recursion

My current gig is developing apps with Google App Engine for a big company (you’ve heard of them). A while back, I had an illuminating experience gave me some insight into the BigCo mentality.

I was talking to a project manager who was looking to hire a contractor for his team. My attitude on hiring has always been that you should hire the best people you can find and turn them loose – and that you need to build the kind of environment that’s attractive to that kind of developer.

However, this project manager said he wanted a “sous chef”. He wasn’t looking for the best of the best, but someone who would be a solid and dependent understudy for his senior developer. He knows he won’t be able to keep people forever, so he wants repeatability.

And this is one of the most progressive teams in the company! They’re using Rails, Chef, agile…

After talking with the project manager, I can’t say I blame him. The service he’s responsible for must stay up, even if his star developers get bored and wander off. (So, no re-writing it in Haskell.) Fair or not, this mentality results in a lot of very conservative technology decisions.