My Biggest Regret As A Programmer (擁有35年經驗、曾在蘋果工作的他說：當工程師是我最大的遺憾)

A little over 20 years ago I was at a crossroads. My second company was petering out when our 5 years of building Deltagraph for the publisher ended (they wanted to move into the nascent internet space). At that point I had 13 years experience as a programmer but also 9 years or so experience running a company (at the same time).

I no longer wanted to do both. My first company 85-87 not only built a new kind of spreadsheet program but also published it ourselves. I led the company, did all the press interviews, managed the investors, did all the usual business stuff and also was one of the three programmers and the UI designer. After we shipped the product in early 87 I also wound up in the hospital. Trying to be both leader and programmer was simply too much.

So at that point in 1994 I could have gone either into technical management or continued as a programmer. I chose programmer because it was easier. Today I now realize how wrong I was despite all the great stuff I’ve been able to work on and ship over the past 20 years. Going towards the CTO/CIO/VP Engineering route, which was fairly new back then, would have been a much better plan.

I was in the Bay area for a year around 1995 and worked at Apple for the last half. Apple looked to be falling apart and I left to return to Texas as I didn’t want to see my favorite company die around me. Big mistake.

Not only did Apple begin a huge turnaround a year later when Steve came back, but the whole Dotcom explosion happened. Being both an experienced programmer and leader who understood what it took to deliver (we did 9 major releases of the apps during my time, all of which I built the master floppies for, with no need for hot fixes which were hard to do then anyway) I can only imagine how in demand I could have been. Once you get to the level of one of those titles you can keep moving forward and up.

My sister started as a programmer 30 years ago but jumped into management within the first year and has been a VP at a big company for the past 15 or so years. The huge parent of the travel company I worked for a couple years ago had a CEO who started 15 years earlier as a programmer. Of course these types of jobs can be hard and unpleasant but for that the renumeration is way greater. My sister has 10X the assets I have.

Over the years I’ve seen how little ability you have as a programmer, no matter how good you are, at making a difference or changing things that are broken. I simply didn’t realize how little room you have to advance as just a programmer (or even architect or the like); the power to change exists at a level not available to you as a mere delivery device. Add to that the financial benefits, the higher likelihood of substantial IPO participation, and all the other things you gain access to, and being a programmer means you have to be happy with the opportunity to build cool things.

Over the years the worst places I’ve worked or helped as a consultant for those 5 or so years I did that were almost always due to inept, incompetent or downright idiotic technology management. There isn’t enough room in this blog to list them all.

Take the VP of engineering for a bank who remarked that he didn’t need to understand technology as he managed people, yet still made technology decisions. The CIO at the same place never believed anything his employees told him but believed everything vendors told him. Of course we knew he was taking kickbacks as we kept buying things we had no use for and he kept writing articles for them relating how wonderful their products were for us. Yet we used almost none of it. Some time after I left he was fired and perp-walked out of the company yet immediately got another similar CIO position.

The worst job I ever had started out as what I thought would be awesome. A post-startup had a successful niche in their industry; both they and their arch-rivals (different niche) both wanted to launch into a broader public market and the market was heating up. I was hired as a second programmer. The other programmer and manager had been hired to build a new broader online store as the existing one was too inflexible and slow for a big market. The company had zero technical leadership otherwise, the CEO and the other two founders had no technical experience or knowledge. The programmer constantly talked about how wonderful his backend code was and the manager supported him. I built a front end piece, put up demos, checked in my source every day. When I thought it a good time to integrate I discovered the other programmer after 10 months had checked in—nothing. When I pointed this out the manager said “he never checks in anything until it’s perfect”. Yet no one called this out as stupid other than me. I spent the next two months trying desperately to get the 3 founders to bring in people who could actually deliver (I knew several people) but they were afraid to make any changes and admit they had screwed up in hiring these two guys. Eventually I gave up and left.

A year later after still getting nothing from this guy they fired both of them. They tried to hire some consulting firm but got nothing from them either. By this time it was too late. The rivals? They became a billion dollar public company and I see their commercials on TV sometimes. I always want to throw a shoe at the TV when I see them. We had everything but a damn store and in reality actual technology leadership. If I had been such a person instead of a programmer I would have had the track record and clout to make it happen. But all I was was a programmer.

