Sunday, April 1, 2012 at 7:17PM I just picked up You.next(): Move Your Software Development Career to the Leadership Track
This book has changed my point of view on managerial roles in software engineering and definitely makes it seem less like a career move towards total brain-rot. ;)
Sunday, February 26, 2012 at 12:05AM (This is a followup post for Why be an Expert in Singapore? Seriously. As with all blog entries, I speak for myself and not any organization I may be affiliated with.)
On my latest trip back to Singapore, talking to friends in the IT sector here and looking through job listings, it becomes abundantly clear to me that, in Singapore, the software engineer, or programmer, is regarded as the entry-level, don't-think-just-do, job.
Managerial skills are highly valued in Singapore, and permeates throughout most sectors, even the IT sector. I believe this can be partially attributed to the top-down management style of all Singapore government organizations. (And remember, government jobs in Singapore are well-paying and -respected relative to many other countries.) For example, the CEO of the main government scientific research agency is an ex-armed forces chief, the CEO of the main IT regulatory and advisory agency is headed by an ex-navy chief, and the CEO of the media development agency held senior positions in the Singapore Police Force, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, and the Ministry of Manpower.
These individuals, while clearly having been trained with high level executive skills, do not necessarily have the technical background or expertise in the organization that they lead. This is pervasive throughout the organizational structure - mid level managers do not need to be technical, but are often "scholars" who won government scholarships after high school, have been earmarked to reach high level government positions, and are seen as being trained to hold senior appointments .
The manager is viewed as the essential cog in the system. They make the decisions, manage the risks and ultimately are the main reason for the success or failure of projects. The underlying sector is practically irrelevant - be it waste management, education, foreign affairs, or IT. We have specialists for those nitty gritty details.
"What? Google is engineering-driven? You actually let engineers make decisions?"
- Paraphrased quote from Singapore government officer on a visit to my workplace
And, hey, software can be written from a top-down manner. But not all top-down hierarchies are made equal. Tech companies like Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google are more alike to each other in their management structure than to the Singapore government management structure; (successful) tech companies have a culture of technocracy.
Technocracy is a form of government in which science would be in control of all decision making.
Scientists, engineers and technologists who have knowledge, expertise or skills would compose
the governing body, instead of politicians, businessmen and economists. In a technocracy,
decision makers would be selected based upon how knowledgeable and skillful they are in their
field.
- Wikipedia article on Technocracy
This dawned on me (and this occurred while I was talking to a bureaucrat who had no business managing a technical project) that I am disillusioned not with the manager being in charge (well, someone has to be), but with the complete inability for non-technical people to grasp the complexities and subtleties of a technical project.
Maybe then... I don't have to explain why you need people who are smart and get things done. And before you start your berate, I am not saying that having a PhD means that a person is a great software engineer. It's just a signal to use when making a hiring decision.
"If i can pay a diploma holder to write a computer software, why should i pay a PhD?"
- Angela in blog comment
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 12:50PM You might find my Google+ stream more entertaining these days: https://plus.google.com/u/0/112590156611730454107/posts
Friday, July 29, 2011 at 9:48AM A while back (ok, fine, almost a year back) I talked about a RTS AI Competition held in the sidelines of AIIDE.
The results (with videos) are listed here, and there is a presentation on the competition which provides an overview of the participants and results. There is an arstechnica article of the winner of the full game called Overmind.
Video describing the Overmind AI system (but more on what it does than how the smarts work)
The presentation describes the Overmind bot as using "a variety of AI techniques for decisions at various levels of abstraction", which tells me nothing. :)
My own inclination, if I had the time and the support to do so, would be to implement an RTS using Monte-Carlo Tree Search. I have the ingredients and the framework laid out in my mind, just that it seems like it is going to remain just an idea as I work on "real-world" problems (hey, it pays the bills).
p.s., For those interested in research in this area, scanning the accepted AIIDE 2011 papers reveals this paper, "A Bayesian Model for Plan Recognition in RTS Games applied to StarCraft".
Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 10:41AM I admit it - I am spending way too much time on Google+.
I need to figure out how to partition my musings; here's my best stab so far:
I guess that relegates Twitter to rants. Bye Facebook!
Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 6:27AM You might be interested in How Aunt Ammy Gets Her Free Lunch.
In the first academic study of its kind, we examine the elite class of top-thousand Amazon reviewers by conducting a detailed survey with a subset of 166 of these top reviewers. The study, examines everything from age, gender and education (typically middle-aged, male and master’s degree), to the motives and concerns of this volunteer corps who’ve helped drive Amazon’s growth from quaint virtual bookstore to the planet’s most valuable retail brand.
Wisdom of the crowd corrupted by greed. I am sure nothing can go wrong. :)
Friday, June 24, 2011 at 10:13PM I am currently busy with greedily packing sleep in my constrained satisfaction problem of handling both an increasingly talkative toddler and a mountain of work.
Basically...
SYN
SYN/ACK
ACK
For those who know TCP.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 9:57PM Fascinating article by Adam Lashinsky on How Apple Works.
"Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?" Having received a satisfactory answer, he continued, "So why the fuck doesn't it do that?"
For the next half-hour Jobs berated the group. "You've tarnished Apple's reputation," he told them. "You should hate each other for having let each other down." The public humiliation particularly infuriated Jobs. Walt Mossberg, the influential Wall Street Journal gadget columnist, had panned MobileMe. "Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us," Jobs said. On the spot, Jobs named a new executive to run the group.
The full article text can either be gotten from the Fortune app in iTunes, or as a Kindle single for $0.99.
Monday, April 18, 2011 at 6:15PM My parents came over from Singapore to help with the new baby, and today my mother wanted to call a friend in Singapore and asked to use my phone (a Nexus One). She was pretty impressed that the calling rate to Singapore was $0.02/min using the Google voice integration (check here for more rates).
Nice. Calling home has changed, and I didn't even notice. I must have blinked. :)
Yew Jin
Please, no wise cracks about me not being mentioning Facetime and iPad 2.