good for enterprise software where all you might be doing is inserting data, but I agree that it's not that great. I would rather use react but its not what my employer uses.

 

[Alpha Male]

Jetbrains makes nice software. I've never used Intellij, but I have used some of their other products. E.g. PhpStorm, WebStorm. Also their Resharper extension when I was toying around with C#. Been meaning to check out PyCharm. I kind of wish they would roll everything into a single IDE though. I hop around a bit and it would be nice to have a single IDE across languages, without needing a bunch of licenses. Bottom line, they make really good development software IMO.

They do make good software. I believe you don't need to buy all the individual ones though. I think you can achieve the same functionality with plugins in Intellij. They might just not update as quick though.

 

[Alpha Male]

I am (currently) Manager of a department called Data Operations.

I really have 3 distinct teams that do Production data loads (ETL) and extracts for 3 distinct products.

Also one of those teams owns our SFTP and 3rd party solution for orchestrating file movement for (technically) 5-7 distinct products.

All of our operations are within the Microsoft stack right now, mostly SQL Server and SSIS.

The team I have in Chicago handles data loading, data normalization, running the data thru an analytics engine, pushing the results to a front end, and a variety of other corner case deliverables that are generally just file outputs from SQL Server, XMLs, text files, MS Access exports, etc.

I say currently, above because my boss left a month ago and I am supposedly being promoted into his Director slot.... I'm doing the work but they have yet to actually complete the process of promoting me.

All of our stuff is Healthcare IT services, so all the data we're loading/extracting is healthcare data in some form.

If they haven't promoted you yet, they might be screwing you over. I've been at places where when directors leave they will just make other people do the work and not hire a replacement. Make sure you follow up on that.

 

[nvanprooyen]

Its pretty good for enterprise software where all you might be doing is inserting data, but I agree that it's not that great. I would rather use react but its not what my employer uses.

I've heard a lot of good things about React. As noted above, I want to start toying with a JS framework soon. Mostly because I have a lot of UX background and I think it would be cool to build a SPA. Currently leaning towards Vue though because it seems pretty simple.

 

[nvanprooyen]

I'm actually going in on Monday for a promotion. I'd hate to be the type of guy that does all of that work and not get appreciated for it.

Stop.

 

[nvanprooyen]

The more I move into leadership, the less I actually work in the weeds on SQL code or data.

But I can see how awful IT leadership is.... at least at my company, so I will keep leading people and squeeze them to pay me for it.

If they choose not to pay me, ill find something else.

Honestly, most IT Managers and above are coders who got promoted into leadership and suck at it.... they are awkward and/or abrasive and have no clue how to actually lead people.

We have an AppDev Director who is leaving, who kept throwing insane timelines on projects and I had to keep pointing out that his teams could never hit any of the targets he set.

His response was that he had to do that because "It's the only way to motivate my teams"

He said that in front of me, my boss, and his own boss..... it was cringe af.

Competent IT leadership is not easy to find.

I don't do this in your threads.

 

[Alpha Male]

I've heard a lot of good things about React. As noted above, I want to start toying with a JS framework soon. Mostly because I have a lot of UX background and I think it would be cool to build a SPA. Currently leaning towards Vue though because it seems pretty simple.

Vue and React both seem like good frameworks. i still dont invest any time to learn anything else because there are so many javascript frameworks, by the time you master it the next great thing will come out. I remember when all they had was jquery and now they have knockout, meteor, ember, backbone, vue, react, preact, angular, and there are probably more. I do side projects in angular every now and then because my employer uses it so its worth learning for me.

 

[nvanprooyen]

Vue and React both seem like good frameworks. i still dont invest any time to learn anything else because there are so many javascript frameworks, by the time you master it the next great thing will come out. I remember when all they had was jquery and now they have knockout, meteor, ember, backbone, vue, react, preact, angular, and there are probably more. I do side projects in angular every now and then because my employer uses it so its worth learning for me.

LOL, that is absolutely true. Probably before I finish writing this post a new framework will be out there. That is honestly one of the biggest things that has made investing in JavaScript development so intimidating for me. The entire ecosystem seems to shift on a weekly basis.

 

[nvanprooyen]

@tardigrade

Please sound off on your take of JS frameworks. I think you've probably been around the block more than anyone here on that end of things. The entire ecosystem comes off as confusing to me.