I could go on and on but the key is that you can’t make changes in how people do things in a technical sense unless you have the ability, the authority and the opportunity. Once you make that call and assuming you find the right places to grow, the sky is really the limit.

When I was on TV (Computer Chronicles) in early 1987 showing our product Trapeze the other presenter was Mike Slade who was product manager of Excel. At the time young me thought him some random marketing weenie (young people can be pretty stupid). Yet he started all these companies later including ESPN, worked for Apple in various leadership roles, was a good friend of Steve Jobs and started his own VC firm.

And today I am still just a programmer. Who’s the weenie now? I doubt I will ever be able to really retire. Thankfully I am still good at delivery (I was recruited into my present job by a former manager who needed what he knew I can do) but still all I will be until I croak is what I am now.

Being a programmer for nearly 35 years and still being able to get things done and ship is still fun and I’ve been able to work on amazing things over the years. But I can still feel the regret of not seeking the challenge of just leadership. In some ways programming was the easy choice. Given how close I got to the whole Dotcom timeframe, or even the return of Steve to Apple, and still had recent leadership experience, I could have been almost anything.

So yes I regret not taking that choice and seeing where it would have led me, yet I would have missed all the fun of writing code and the soul-draining jobs that often come with it where you can’t really fix anything.

I came to a fork in the road and took the one less traveled. Perhaps now I realize why.


[http://thecodist.com/article/my-biggest-regret-as-a-programmer]


大概20年前我正處在人來人往的十字路口。由於 Deltagraph 專案開發了5年之後中止，我的第二家公司快要做不下去了。那時候我已經有了13年的工程師經驗，同時也有大概9年經營公司的經歷（同時）。

我不想再這樣勉力兼顧兩者了。我的第一家公司85-87不僅開發了一種新型的電子表格程式而且還自己負責發行。公司由我來領導，從媒體採訪到投資者管理等一切日常商業事務都由我來打理，而且我還是其中的3名工程師之一，同時還兼任UI設計師。1987年初，在產品推出後我就累到住院了。又當負責人又做工程師實在是太累了。

於是到了1994年，我眼前有兩條路可以走，要不就做技術管理，要不就繼續當工程師。我選擇了當工程師，因為這項工作更簡單。到了今天我終於意識到這個決定是多麼的糟糕，儘管過去20年我做了很多很棒的東西。選擇往對我來說相對新鮮的 CTO/CIO/工程副總路線卻是一個更好的計劃。

1995年左右我曾在灣區住過1年，有半年時間是待在蘋果。蘋果當時看起來就要分崩離析，所以我又回到了德州，因為不想眼睜睜看著自己喜歡的公司倒掉。這是個天大的錯誤。

1年後，蘋果不僅因為Steve Jobs的回歸而出現巨大逆轉，而且還出現了.com 的集體大爆發。同時身為有經驗的工程師和主管的我（我們總共發布了9 個應用程式，我做的那些app從來都不用做過熱修復，這在當時是很難做到的）明白，自己本來可以多受歡迎。一旦你擁有了那樣的頭銜，再往前走就很容易了。

30年前我妹妹也是從工程師開始的，但是第1年她就轉到了管理崗位，過去15年她一直都擔任一家大公司的VP。幾年前我工作的一家旅遊公司的母公司也有一位CEO是15年前從工程師轉過來的。當然，這些類型的工作是有難度且不愉快的，但是收入也要高得多。我妹的資產是我的10倍。

這些年我目睹了身為工程師擁有的能力是多麼地薄弱，不管你寫程式、創造不同或者修復東西表現得有多出色。我當時完全沒有意識到身為工程師（或者架構師之流）你的進步空間有多狹窄。你就是一個螺絲釘，根本沒有那種改變現狀的能力。除了少了財務方面的好處以外，更高份額的IPO參股的可能也更低，能接觸到的東西更少，作為工程師你必須對有機會開發很酷的東西感到滿意。

這5年來我作為顧問工作過或幫助過的最糟糕的地方，幾乎都是因為徹底無能白痴的技術管理。這種無能多到罄竹難書，本文難以一一贅述。

在銀行當工程副總裁意味著他不需要理解技術，因為他管理的是人，但技術決策還是由他來決定。同樣地方的CIO從來不相信自己員工告訴他的任何東西，但是卻相信供應商告訴他的一切。當然我們知道他在拿回扣，因為我們不斷買自己不用的東西，而他卻不斷替供應商寫文章，稱讚對方的產品對我們如何的有用。可是我們幾乎都不用。我離開一段時間之後他終於被炒魷魚了，但是馬上又能在別處找到類似的CIO職位。

我做過最糟糕的工作一度是我認為非常棒的。一家後新創企業（post-startup ）在所做的行業有一個成功的利基業務，包括他們和他們的主要競爭對手（做另一個利基業務）都想上市，然後市場開始熱了起來。我被延攬過去成為他們的第二名工程師。另一位工程師和經理則負責開發一個新的線上商店，因為原來的那個太不靈活，跑得太慢了，不適合大市場的需要。

而這家公司的技術領導力是空白，CEO和另兩位創辦人都沒有技術經驗或知識。那位工程師不斷地吹噓自己的後端程式碼是如何地出色，經理也支持他。而我則開發前端，做演示，每天都檢查自己的程式碼。等到我認為是進行集成的好時機時我才發現另一位工程師整整 10 個月都沒有檢查過任何東西。我向經理指出這一點時經理卻說「他在東西完美之前，從不做檢查。」除了我以外沒人認為這是愚蠢的話。接下來的2個月我絕望地想讓那3位創辦人聘請真正能做事的人進來（我認識幾個），但他們儘管承認請錯了人，卻害怕做出任何改變。最後我放棄了，離開了那家公司。

1年後那家公司還是什麼都沒做出來，最後他們把那兩人都炒了。他們試過僱用一些諮詢機構但仍然一無所獲。到那時一切都已經太晚了。競爭對手已經變成了一家10億美元的上市公司，我還在電視上見過他們的廣告。每每看到他們的廣告我就想脫掉自己的鞋扔過去砸電視。我們什麼都有但就是沒有一個該死的線上商店和實際的技術領導力。如果我擔當的是管理的任務而不只是工程師的話（我本來該有這種履歷的），我可以把事情做得更好。但我卻只是一名工程師。

我還可以繼續做事，但關鍵是你沒法從技術角度改變別人的做事方式，除非你有那種機會和權力。一旦你做出了正確的決定並且找到了合適的地方去發展，講真的，只有天空才是極限。

1987年初，我上電視《Computer Chronicles》展示我們的產品 Trapeze 時，另一個演示者是 Mike Slade，當時他是 Excel 的產品經理。那時候年輕的我認為他只是一個做推銷的無名小卒（誰沒年少輕狂過對吧）。但是後來他創辦了 ESPN（美國24小時專播體育節目的有線電視聯播網），加入過蘋果擔任各種領導角色，他還是Steve Jobs的好友，並且還創立了自己的 VC 機構。

但到現在我還只是一個工程師。現在誰是無名小卒？我都懷疑自己能不能退休了。謝天謝地現在我還能做東西（一位前經理雇用我去做他知道我能做的事情），但是我也就只能是這個樣子了。

作為一個有將近35年經驗的工程師，值得欣慰的是我現在還能繼續寫程式，還能找到樂趣，這些年還能做一些令人驚豔的東西。但我還是對沒有接下領導職的挑戰感到後悔。從某種程度來說變成是容易的選擇。我曾經離網路時代尖端那麼地近，甚至還有機會回到Steve Jobs身邊，並且當時也曾有過領導經驗，我本來可以成為任何想成為的人。

所以是的，我後悔沒有做出那個選擇，後悔沒有看到它本該可以引領我去到哪裡，然而若是我當初做了不一樣的選擇，我也可能失去寫程式的樂趣，在讓人精神枯竭的工作中，失去完成修復的成就感。

當時我站在岔路口時選了一條人少的路走。現在我知道是為什麼了。


[http://www.bnext.com.tw/ext_rss/view/id/1520530]